In attempting to wrap my mind around the basic vocabulary, concepts, and methods of philosophy, I find myself wondering what the difference is between a philosopher and a theologian.
Theology (link to definition in Wikipedia) can have two meanings:
1. Theology is a rational study of the existence of God/gods and the nature of religious ideas.
2. Theology is simply a study of a particular religion (or all religions), really more the practice than the theory, but maybe a mixture.
It seems from an immediate reading that definition 1 would lead to the conclusion that a theologian is a philosopher (perhaps that theology is a branch or subset of philosophy), but definition 2 appears to be rather unphilosophical in nature.
So, how does philosophy answer this question?
- Is theology considered a proper subset/branch of philosophy overall?
- Does it depend entirely on which of the above 2 definitions of theology fits a particular theologian as to whether he is a philosopher or not?
I think this answer is simple and fairly self-evident, but somewhere in my gut I feel like I'm missing something. Is there a treatment of this question in the literature?
Edit: the answers so far seem to want to redefine theology or other terms - that is fine, but please be clear that you are redfining them, and provide, if possible, sources for why the term should be different than given (support from historical works, other sites, etc.).