ally critical correlations between the claims to religious
meaning and truth in the same two sets of interpretations.
What renders any theology within a particular tradition ex-
plicitly comparative, however, is a substantive (and not mere-
ly methodological) change in the interpretation of the con-
temporary situation. Any comparative theology in a
particular tradition will insist on theological grounds that re-
ligious pluralism in the contemporary situation must receive
explicit theological attention. Insofar as that crucial her-
meneutic and theological change of focus is made at all, the
theological task is notably altered. For now the different
questions and responses of the various religions present in the
contemporary pluralistic situation must be explicitly and
comparatively analyzed as part of the task of any theological
interpretation in any tradition. A sense of the cultural paro-
chialism of traditional theological interpretations of both sit-
uation and tradition is likely to follow. A confrontation with
any traditional, purely exclusivist, interpretation of the one
tradition is also likely—just as earlier confrontations with
traditional interpretations were occasioned by the emergence
of historical and hermeneutical consciousness. A sense of the
need for any comparative theological interpretation to take
account of the comparative analyses of history of religions is
also likely to arise, with the result that comparative theology
will also recognize the need for the kind of interdisciplinary
discourse found in “religious studies.”
Comparative theology is an emerging discipline with as
yet no firm consensus on conclusions, but with a possible
agreement on the revised method of correlation that it im-
plicitly employs. It is a branch of the general field of religious
studies that must learn from the comparative method used
in the study of history of religions, by reflecting on the results
of those studies in explicitly theological ways. Traditional
theological self-interpretations in all traditions are likely to
undergo radical revisions—indeed, even at this early stage in
the discipline, such revisions are visible. The final conclu-
sions for any tradition’s self-understanding in a religiously
pluralistic world will be determined only by further, concrete
comparative theological studies in and among all the tradi-
tions. Yet this much is clear: any contemporary comparative
theology in any tradition must relate itself explicitly to the
comparative studies of theologies in history of religions and
to the theological dialogues among the religions. It must also
explicitly raise the traditional theological questions of mean-
ing and truth that earlier, secular comparative enterprises
were legitimately able to “bracket.”
In sum, comparative theology, as theology, is an aca-
demic discipline that establishes mutually critical correla-
tions between the claims to meaningfulness and truth in the
interpretations of a religiously pluralistic situation and the
claims to meaningfulness and truth in new interpretations of
a religious tradition. The central fact of religious pluralism,
as well as the existence of religious studies (especially history
of religions), has challenged all theologies in all traditions to
become explicitly comparative in approach. The future is
likely to see the evolution of most traditional theologies into
comparative theologies in all non-fundamentalist traditions.
With that development, the conflict in interpretations
among various models and differing conclusions among con-
temporary comparative theologians may eventually yield to
a disciplinary consensus for all theology. Any theology in any
tradition that takes religious pluralism seriously must eventu-
ally become a comparative theology.SEE ALSO Comparative-Historical Method; Hermeneutics;
Religious Diversity; Truth.BIBLIOGRAPHY
Systematic Views
The following list of contemporary publications in English is rep-
resentative (but by no means exhaustive) of theological work
that functions, implicitly or explicitly, as comparative
theology.
Hick, John. God and the Universe of Faiths. New York, 1973.
Hick, John, and Brian Hebbletwaite, eds. Christianity and Other
Religions. Philadelphia, 1980.
Küng, Hans. “The Challenge of the World Religions.” In his On
Being a Christian, translated by Edward Quinn, pp. 89–118.
Garden City, N.Y., 1976.
Panikkar, Raimundo. Myth, Faith and Hermeneutics: Toward
Cross-Cultural Religious Understanding. New York, 1979.
Panikkar, Raimundo. The Unknown Christ of Hinduism. 2d ed.,
rev. & enl. Maryknoll, N.Y., 1981.
Pannenberg, Wolfhart. “Toward a Theology of the History of Re-
ligions.” In his Basic Questions in Theology, translated by
George H. Kehm, vol. 2, pp. 65–118. Philadelphia, 1971.
Rahner, Karl. “Christianity and the Non-Christian Religions.” In
his Theological Investigations, vol. 5, pp. 115–134. Baltimore,
1966.
Rupp, George. Beyond Existentialism and Zen: Religion in a Plural-
istic World. Oxford, 1979.
Schuon, Frithjof. The Transcendent Unity of Religions. Rev. ed.
Translated by Peter Townsend. New York, 1975.
Smart, Ninian. Beyond Ideology: Religion and the Future of Western
Civilization. New York, 1981. See pages 17–68.
Smith, Huston. Forgotten Truth: The Primordial Tradition. New
York, 1976.
Smith, Wilfred Cantwell. The Meaning and End of Religion. New
York, 1963.
Smith, Wilfred Cantwell. Religious Diversity. Edited by Willard G.
Oxtoby. New York, 1976.
Smith, Wilfred Cantwell. Towards a World Theology: Faith and the
Comparative History of Religion. Philadelphia, 1981.
Additional Sources
The reader interested in further background and bibliography for
the historical sections of this article will find references and
much of the early history recounted here in Eric J. Sharpe’s
influential study Comparative Religion: A History (London,
1975). I have followed Sharpe’s work in several of the more
historical sections. The reader may refer to that work for fur-THEOLOGY: COMPARATIVE THEOLOGY 9133