Such comparative theological questions may be consid-
ered intrinsic to the intellectual self-understanding of any re-
ligious tradition or way, and one may thus speak of the im-
plicit or explicit reality of a “comparative theology.” More
specific proposals will result from particular comparative
theological analyses; for example, the suggestions of a radical
unity among many religions (Frithjof Schuon, Huston
Smith, Henry Corbin), or suggestions that one may have a
Christian or Hindu or Buddhist or Jewish or Islamic com-
parative theology (Wilfred Cantwell Smith, Raimundo
Panikkar, Masao Abe, Ananda Coomaraswamy, S. H. Nasr,
Franz Rosenzweig, et al.). All these more particular propos-
als, however, are based on theological conclusions that have
followed an individual theologian’s comparative assessment
of his or her own religious tradition and other traditions.
Prior to all such specific theological proposals, however, is
the question of the nature of any comparative theology from
within any religious tradition.
In general terms, therefore, comparative theology always
accords explicit theological attention to religious pluralism,
despite radical differences in theological conclusions. In
methodological terms, contemporary comparative theology
provides an intellectual self-understanding of a particular re-
ligious tradition from within the horizon of many religious
traditions. It is a hermeneutical and theological discipline
that establishes mutually critical correlations between two
distinct but related interpretations: on the one hand, the
theological interpretation of the principal religious questions
given a context of religious pluralism in an emerging global
culture; on the other, an interpretation of the responses of
a particular religious tradition to that pluralism.
As this general methodological model clarifies, the com-
parative theologian cannot determine before the analysis it-
self what ultimate conclusions will occur, for example, that
all religious traditions are either finally one or irreversibly di-
verse, or that a particular tradition must radically change or
transform its traditional self-understanding as the result of
pluralism. It is clear that to start with an explicit (and usually,
but not necessarily, positive) assessment of religious plural-
ism challenges the position of traditional theology, which ar-
gued, implicitly or explicitly, that the fact of religious plural-
ism (and therefore of a comparative hermeneutical element
as intrinsic to the theological task) was of no intrinsic impor-
tance for theological interpretation. A contemporary Chris-
tian comparative theology, for example, will inevitably be
different from a Hindu or Jewish or Islamic or Buddhist
comparative theology. But, just as important, each of these
emerging comparative theologies will be different from all
those traditional theologies which disallowed a comparative
hermeneutics within the theological task, either explicitly
(through claims to exclusivism) or implicitly (by denying its
usefulness). There is as yet no firm consensus on the results
of “comparative theology,” but it is possible that those en-
gaged in this increasingly important task may come to agree
on a model for the general method all comparative theolo-
gians employ. The further need, therefore, is to reflect on this
method. First, however, it is necessary to review the historical
precedents for this emerging discipline.
HISTORY: PREMODERN DEVELOPMENTS. For reasons of clar-
ification and space, this historical survey will be largely con-
fined to Western traditions where strictly theological issues
have been especially acute. Westerners should not forget,
however, that other traditions (especially those of India) have
struggled for a far longer period and with great philosophical
sophistication with the question of religious pluralism. (See
Surendranath Dasgupta, A History of Indian Philosophy, 5
vols., Cambridge, 1922–1955, and Eric J. Sharpe, Compara-
tive Religion: A History, London, 1975.)Monotheistic religions until early modernity. Al-
though the term comparative theology is not employed in dis-
cussions of the premodern period, comparative elements in
traditional Western philosophies and theologies were pres-
ent, in positive and negative ways, in the premodern period.
In the Jewish, Christian, and Islamic traditions, the insis-
tence upon the exclusivity of divine revelation led, on the
whole, to a relative lack of interest in analyzing other reli-
gions, save for polemical or apologetic purposes. This lack
of interest was based (especially in the prophetic trajectories
of those religions) on an explicitly and systematically nega-
tive assessment of other religions or ways from the viewpoint
of scriptural revelation. Attacks on the ancient Canaanite re-
ligions by the prophets of Israel in the Hebrew scriptures are
the clearest among many examples of this “exclusivist” devel-
opment. Still, as modern scholarship has shown, the borrow-
ings by ancient Israel from other religious traditions, or those
by early Islam from Jews, Christians, and “pagans,” suggest
a more complex scenario than traditional Jewish, Christian,
and Islamic exclusivist theological interpretations suggest.
Moreover, there are elements (especially in the wisdom tradi-
tion) that suggest more positive appraisals of other religious
traditions (e.g., the covenant with Noah, the Book of Ecclesi-
astes, universalist tendencies in the New Testament, as in 1
Timothy 3–5). Other exceptions are found in the Logos tra-
dition of Philo Judaeus in Judaism and the distinct but relat-
ed Logos traditions of three Christian theologies (Justin Mar-
tyr, Clement of Alexandria, Origen). The esoteric and
gnostic strands in all three monotheistic traditions chal-
lenged orthodox biblical theologies through more syncretic
theologies, which were sometimes based on a belief in an
original (and shared) revelation. The use of ancient Greek
and Roman philosophical sources in the theologies of all
these traditions also provides some partial exceptions to ex-
clusivist emphases.
Yet even the use of Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics, and the
Neoplatonists in Jewish, Christian, and Islamic theologies
was strongly conditioned by the framework of the received
traditions, especially traditional theological interpretations of
the subsidiary position of philosophical reason to revelation
(Ibn S ̄ına ̄, Maimonides, Thomas Aquinas). Inevitably, the
use of the “pagan” philosophies of ancient Greece in Jewish,THEOLOGY: COMPARATIVE THEOLOGY 9127