Theology is the study about God and the matters of the Divine. Any other study, about any other subject, will have an object out there, about which the study will say something. But in the study about God, there is no such objective thing out there. When objects are studied by knowledge, there should be a study regarding the principle in us which studies all the objects and matters. It is somewhat, knowledge about the knowing principle or about the knowing being in us. We cannot say it is totally subjective because such a knowing being is operative in each and everyone of us. What is common in all our general experience cannot be just subjective. But again, such knowing being is not becoming or cannot be made external at any point of time. But all our studies, internal and external, depend fully on such a knowing being, operative inside everyone of us. So God, who is said to be more internal than the knowing being in us, how can such a subject like God be treated as if an object external?
If God cannot be studied like any external thing, how then any study is possible? For this, people who were inspired the world over, down the time have an answer. How can there be any knowledge about God, if at the first instant, such transcendental knowledge was not given by God as revelation through mystics and inspired people. If God has talked to human beings at different periods through living medium, what was his language? The language has to be necessarily human but the meanings are not limited to any time or place. But any meaning one gets out of the human language has to be limited by the time and place of the reader and the reading.
To understand the meaning of God is to understand it progressively. That is, you have to employ efficient tools of interpretation to arrive at ennobling meanings, not as a one-time measure but progressively in consequent periods and repeated involvements. At the same time you must be aware that any interpretation at any period of time need necessarily be limited by time and place and culture. Hence the saying, humility is always needed in studying about God. Our fullest answers can only be our best attempts to arrive at God's meaning.
Regarding Hinduism, the best and only book of reference for theology has been the Upanishads. The Upanishads talk about the nature of God, the divine qualities, the cosmology and the relationship between divinity and human being. The Upanishads as revelations are common to all the various denominations of Hinduism. This theological import of Upanishads is given in a poetical form in Bhagavad Gita. The theology of Upanishads is made into a closely reasoned out treatise in the Brahma Sutras. The three put together, Upanishads, Brahma Sutras, Bhagavad Gita, form the basic reference books. But again the Upanishads form the single basic canon, which is explained and reasoned out in the other two helping books, Brahma Sutras and Bhagavad Gita.
Srirangam Mohanarangan
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