Theology and Non-western Philosophy

Introduction

As contemporary Western theologians consider the relationship between theology and philosophy they are aware as never before of the presence of the many highly sophisticated non-Western traditions of intellectual reflection on religious themes that show many similarities to those central to Western theology, such as revelation, God, creation, and the nature and destiny of the human person.  Is it legitimate, important, useful or even possible for contemporary Christian theology to engage with such non-Western philosophy?

Before we can consider this question further it is necessary to make clear how the key terms are going to be used in this chapter. First, ‘theology’ and ‘non-Western’ are taken to denote both origin and geography.  ‘Theology’ here means that Christian theology which has historically developed in Europe and America, whether it has remained in these areas or not.  ‘Non-Western’ thus includes Jewish and Muslim philosophy as it developed in Islamic Spain as well in the Middle East, as well as Eastern philosophy, such as that found in Hinduism and Buddhism.  If the distinction is not tied to both origins and geography, it becomes impossible to know what counts as a contrast between ‘theology’ and ‘non-Western,’ since Christianity is itself by origin a non-Western religion, and non-Western philosophy has also developed in Europe and America over the centuries.  Moreover, ‘philosophy’ is taken to be intellectual reflection or ‘thought’ in general, specifically religious thought, or ‘theology’ as this term is often used. ‘Philosophy’ is a Western term, often contrasted with ‘theology’ in the Western context and use of the term poses particular problems when applied to non-Western traditions where the contrast is not made.  In this chapter ‘philosophy,’ ‘thought’ and ‘theology’ are used interchangeably, though always with the core theme in mind of how reason serves religious faith.

In contemporary Western theology the discipline that argues most emphatically that theology should engage with non-Western philosophy is the emergent one of ‘comparative theology,’ which one of its leading advocates, the American Catholic theologian, Francis Clooney S.J. (1950-), has characterised as the ‘theologically conscious study of religions other than one’s own.’[^1] Such a general definition of comparative theology suggests and indeed encompasses a considerable variety of actual approaches.  Comparative theology is practised by theologians belonging to different Christian denominations, who promote different understandings of what the theological task is and who make a variety of greater or lesser claims about the aims and achievement of engagement with non-Western philosophy.  They also differ in what kind of engagement they prefer, with some studying a single text or single tradition of another religion and others surveying a number of traditions centred on a major theological theme.  All, however, claim that engagement with non-Western philosophy is possible, interesting and useful for the doing of Western Christian theology.

Nonetheless, contemporary comparative theologians face some serious questions about the success of their work.  One area of challenge centres on the question of whether the work of comparative theologians shows sufficient continuity with Christian theology defined as a reasoned exploration of Christian revelation and faith, in critical engagement with other positions and subject to scrutiny and validation by the theologian’s own ecclesial community.[^2]   Comparative theologians are routinely academics working in a university context where there is the freedom to develop a theological account as he or she chooses.  Can such comparative theology qualify as Christian theology in the sense above or does it translate into a form of religious studies, in which claims about the truth and the demands of faith and of faith communities are marginalised and excluded?

A second area of challenge concerns the epistemological issues involved in any Western theology engaging with a non-Western philosophy and relates to objections from contemporary critiques of intercultural engagement, especially Western interaction with Eastern culture. Comparative theology might appear to be as just a contemporary manifestation Orientalism, the intellectual subjection of the East for purposes of Western colonial power and domination.[^3]   Comparative theology has, moreover, to deal with the wider objections of cultural incommensurabilists and post-liberal theologians, for whom there are considerable obstacles in the way of any meaningful communication or theological interaction between cultures.[^4]   Contemporary reflection on the relation between rationalities and cultures has highlighted the ways in which any intellectual system or rationality is formed within a particular tradition, which conditions the reasoning of those within that tradition and their perspective on other cultures.  There would seem to be no neutral or common rationality that all share. Emerging from a rationality embedded in a particular tradition terms and concepts found in one tradition often do not have equivalents in another tradition into which they can be translated or compared.[^5]   To what extent do comparative theologians shows an awareness of these issues and address them or do they merely assume that all religious traditions have the same rationality or can be reduced to one that is neutral and common to all?

In this chapter we shall first consider Christian theological engagement with non-Western philosophy in the mediaeval period as represented by the work of St Thomas Aquinas (1224/25-74).  The work of Aquinas has been a major paradigm for understanding the relationship between faith and reason in Christian theology generally.  It has also been a particular model for those Catholic Christian theologians who have sought to engage with Eastern philosophy, such as those working in India from at least the time of Roberto de Nobili S.J. (1577-1656) to the present.[^6]   In the contemporary Western academy there has also been a retrieval of Aquinas’ theology as a model for modern engagement with other religions.[^7]   Second, we shall consider two leading and representative contemporary comparative theologians, Francis Clooney and the British Anglican theologian, Keith Ward (1938- ), and consider both how their work relates to that of Aquinas and how they address contemporary theological and cultural concerns about engagement with non-Western philosophy.

We shall argue with reference to the first challenge that contemporary comparative theology should be regarded as the continuance of a longstanding Western Christian theological engagement with non-Christian and non-Western thought, especially as found in the theology of mediaeval Scholasticism, and above all in the work of Thomas Aquinas. Contemporary comparative theology thus stands within an established understanding of how Christian theology may be done.  Comparative theologians are certainly keen to categorise their work as theology rather than religious studies.  Nonetheless, contemporary comparative theologians are rightly criticised for showing a reluctance to make critical judgements, especially negative ones, about the truth and value of the traditions they study, in marked contrast to the approach of earlier engagements such as Scholastic theology.[^8]   Moreover, the radical diversity of Christian theological traditions and positions in the modern period that form the basis on which different comparative theologians work result in theologies that are often incompatible with the Christian theology found in earlier engagements as well as that found in other contemporary theologies, comparative or otherwise.

With regard to the second challenge, contemporary comparative theology does promote a dialogical understanding of theology that encourages accountability and mutuality in theological conversations across religions.  This reflects and addresses modern concerns about both the Orientalist nature of Western approaches to non-Western cultures and goes some way itself to address the anxieties about intercultural communication in incommensurabilist and post-liberal theological perspectives.  At the same time, in continuity with the Scholastic approach, contemporary comparative theologians advocate a basic confidence in the universal and natural capacity for humans to reason and to have a reasoned conversation about truth across religious or cultural divides that stands radical objections to any intercultural and interreligious communication, although compatible with contemporary affirmation of the conditioned nature of all rationalities.  Here again, however, there is considerable variety in viewpoint between comparative theologians and the greater the assumption or claim to neutral categories the more vulnerable their accounts become to criticism.