From PhilPapers forum Philosophy of Religion:

2012-05-21
God of the Rationalists or God of the Empiricists?

How many ways are there to talk about God?  -- How many distinct versions of theology are there? -- importantly different ways of talking about the divine, the transcendent, the highest values?  -- Your classification begins with the division between rationalists and empiricists and also notes that the Critical philosophy attempts to unite these two strains from European thinking.  I think this is a clue regarding your project.  Perhaps there are as many styles of theology as there are for philosophy itself. 

 If you are making a classification among types of theology, I suppose an important question is: Why are you making this distinction?  What purpose do you hope it will serve?  Naively the purpose appears to be to understand god-speech better.  Why would we classify types of philosophy?  -- Again, perhaps to understand philosophical questioning better.  Kant perhaps was able to take a step beyond rationalism and empiricism because he clearly distinguished between them and thus had a chance to rethink them and find their deeper underlying unity. 

 Let us say that philosophy -- radical critical inquiry -- breaks down into differentiable trends -- metaphysics, logic, moral philosophy, skepticism, synthesis, holism, atomism, idealism, rationalism, empiricism, historicism -- probably others too.  Then we are likely to discover schools of theology that follow along all these paths.  

 Arguably, Heraclitus is a philosopher (a metaphysician or cosmologist) but also a theologian.  Plato is a moralist, yet again a moral theologian.  Spinoza, Shankara and Vivekenanda are philosophical holists, but they also make theological claims. Sextus Empiricus is a skeptic; so is Nagarjuna; both offer theological ideas.  

 I would argue that the most important distinction among all types of theology is what you are pointing at in making out the category of 'revelational' theology.  That is: there are at least two important kinds of theology; one is experimental, humble, filled with a sense of philosophical doubt, open to revision, open to interpretation, asserted with a questioning and tentative spirit; but another kind is asserted with the summit of human arrogance -- asserted as final, as binding on everyone, as necessary. 

 When philosophers start talking about God, there is a kind of test: they cease being philosophers and become dogmatists instead; or they keep their philosophical scruples and tread cautiously in this very troubled, divided land. 

 Just some ideas -- thank you for the question.