Theologisticianists, Unite!

Biology -- Biologist

Psychology -- Psychologist

Zoology -- Zoologist

Proctology -- Butt Doctor Proctologist

Sociology -- Sociologist

Theology --

Did you say Theologist? Maybe you were tempted to, before quickly realizing that the word is, in fact, Theologian.

Can you think of any other words that end in "-logian"? Really... I dare you to find one.

According to Greek, a "logian" and a "logist" are identical. It's just that the former is dormant, and the latter is active. When I say "active", I mean it is still being used to create new words. If you are a man, imagine you've made a decision to be the first one to truly understand women. First of all, good luck. But if you insist, then you would be undertaking the field of feminology. So what does that make you? A feminologist, of course. Certainly not a feminologian.

But all etymology and etymologians aside, I think I can see a real difference in meaning between the suffixes, even if it's a bit tacked-on. The "logists", if you'll notice, tend to all be practitioners of their respective sciences. Perhaps some of them are primarily academics, but by and large a psychologist will practice psychology, a zoologist makes sure animals are cared for, and a sociologist advises, you know... advises.

OK, so I don't know what most of the "logists" actually do, if they're not teaching or writing a book. The point is, they're practitioners, by and large.

What I'm wondering is, do we expect theologians to be practitioners as well, or is theology just for writing and teaching and teaching other people to write and teach?

Perhaps that is all theologians are good for. In that case, I would like to announce my intention to be a theologist (emphasis on the second syllable.) What I'm saying is, I don't just want to study God, I want to practice God. I want to live and breathe God, and teach other people to live and breathe God.

If you google "theologist" you'll get 81,800 results. So I obviously didn't coin the word. Although I wonder how many people coined it to mean the same thing as I did.

OK, so I'm 0 for 1 on word-coining so far. I'll just have to try harder, then...

1. Theologic - Rational thoughts or theories of the divine

2. Theologistics - The study of how God pulls off all those miracles

3. Theologisticans - Those who study Theologistics

4. Theologcabin - Where pastors go for those silly retreats

5. Theologarithms - Math so hard only God can do it

6. Theologician - An entertainer who can pull interpretations out of Scripture which were not there before

Looks like 4 and 5 are brand-new additions to the internet, and 3 is dang close. It's always nice to add a new word to the world wide web, don't you think?



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