Comparative theology might appear to be as just a...

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.