protology means the branch of theology pertaining to origins and first things. Lexicurio rates it Sui generis — a strength score of 87 out of 100.
Why “protology” is a great word
PROTOLOGY — [Noun] The branch of theology that systematically examines origins and first things, specifically the doctrines of creation and the primordial events recounted in sacred scripture. From Ancient Greek πρωτο- (prōto-, "first") and -λογία (-logía, "study, discourse"). Unlike eschatology, which charts the final chapters and ultimate destiny, or etiology, which seeks a cause in the present moment, protology is a deliberate, backward-looking archaeology of the sacred. It is the exegete parsing the silence before "Let there be light," the cartographer plotting Eden's lost geography, and the theologian sifting the dust of Genesis for the fingerprint of the divine—a discipline founded on the quiet conviction that to understand what we are, we must first know what we were before the story truly began.
Etymology
From Ancient Greek πρωτολογίᾱ (prōtologíā). By surface analysis, proto- + -logy.
noun
- The branch of theology pertaining to origins and first things.“And hence the progress of the history of salvation is the progress of protology in the progressive development of its starting-point.”
- A text or oral history giving the origins of a people.“Or, alternatively, perhaps they are the first human beings as described in tribal protologies.”