Don Isabelo de los Reyes (1864-1938): forerunner of Filipino Theology

This paper is aimed to address three primary concerns: first, to make an impartial assessment on the contributions of Don Isabelo De los Reyes to Filipino theology; second, to stretch the history of Filipino theology some eight decades backward so as to enrich and diversify its tradition; and third, to give modern Filipino theology the chance of reflecting and learning from the positive and negative aspects of De los Reyes’ incursion into theology and religious studies. To attain such goals, this paper contains three substantive sections, namely: 1) an intellectual biography of De los Reyes as a religious thinker; 2) an attempt at giving a more conventional organization to the contents of De los Reyes’ forays into religion and theology, which would focus on the more specific areas of folk religion and comparative theology, biblical translation, ecclesiology, dogmatic theology and moral theology; and 3) a critique of De los Reyes’ religious and theological thoughts.