The modern university setting makes comparative theologians...

The modern university setting makes comparative theologians immune to how well their theology is understood and received by these communities and can be conducive to the comparative theologian developing theological accounts that are fairly free-floating experiments in theological speculation, without any mooring in any particular ecclesial community.[^55] When it comes to the wider issues of intercultural communication and the particular charge of Orientalism, the emphasis contemporary comparative theology gives to the dialogical aspect of such engagement is a helpful and important further development.

Any form of cultural or interpersonal communication would seem to involve an element of subjective interpretation and involves a fusion rather than simply a meeting of cultures. What is at stake is not whether such interaction should occur, but what principles of good practice should govern it. There should at least be an attempt to develop an account of another culture that is recognisable as such by that culture.

It is such a commitment to good practice that is emphasised in the dialogical aspect of contemporary comparative theology. However, in order to gain fuller acceptance for their work they still need to address more fully the epistemological as well as the cultural objections to the interpretation and use of non-Western and non-Christian texts by Western and Christian theologians, as well the contested nature of assertions of common rationality or concepts across traditions.

One way forward is for comparative theologians to acknowledge more fully the ways in which any attempt to translate and use concepts from one tradition by another is in reality a transformation both of those concepts as used in their own tradition and a transformation of the new tradition in which they come to be used.[^56] If Scholastic theology provides a precedent for contemporary comparative theology, the Thomist engagement with non-Western philosophy itself remains of considerable continuing interest and value for contemporary theology.

Indian and other Eastern philosophies have much to contribute both to contemporary Thomist reflection on doctrines such as the nature of God and creation. The identification that there are non-Western forms of Scholastic enquiry may, likewise, contribute to the understanding and promotion of this theological genre in the contemporary academy.