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What is 'cod theology'?

Begat

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Reading an online Guardian article I came across the phrase 'cod theology' and I have no idea what it means. Strangely I can't seem to find a definition of it anywhere online, but the phrase itself seems to keep cropping up in search results - often in mainstream journalistic and academic texts.

After some research both 'Cod' and 'Tesus' seem to have something to do with Karl Barth, who wrote a work called 'The Knowledge of Cod and the Service of God'. But I do not understand what these names are supposed to mean.

Besides Barth himself, in all his theoretical complexity, what is this popular 'cod theology' term that's thrown around in journalism as if it ought to be common knowledge?
 

MKJ

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OK, so I went to the source in the Guardian, and indeed it is an oft-used term. I found it hard to come to a precise sense of how they were using it, though I got the impression that it was describing a sort of simplistic belief.

I did, however, find the term "cod philosophy" which is a synonym for pseudo-philosophy. As an idea it seems to be connected with systems that are irrational and based on unprovable assertions, dogmatic, superstitious, and which make obscure and pointless arguments.

That is to say, all the things that most Guardian readers assume to be necessarily true of all religious systems, so perhaps it is not surprising they would use the term cod theology. The term cod philosophy actually seems to refer just as often to some ideas many Guardian readers hold dear, which strikes me as rather funny.
 
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