Fundamental theology

Fundamental theology examines the foundations, credibility, and transmission of Christian revelation, including the rational basis of faith and the grounds for Christian claims.

Divine revelation: The disclosure of divine reality or truth to human beings. It is the reality whose possibility and transmission fundamental theology investigates.
Apologetics: The reasoned defense or explanation of religious beliefs, especially Christian beliefs. It supplies arguments that fundamental theology evaluates as grounds for credibility.
Scholasticism: A medieval method of theological and philosophical inquiry using structured argument and disputation. Its treatment of reason and faith shaped questions later addressed as fundamental theology.
Fideism: The view that religious faith does not depend on, or cannot be justified by, reason. It contrasts with fundamental theology’s effort to articulate rational grounds for faith.
Christian faith: Trust in and assent to God as understood through Christian belief and practice. Fundamental theology asks whether faith has rational grounds without reducing it to proof.
Credibility of revelation: The question of whether alleged divine revelation has sufficient grounds to be believed. This is a central test fundamental theology applies to Christian revelation.
Counter-Reformation: The Catholic reform movement responding to Protestant challenges from the sixteenth century onward. Its controversies sharpened Catholic accounts of authority, revelation, and doctrinal credibility.
Religious epistemology: The philosophical study of knowledge, justification, and rational belief in religious contexts. It is a broader inquiry that overlaps with fundamental theology’s questions about belief.
Theology: The disciplined study of God, religious belief, and their implications. Fundamental theology is a branch of theology concerned with its foundations.
Historical Jesus: The figure of Jesus reconstructed through historical methods and evidence. Historical inquiry bears on claims about Jesus that ground Christian revelation.

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Dogmatic theologyCompared with: It examines why doctrine can claim authority before dogmatics expounds its content.