Integrating Vision: Comparative Theology as the Quest for Interreligious Wisdom

Abstract

This chapter argues that the two words in the term “comparative theology” generate between them a field of creative tension that require the nature of theology itself to be reimagined. The adjective “comparative” does not sit placidly alongside “theology,” leaving the latter materially unchanged for business as usual. The adjective pressures the noun to undergo transformation when encounters with other traditions compel comparative theology to remember that its primary genre once was, as Edward Farley has shown, sapientia or contemplative wisdom, and not academic text production. Because theological reflection in other traditions still remains a quest for such wisdom, an encounter between Christian theology as academic text production and theology as practiced by other traditions, will likely be of limited value. Theological writing that engages other traditions will have to harken back to its earliest genre—the quest for wisdom. Comparative theology, in at least one of its modes, will then become a quest for “interreligious wisdom.” In this chapter, I will attempt to offer a preliminary working definition of interreligious wisdom. The prime pedagogical question to follow is then, “How can interreligious wisdom be taught?”