The Virtues of Comparative Theology

In this article, I focus on a small section in the epilogue of Francis X. Clooney’s The Future of Hindu-Christian Studies in which he outlines some of the personal characteristics needed to do comparative theology well. He takes five of these from Catherine Cornille’s The Im-Possibility of Interreligious Dialogue and adds several of his own. By exploring notions like doctrinal humility and rootedness in a particular tradition, we are forced to reflect upon the ‘virtues’ of the discipline in both senses of the word – not only those attributes required to engage in it, but the merits of doing it at all