On Vulnerability: Probing after the Ethical Dimensions of Comparative Theology, in Religions 3...

Religions 2012, 3, 1-x manuscripts; doi:10.3390/rel30x000x

religionsISSN 2077-1444

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On Vulnerability: Probing into the Ethical Dimensions of Comparative Theology Marianne Moyaert 1,2

1 Faculty of Theology, VU Amsterdam, De Boelelaan 1105, 1081 HV Amsterdam, The Netherlands; E-Mail: [email protected]

2 Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies, KU Leuven, St. Michielstraat 4, 3000 Leuven, Belgium; E-Mail: [email protected]

Received: / Accepted: / Published:

Abstract: Though the notion of vulnerability regularly popsup in Clooney’s reflections on comparative theology, he doesnot develop a systematic account of it. What preciselyvulnerability is and how it impacts on interreligiousdialogue do not receive enough theoretical grounding. In thisarticle I will probe into the complexity of this notion andhow it plays out in comparative theology. This will not onlyenable us to grasp the true originality of Clooney’s project,it will also allow us to uncover its deeper ethical dynamics.For, as I will seek to show, at bottom comparative theologyis moved by an ethical concern to enable a just relationbetween both the one’s own tradition and the foreign one. It is myintention to unfold the deep moral dynamics of thisparticular interreligious approach and to conceptualize theethical conditions for interreligious learning as present incomparative theology.

Keywords: comparative theology; vulnerability; ethics ofinterreligious reading

OPEN ACCESS

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1. Introduction

Vulnerability is one of the key words in Francis Clooney’scomparative theology project. By placing this notion at the centerof his approach, he wants to propose an alternative to the classictheology of religions, which he criticizes for putting up a wallbetween believers belonging to various religious traditions. Unlikeboth liberal and postliberal theologies, Clooney wants to questiondefense mechanisms that obstruct the possibility of being touchedand affected by the other tradition. If both liberal pluralism andpostliberal particularism can be seen as exponents of a desire forcontrol, comparative theology can be regarded as a form ofvulnerable theology. Clooney refrains from the (perhaps typicalWestern) desire to stand above the action and replace the realdiversity with neat schematic interpretations of religiousplurality. Instead of searching for some philosophical and/ortheological vantage point above that messy reality, he operateswithin a fragile hermeneutical and theological space in the midst ofthe complexities of interreligious encounter. His engagement withthe religious other begins with reading and comparing “non-Christianreligious texts” whose wisdom he appropriates through submission.New theological insights emerge from this practice of “inter-texting” that can challenge, interrupt and transform the hometradition. Becoming vulnerable is the crux of this theologicalapproach. According to Clooney:

[This] reading practice … should make it more difficult for us to enjoythe securities that oddly envelop people who talk about surrender to Godwithin their own tradition and yet continue to cherish their tradition’sintellectual and affective safety net. Here, instead [the two texts]work powerfully together, even as the relevant communities may bedisturbed by these texts’ being read together and their being taken toheart … and all without letting new affinities shatter originalcommitments and loyalties ([1], p. 204).

Though the notion of vulnerability regularly pops up in Clooney’sreflections on comparative theology, he does not develop asystematic account of it. What vulnerability is precisely and how itimpacts on interreligious dialogue do not receive enough theoreticalgrounding. In this article I will probe into the complexity of thisnotion and how it plays out in comparative theology. This will not

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only enable us to grasp the true originality of Clooney’s projectbut will also allow us to uncover its deeper ethical dynamics. For,as I will seek to show, at bottom, comparative theology is moved byan ethical concern to enable a just relation between both one’s owntradition and the foreign one. It is my intention to unfold the deep-lyingmoral dynamics of this particular interreligious approach and toconceptualize the ethical conditions for deep interreligious learningas present in comparative theology. In order to fully understand the novelty of comparative theology

as vulnerable theology and how this notion of vulnerability pointsto a web of moral concerns, the concept needs further theoreticalelaboration. What precisely is vulnerability? How does it relate toits opposite, invulnerability? And how do both notions affect theethical relation between one’s own tradition and the foreign one?

2. The Complexity of Vulnerability: Some Preliminary Theoretical Reflections

Vulnerability is usually connected to notions such as fragilityand frailty. Something that is vulnerable is not strong or powerfulbut is weak and breakable. This notion recalls the always presentpossibility of harm, hurt, fracture, and pain and also evokes ideassuch as loss, grief, distress, and even discomfort. As Erinn Gilsonremarks in her article “Vulnerability, Ignorance and Oppression,”“the conventional and tacitly assumed understanding holds that to bevulnerable is simply to be susceptible, exposed, at risk, in danger.In short, it is to be somehow weaker, defenseless and dependent,open to harm and injury” ([2], pp. 309–10). Vulnerable people areneedy people who require aid or care. They are dependent on others. In this reading, vulnerability is understood as a privative term:

it is a shortcoming. In the classical sense, it is a privatio boni, i.e.,the lack of something that ought to be there. The “good” isinvulnerability, which is connected to such ideals of being strong,independent, and in control. The invulnerable person dominateswhatever situation he finds himself in, he does not get thrown off-balance when confronted with unforeseen events, nor does he waverwhen questioned, challenged, or criticized by others. He knows whohe is, where he comes from, and where he is heading. And there is nostopping him. Invulnerability is seen as a desirable charactertrait, and vulnerability is projected onto others with whom hecannot identify ([2], p. 312). This rather negative understanding ofvulnerability tends to function as an unquestioned prejudice in both

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everyday discussions of ethical dilemmas as well as in moretheoretical approaches to questions of ethical relevance, such asthe encounter between people belonging to various social, cultural,and ethnic groups.In the context of interreligious encounters as well, this

understanding of (in-)vulnerability can be seen to be operative whenbelievers are warned to engage in dialogue only if they areabsolutely certain about their faith. The fear is that believers whoare preoccupied with questions and wrestle with certain tenets oftheir own tradition can begin to doubt their own faith commitmentwhen engaging religious others in dialogue. Therefore, steadfastnessand certainty are seen as preconditions for interreligious dialogue.Only when one believes unwaveringly, is absolutely committed, hasincontestable convictions, and accepts certain religious truthclaims as non-negotiable does it become interesting to participatein interreligious dialogue [3]. Believers who are vulnerable intheir religious identity are cautioned to refrain from becomingengaged in the complexities of religious diversity. This ideal of invulnerability is also implied in the difficulty

experienced in recognizing the interdependency between religions. Apropensity towards affirming and reaffirming religious traditions ashomogenous matrixes and impermeable worlds that constitute their ownmeaning clearly exists ([4], p. 250). The contribution of otherreligions to one’s own tradition is downplayed or denied. Intendedor unintended forms of interreligious “borrowing” and “sharing” arerarely looked upon positively [5]. In extreme cases, this may evenlead to an ideology of purification ([6], p. 4).Still, the idealization of invulnerability is nourished by a somewhat

oversimplified and unilateral understanding of vulnerability. A morenuanced definition that does justice both to its complexity and toits commonality is needed. First, vulnerability is that common humancapacity to be affected and affect in turn. It is akin to receptivity,which points to the ability to be touched, interrupted, challenged, andeven changed and transformed. It is a capacity that marks the humancondition: all human beings are vulnerable. Because of this primaryability, we are physical and social beings capable of interactionand responsibility. In this reading, vulnerability becomes the basiccondition of reciprocity. From this perspective, we can imagine thatto be invulnerable is to be indifferent, irresponsible, inaccessible, inapproachable.There is something inhuman about being invulnerable.Second, vulnerability is an ambivalent notion: it is the condition

of potential that makes both positive and negative experiences

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possible. It can bring about loss and pain, but it also points tothe possibility of creativity. In this sense it is an ambiguousterm: “Being vulnerable makes it possible for us to suffer, to fallprey to violence and be harmed, but also to fall in love, to learn,to take pleasure and find comfort in the presence of others, and toexperience the simultaneity of these feelings. Vulnerability is notjust a condition that limits us but one that can enable us. Aspotential, vulnerability is a condition of openness, openness tobeing affected and affecting in turn” ([2], p. 310). From thisperspective, we can understand vulnerability as the basic conditionto any real encounter, an encounter that can be experienced bothpositively and negatively and sometimes both at the same time. This also holds true for interreligious encounters. Postcolonial

theology especially has shown that religious traditions arevulnerable: they are receptive to what comes from strange religioustraditions. The interdependency of religious traditions is anundeniable reality: religions are affected, interrupted andchallenged by symbols, rituals, prayers, and religious meaningsbelonging to other religions. Meaning from one religious traditioncan and does penetrate another and plays havoc with everythingthere; it can bring about a shift in meaning, even to the extentthat the original intention becomes lost ([7], p. 5). However, it is also possible that this play ofreligious interpenetration brings about a gain in meaning.Vulnerability can bring about innovation, which is so necessary fora tradition to remain a living one, but it can also undermine age-old customs.1 This explains (in part) why the course ofinterreligious encounters is not self-evident.As expounded above, the problem with focusing unilaterally on the

negative is that vulnerability then becomes a condition that affectssome people (e.g., people with weak and feeble faith convictions),and this is a condition that is to be avoided by all means. To avoid

1 I have explained this elsewhere via the metaphor of the body, which symbolizeshuman vulnerability, understood as receptivity. The body feeds on “strangemeanings” to stay alive. But that does not mean that all meanings are equallynourishing and compatible. Some meanings are easily digested whereas others areindigestible. Some meanings go down easily, while others lie heavily on thestomach. Some meanings hurt, cut deep into the skin, leave traces. Some meaningsare nourishing, breathe life into one’s “own cells,” and give strength, butother meanings make one ill. The body develops a resistance to some meanings andthe immune systems kicks in. What comes from outside is sometimes rejected,discharged, and spit out. See ([8], pp. 282–83).

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vulnerability and the possible pain, discomfort, and distress involved,various defense strategies are activated, the first of which is thatof ignoring vulnerability as a common human condition. Indeed,people who empathically claim to be strong, certain, and stable areactually in denial ([9], p. 146). Behind the invulnerability that theyclaim to possess lies a deeper incapacity to deal with thefundamental human condition of vulnerability.2

The denial of vulnerability can be understood to be motivated by thedesire conscious or not – to maintain a … the prototypical, arrogantlyself-sufficient, independent, invulnerable master subject.Invulnerability is a central feature of masterful subjectivity becauseit solidifies a sense of control, indeed an illusion of control. Theachievement of full mastery, complete control, utter impenetrability, isan impossibility (one would have to be a god) ([2], pp. 312–13).

Whereas vulnerability understood as the openness to being affectedand affecting in turn implies the willingness to refrain from domination, invulnerability thatpeople claim points to a desire for control and command, resultingin a closure to interruption, change, and transformation. The latternot only inhibits authentic encounter, it can also give way to doingreal harm. People who are unable to bear their own vulnerability anddeny this human condition can seek to compensate their discomfort byclaiming to be in charge. This clearly also affects the relationbetween religious traditions and their adherents:

People wrestle with the question as to how their age-old traditions can survivein a context of secularization and pluralization. In the midst of change, theymay look for something that is permanent, unchanging and ahistorical. They maysearch for a cultural essence, a core of values that must remain untouched orsomething that is indisputable and non-negotiable. … As a result to theirinsecurity, believers act as “security guards who stand at the door of theirreligion to make sure that its identity and integrity are not violated byanother religion.” Because of this fear, many people find it particularlyappealing to withdraw behind the closed doors of their own symbolic community([11], p. 102).

If vulnerability points to openness to the unexpected,invulnerability points to being closed to change and challenge,thereby also inhibiting innovation. Creativity and responsibilityoriginate in the courage to accept our vulnerability as that

2 See also [10].

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condition of potential from which both the positive and the negativeemerges. Only those who learn to live with the possibility of lossand pain can learn to appreciate the enrichment of being interruptedand challenged. From this perspective, we can understand that notonly is vulnerability a human condition, it is also a choice that exhalespower and courage. In what follows I will first analyze how this desire for control

works in theological approaches to religious diversity and thedialogue between religions. The second section analyzes howcomparative theology moves beyond the classic theologies ofreligions towards a specific form of vulnerable theology, therebyalso highlighting the originality of this project. In the lastsection I seek to show how Clooney’s cultivation of vulnerabilityactually points to the ethics of comparative theology.

3. Theology of Religions and the Domination of the In-Between Space

Much reflection on the possibilities and difficulties ofinterreligious dialogue happens in the so-called theology ofreligions. Alan Race defines it as “the attempt, on the part ofChristian theologians, to account theologically for the diversity ofthe world’s religious quest and commitment” ([12], p. 3). How canthe challenge of religious diversity be understood in light of theChristian tradition, and how can the Christian tradition berecontextualized in light of the experiences of believers in thecontext of religious plurality? It is up to theological reflectionto clarify why Christians must or, conversely, should not be open tothose of other religions. It is theology that sets out how far thatopenness extends and if there should be limits to the openness forthe religious other. The questions if Christians should openthemselves up, why this openness is appropriate (or not), and howthis openness for the faith of another is related to one’s own faithcommitment are answered, one by one, through theological reflectionon and the interpretation of religious diversity.The fundamental issue in the theology of religions today is the

ongoing discussion between liberal pluralism and postliberalparticularism on both the possibility and desirability ofinterreligious dialogue. This debate in which “understandings ofother religions under the tropes of respectively, “similarity” or“difference” are contrasted has reached an impasse ([13], p. 9).Pluralists ground their argument for interreligious dialogue in aphilosophy of religion that traces all religions back to a common

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ground: there is one ultimate Reality and many historico-culturalexpressions. Or, as the British philosopher John Hick puts it, thedifferent religious traditions “constitute different ways ofexperiencing, conceiving and living in relation to an ultimatedivine Reality which transcends all our varied visions of it” ([14],pp. 235–36). The other religions are not rivals but “fellowtravelers to the Ultimate” ([15], p. 165). From this perspective,pluralism claims to be the natural partner of interreligiousdialogue. The main criticism of the pluralist model is that its focus on

commonalities brings about the undermining and removal of thespecificity of particular religious traditions in general and ofChristianity especially. Pluralists are so eager to promote dialoguethat they tend to forget the irreducible differences that existbetween the religious traditions. Michael Barnes sums up thiscriticism in a very sharp way by stating that particularity is “alltoo easily subsumed under an ethic of openness which quickly becomesrigidly ideological” ([16], p. 13). From this perspective, we canunderstand why pluralism is associated with the mistake ofreductionism. David Tracy explains this as follows:

The official pluralist too often finds ways to reduce real otherness and genuinedifferences to some homogenized sense of what we (who is this “we”?) alreadyknow…. [S]ome pluralists, the vaunted defenders of difference, can become greatreductionists – reducing differences to mere similarity, reducing otherness tothe same, and reducing plurality to my community of right-thinking competentcritics. In this light, there is truth in Simone de Beauvoir’s bitter chargethat “pluralism is the perfect ideology for the bourgeois mind” [17].

The reaction to this homogenizing tendency is a growing emphasison the particular nature of religious commitments and on thetradition-specific character of religious meanings and practices.Postliberal theologians especially have resisted the universallycolored theological agenda of pluralism. Under their lead, thetheological pendulum swings from the virtue of openness to the valueof commitment. Their basic assumption seems to be that Christianshave to be rooted firmly in their own tradition before embarking ona dialogical journey. Religions are viewed as particular,untranslatable and incommensurable language games. The whole idea ofa common ground to which all religions refer is rejected. As DouglasPratt puts it, “[T]here is no reasonable ground to assume a linkacross religions: their individual, or particular, identities

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militate against any such linkage. The difference between them is ofsuch a nature that, strictly speaking, it is illicit even toconsider that there is any point of meaningful conceptual contactamong the religions” ([18], p. 8). The question is if thispostliberal particularist approach still allows for interreligiousdialogue and does not, in the end, lead to a retreat in symbolicallyclosed communities.The debate between pluralists and postliberal particularism

remains too easily at the level of “isms,” thereby also downplayingthe complexities and dynamics of interreligious relations andinhibiting profound reflection on the dialogical space between theself and the other. Jeanine Hill Fletcher especially has criticizedthe oversimplified nature of both approaches. Whereas pluralismupholds a logic of sameness that, pushes troublesome, changeablereligious realities into a procrustean bed of unrestrictedhomogeneity, postliberalism affirms a logic of difference thatpresents religions as “indissolubly distinct entities thatthoroughly shape adherents to a radically different understanding ofthe world, reality and ultimate reality” ([19], pp. 9–10). In bothapproaches the religious other is seen as a problem that can andshould be solved, either by retreating to the security of sameness(pluralism) or by distancing otherness (particularism). Thepluralistic discourse on openness turns out to be a “strategy”: itconstitutes order and thus gives a sentiment of comfort, because ittakes away the interruptive and confrontational, even discomforting,character of the encounter with the religious other. The outcome ofpostliberal particularism is a dichotomy between insiders andoutsiders. In recognizing the other in his irreducible otherness andin “granting the other his homeland; [the postliberal particularist]can rest assured and turn his back on him” ([20], p. 91). In anycase, the problem of the other is “solved” as “controlled,categorized, schematized….” However different these theologicalapproaches may be, both seem to be marked by a temptation tocounteract the vulnerability of interreligious encounters as to calm ourfears ([21], p. 9). When vulnerability is counteracted, receptivity for what comes

from elsewhere diminishes and interreligious dialogue loses itsreligious significance. The neutralization of vulnerability impactson the relation to the religious other in a negative way: thereligious other is either harmonized into the overarching pluralistscheme or the religious other becomes so strange that she disappearsfrom our radar. Once the other has been “understood and

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categorized,” it is no longer as necessary to demand a deepknowledge of the other in her particularity. The neutralization ofvulnerability also affects the way believers relate to the divineand especially the way revelation is understood. By counteractingvulnerability, receptivity for (O)therness is also ruled out:postliberal theology on the one hand seems to confuse faithfulnessto tradition with faithfulness to the divine, thereby forgetting theDeus semper maior dictum. The pluralist hypothesis on the other handsituates the encounter with the divine in the private sphere ofpersonal religious experiences, which become the criteria forjudging traditions. This hypothesis actually conceals a turn to theself that sets the norm and is in control. Excluded is thepossibility that the encounter with the religious other isrecognized as an interruptive, disruptive event that may actuallyput us on God’s way. The question is: Can there be a theology that testifies to the

fragile space in which authentic interreligious dialogue occurs? Isthere a way to theologize about religious diversity that does notneutralize vulnerability from the outset? Can we formulate atheological response to the religious other that resists the all toohuman desire to construct and control her, thereby limiting theconversation from its very start? Can we make room for surprise, forthe unexpected, for the unfamiliar? Are we prepared to change inlight of what we learn from other religious traditions? Can there bea fragile space rather than a space controlling the other.

4. Comparative Theology as Vulnerable Theology

In my reading, these questions form the leitmotiv of comparativetheology. According to Francis Clooney, the project of comparativetheology is an original form of faith seeking understanding directedat a deep learning from other religious traditions. Continuing thetheological tradition of Anselm, Clooney (along with othercomparative theologians) emphasizes the seeking dimension of faith,rather than focusing on faith in terms of what is certain, non-negotiable,and absolute. Though faith can be simple and stark, the truth allbelievers long for is never a possession that believers canappropriate for themselves. Believers are, in a sense, pilgrims onthe way to truth, knowing it will always, to a certain extent, eludethem. As comparative theologian Scott Steinkerchner puts it, “[t]hisside of heaven, the seeking never ends. None of us individually, norall of us collectively, possess a complete understanding of our


faith. That fullness of truth lies forever in the future” ([22], p.149). The only way to move forward is to ask questions, to study andlearn, to seek understanding, to gain insights that only evoke newquestions in search for more nuanced answers. In the search for understanding, comparative theology turns to

religious texts belonging to different traditions. Its focal pointis reading and comparing strange and familiar texts in order tounderstand the other so that new theological insights will emerge,those which can challenge, interrupt, and transform one’s owntradition. Texts from other religious traditions are recognized andappreciated as rich sources for imaginative and possiblyconstructive theology. This constructive element is realized whenthe meaning, value, and truth of the similarities and differencesdiscovered through inter-texting are assessed ([23], pp. 170–71). Insummary, in the classical understanding of theology as fides quaerensintellectum, the comparative theologian aims at “knowing a loving Godmore completely and intelligently,” ([24], p. 7) but she does so ina non-classical way by pondering the truths of other traditions asresources for deepening her faith understanding [25]. In this sense,comparative theology derives its particular nature not from itsobject but from its sources and methodology ([26], p. 522). Comparative theology took root in a certain dissatisfaction with

theologies of religions that erect unnecessary walls betweenreligious traditions and their adherents and thereby also inhibitreal and authentic interreligious encounter. The theological processof constructing religious others is, in the end, a process ofsuppressing otherness. A priori theologies of religions—both liberaland postliberal—are regarded as especially problematic, since theytend to set the interreligious agenda beforehand, thereby immunizingChristians against the otherness of the (o)ther and diminishing thechance of surprise, interruption, and unsettlement. Here, theology becomesfixated on traditional Christian meanings handed down from the pastinstead of welcoming what comes from elsewhere as food for thoughtand as a possible source for semantic innovation. Comparativetheologian James Fredericks has expressed his dissatisfaction withthe “classic candidates for Christian theologies” in a particularsharp way, saying that they “usually lead to systemic distortions inthe reception of the Other. Moreover, these distortions succeed in …the ‘domestication of difference’, in which the threat of the Other,as well as its transformative power, are muted” ([27], p. xiv). Ifwe want to attend to the religious other and his traditions we must,


so Clooney claims, “deny ourselves the easy confidences that keepthe other at a distance” ([28], p. 7). Instead of trying to “solve the problem of religious diversity” in

a theological meta-narrative, comparative theologians engage incrossing borders, moving back and forth between one’s own tradition,and the strange religious tradition, allowing themselves to be trulyimmersed in both. Instead of circling around the doctrinal heart ofChristian tradition, trying to find definite answers to thetheological meaning of religious diversity, comparative theologianspractice theology in a marginal area. Instead of trying to protectthe tradition from the possibility of contamination that goestogether with encounter, comparative theologians intentionally moveto the borderland of tradition. As go-betweens, they invest inlearning from the other, accepting that this also entails disturbingexperiences of alienation, disenchantment, and friction ([24], p.165). In this sense, comparative theology seems to be all aboutleaving the theological comfort zone of the centralist approach totheology. Comparative theologians will sometimes argue that what they

propose is not all that new. As Clooney puts it: “Interreligious andcomparative learning has always been an inescapable dimension in thelife of every community” ([28], p. 24). From this perspective, whatthey are proposing is merely making more explicit, more visible whatis in a sense the fundamental vulnerability of religious traditions.Religious traditions are not constituted by sharp boundaries but arerather marked by a certain fluidity, permeability, and hybridityfrom the outset. Religious traditions were never pure in the firstplace: they have always been affected and influenced by otherreligions. Because their boundaries are much more porous than isoften acknowledged, religious realities are “messy,” they simplycannot be contained in neat categories and boxes [29]. In otherwords, religious traditions are vulnerable, whether they “like” it ornot. From this perspective, the whole idea of erecting walls aroundour “tradition” and investing in “defense mechanisms” is an illusoryundertaking. It always comes too late. There is no such thing as apure tradition nor does there exist some “religious” core, common toall religious traditions, that remains unaffected by the messinessof interreligious encounters. In his article Comparative Theology afterReligion, John Thatamanil remarks that,

it would be possible to craft a history of Christian thought andpractice written as a series of interactions and transmutations of


movements and traditions that Christians have come to demarcate as non-Christian. Such a history would demonstrate not only that many of thecentral categories, practices and symbols of Christian life are borrowedfrom Hellenistic philosophical schools, mystery religions, and, ofcourse, most vitally from what we now call “Judaism,” but that for longstretches of history, no clearly defined and rigid boundaries existedbetween “Christianity” and those traditions we now take to beChristianity’s others. … Alongside such a history, a companion workcould be written that would take note of tremors within (especiallyWestern) Christian self-awareness when such profound entanglements cometo surface. I suspect that such a companion history would unearthmoments of widespread anxiety among custodians of tradition at justthose junctures when “the unbearable proximity” of those whom Christianscustomarily regard as other is most keenly felt [4].

However, comparative theology is not just about noting thattraditions—whether they like it or not, whether they know it or not,whether they intend it or not—are from the outset always alsoconstituted by other religious traditions and thus inherentlyvulnerable deep down. This project aims at a cultivation ofvulnerability as the crux of doing theology. That is why Clooney notonly records that crossing borders has always been part of thehistory of religious traditions, he actually creates a liminal spacein the form of scriptural intertextuality. Indeed, Clooneyemphasizes especially the experimental, creative, and constructivenature of this work, acknowledging thereby the role of thecomparativist “who forges a link which was not previously there, alink which (usually) cannot be justified on the basis of historicalconnections or of similarities so striking that they compelcomparison” ([30], p. 154). Placed, studied, and read together, thesetexts begin to interact, influence, and affect one another (whichalso has an effect on the reader). These texts begin to move andshift, losing their familiar (perhaps sometimes even predictable andstale) meaning. The underlying assumption is that theologians whoare able to sustain experiences of alienation, disenchantment, andfriction brought about by this textual juxtaposition can also learnto enjoy the pleasure of discovering new hermeneutical andtheological possibilities. Comparative theology is an ongoing and never-ending conversational

process: particular comparisons yield particular insights, insightsthat might be revised in the future under the influence of otherparticular comparisons. The theological reflections that follow from


detailed comparisons “can only be tentative and should not be takenas precluding what will be learned in further experiments” ([24], p. 164). In this way, comparative theology remains “pre-systematicand pre-dogmatic.” It does not have the ambition to lead to a“definite theology of religions” ([31], p. 176). On the contrary,those who are looking for clear-cut answers to clear-cut questionsare likely to be disappointed by this approach, for many questionswill be left open after in-depth study, until “more commentarialwork has been done, by more theologians, over a much longer periodof time” ([31], p. 184).3

5. On the Ethics of Comparative Theology

The careful reader engaging the two texts in their own two traditionscomes to know more than expected, and in a way that cannot bepredictably controlled by either tradition.… As we learn more aboutreligious traditions in their depth than has been possible before, weknow more deeply the possibilities of several traditions and where theylead us, while yet we also lose the intensity and devotion possible forthose who know only their own tradition. We are then left in avulnerable, fruitful learning state, engaging these powerful works onmultiple levels and paradoxically, learning more, while mastering less;we have more teachers and fewer masters ([1], p. 209).

Clooney’s plea for vulnerable theology is not self-evident. It requiresus to withstand the (all too human) inclination to flee fromvulnerability; it asks us the abandon the (natural) desire forpurity calls for a renouncement of the strong wish for a stable andseamless identity, demands that we give up the ideal of a clearlydelineated identity that can be placed in a binary scheme withotherness, asks from us to refrain from grand theories that solve the problem of thereligious other and the implied discomfort ([27], p. xiii). In brief,the belief in the fecundity of interreligious co-reading has tocompete with the ideology of invulnerability. But what motivates Clooney? Why travel via such unusual paths from

which inconvenient, unsettling truth may stem? In a first response,

3 In his article “Comparative Theology: Between Identity and Alterity,” BagusLaksana refers to the metaphor of pilgrimage to evoke the wandering journey ofthe comparative theologian. He regards pilgrimage as a “privileged locus inwhich a creative negotiation of religious identity in the proximity and intimacywith God, the Other, as well as with the religious other, occurs in all itscomplexity” ([6], p. 2).


Clooney would probably say why not? All these texts are readilyavailable, translated or otherwise. They are public classics, soldin bookshops, on the Internet, or in the market. Anyone can readthese texts. He even makes the claim that “it is hard to justify notreading the theologies of other traditions when they are pertinentand available” ([32], p. 14). A great curiosity and intellectualist desire to study andlearn is without doubt one of the driving motivations behind thisproject. The human desire to know more, so he points out, does notstop at the borders of one’s own religious traditions. At a deeper level, of course, Clooney’s desire to understand is

faith-driven. Comparative theologians believe that their practice ofdeep learning across religious borders is theologically valuablesince it allows them not only to learn from the religious other butalso to hear God speak anew and to receive his truth in a differentway so that they can learn to know God better ([28], p. 8). Learningfrom other religious traditions is a theological responsibility:understanding religious others better in all their complexity willallow us to understand our relationship with God better. Thedetailed study of other traditions happens from a commitment to God.Comparative theologians believe that in opening up to the religiousOther in and through a detailed study of his texts one realizes afuller knowledge of God ([24], p. 7). This imaginative appropriation of the strange ordifferent text can be a creative theological source that warns thefaith community that God cannot be fixed or reduced to the familiar—just as, by way of a humbler analogy, the text cannot be fixed orreduced to the familiar. It is a way of giving form to the notionthat it is not up to theology to determine the limits of God’sactivity a priori. Or as Clooney would put it, being taught by astrange text entails undergoing a spiritual process that changes thereader and perhaps reveals God in an unexpected way.

While it would be a bit dramatic to say that God desires that theologybe comparative – just as it would be to way that God desires more orless of any particular theological discipline – we do well to see oureffort to learn across religious borders as in harmony with God’s plan.To suggest that God has not envisioned the actual world in which welive, where neither faith nor religious diversity will vanish at anytime soon, would also be a strange thing for a theologian to propose.Knowing God today requires a retrieval of faith, tradition, scripture


and practice – precisely as we open ourselves to learning othertraditions, in their own comparable complexities ([28], p. 37).

However, next to his intellectual and theological investment,comparative theology creates also an ethical problem since itaffects the relation between what is familiar and foreign. A deepmoral dynamics underlies Clooney’s project, which finds itsexpression in an ethic of interreligious reading: reading understoodas an intrinsically relational, and thus reciprocal, act. Theforeign religious text is an other and to engage in a practice ofinterreligious reading is to engage in a relationship with somethingthat is other to us. Hence, interreligious reading is analogous to aconversational act and comparable to a face-to-face encounter.4 Approximating a foreign religious text appeals to a form of

reader-responsibility, intended to avoid falling into the twofoldtrap of (1) making generalizing and stereotyping claims pushingrecalcitrant religious phenomena in a neat scheme of commonality(cf. liberal pluralism) (2) or of making the other so other that hebecomes completely alien and thus he disappears from our radar andbecomes utterly meaningless (cf. postliberal particularism). Thechallenge is to respect a certain degree of irreducibility inherentin the foreign religious text, while at the same time refrainingfrom succumbing to the idea of a radical and absolute otherness([6], p. 3). In the last part of this article, I want to point to three ethical

“conditions” proper to comparative theology: (1) encounteringotherness; (2) reticence and hermeneutical openness (3)appropriation through disappropriation. These three ethicalconditions lead to the concluding section, in which I elaborate oncomparative theology as a specific form of interreligioushospitality.

5.1. Encountering Otherness

4 For his understanding of reading religious texts, Clooney is inspired by PaulGriffiths, who dedicated one of his books to the theme of religious reading,even though Griffiths did not concern himself with the specific challenge ofinterreligious reading, According to Clooney, his project “seeks to exemplifythe dynamic that Griffiths has in mind but to do so in the practice of an(inter)religious reading, one that demands vulnerability to both texts, apractice that is intensified by the spiritual power generated in reading themtogether repeatedly and that refuses to reduce either to a component of somelater and settled ‘higher’ viewpoint.” ([28], p. 63)


Comparative theology, understood as religious inter-texting, beginswith engaging a strange religious text, which is of course part of alarger religious tradition. According to Clooney, reading a “non-Christian” text “initiates an encounter of religions, and involvesthe reader in hearing and understanding a specific other voice, notjust the generic “world religions” ([33], p. 35). The religious textis the other who does not fit into our familiar religious frameworkand transcends what is known. A strange text is an exponent of an entire religious tradition,

rich in wisdom. A tradition that is practiced in a religiouscommunity via a prayerful, ritual, and moral way of life, whichmolds the identity of its religious believers in a way verydifferent from ours. In this tradition, believers find inspiration,wisdom, and truth. The strange religious text, even though it isonly a minor part of a larger religious whole, nevertheless evokesboth the beauty, vitality, complexity, and richness of the religiouslife of another. It has the strength to catch our eye, preciselybecause what it expresses, symbolizes, and enacts is so differentfrom the way we try to live our (religious) life. There is somethingfascinating, perhaps even beguiling and seductive about a religiousother, also when she takes the form of a strange text. This attractiveness has its root in its recalcitrance: The textual

other resists, interrupts, and questions the obviousness of whatfully commits us and challenges the naturalness by which we regardour own perspective as the measure of all. The textual other revealsand challenges our natural inclination to control and domination. Weare brought out of balance, we become unsettled. This is notnecessarily a pleasant experience. One should recall the ambiguousnature of vulnerability: being affected can be experienced as positiveand negative. Indeed, there is no need to romanticize beinginterrupted by the other – the other brings about a disturbance oforder. That is why the other is not always the welcome other,especially not when he approaches us in all his beauty, radiance,and brilliance. Put differently, the other’s beguilement can alsobecome his destruction: the fear is that what is fascinating,tempting and alluring can lead to a loss of faith. Clooneyacknowledges this risk:

[T]he first problem always to be faced in such an encounter is fear: afear of the loss of God, of Christ; a fear of the dangerous ‘other’ andof a future one cannot fully predict; a fear of a God who is completelyfree. To experience another religion, however one meets it, is to awaken


at a double twilight of dusk and dawn where God comes but also goes. Weshould not be surprised if we are vulnerable, afraid, in love-and alsoalone, angry, annoyed ([33], p. 37).

This unease, brought about by being vulnerable, is where theethical structure of interreligious dialogue takes root. In aLevinasian way, we could say that the textual other makes an appeal,asking to be recognized in its otherness. This is the basic ethicalcondition for any interreligious encounter: to recognize the“intractable otherness of other religions” ([34], p. 254). Thetextual other “expects” us to be willing to be addressed andinterrupted by an unfamiliarity that does not meet our prejudicedpatterns of expectation ([35], p. 64). But the textual other can dono more than make an appeal, asking to be recognized in herotherness, demanding not to be reduced to “sameness”. It is alwayspossible to ignore this appeal since the other does not have theforce to compel recognition. It is always possible to put aside theappeal of the other and resort to “violence,” which can take twoforms: either we distance ourselves from the other, turning him intoa complete and utter stranger or we reduce him to our own familiarcategories. In the end, the religious other depends on ourresponsibility.

5.2. Reticence and Hermeneutical Openness

What is required is not an enthusiastic embrace of the other but aform of “hesitation” that expresses the fear of inflicting violenceon the other.

[R]eal dialogue begins with the inclination or the temptation to excludethe other than ourselves … or to reduce the other to ourselves and at thesame time – at the same origin – realising that this exclusion orreduction is not allowed.… The ethical ‘faith primitif’ of the dialogue isneither magnanimity nor sympathy or empathy, but a dynamism of“restraint” and “shuddering,”, namely utter cautiousness andcarefulness, fearful in all our advancing self-certainty of doinginjustice to the other ([36], p. 236).

In comparative theology, this ethical reticence is expressed inthe rejection of a priori theologies of religions (either liberal orpostliberal) that are too quick, too hasty in categorizing theother. An authentic encounter with the textual other begins withholding back out of fear that one could inflict violence on the


other. This restraint enables the other to speak for itself, tobecome other, to become a subject with a proper voice. This reticence is the basic condition for becoming vulnerable and

receptive to the other. If both liberal and postliberal theologiesof religions tend to control the space in-between because they aretoo quick either with “filling up” the space between the differentreligions with presupposed commonalities or inflating the in-betweenspace with the presumption of incommensurability, comparativetheology is patient, willing to wait, to listen and learn. Insteadof seeking a grand narrative in which the religious other is graspedand contained, comparative theologians allow themselves to bechallenged by the often unsettling religious reality and belief ofthe other. Instead of “solving the problem of religious diversity” ina theological meta-narrative, comparative theology accepts thatlearning from the other entails experiences of alienation,disenchantment, and friction ([24], p. 165). There is no haste tocome up with definite answers. Clooney emphasises time and again theimportance of not jumping to conclusions because theology shouldavoid over-hasty theological judgments. The latter requires a longand patient engagement with the textual world of the other. Beforejudging, before assessing, before appreciating—either positively ornegatively—the religious other deserves to be heard and understood.5

The search for truth is preceded by a pledge to justice ([38], p.62).

After one has read and re-read, thought back and forth from text to context– one can then review the questions posed in the theology of religions.“What are we to make of these religions?” “Is Christ unique?”, “AreHindus save by Christ alone?”, “Is there revelation outsideChristianity?”… The Christian who first reads and then asks the theology ofreligions questions will not be asking about what is entirely strange oralien, as if she or he were a gate-keeper who has to decide aboutwhether to let the other in at all; nor will she or he be dealing withwhat is entirely predictable, once inside. Rather, the basic questionwill be about how to make sense, as a Christian, of a set of Christianexperiences and texts and theologies that now includes certain non-Christian texts that remain vital and creative ([33], p. 36).

This pledge to justice is expressed positively in what I haveelsewhere termed hermeneutical openness, i.e., the responsibility tounderstand the other in the most objective and fair-minded mannerpossible. As Clooney puts it, ideally, comparative theology gives5 On the criteria of judgment in interreligious dialogue see [37].


way to “a viable understanding of the ‘other’ in which theencountered ‘other’ is not manufactured to the comparativist’sprejudices and expectations” ([30], p. 7). Its intention is tounderstand the other in his or her otherness and to avoid readingone’s own presuppositions into the religious world of the other.This turns interreligious dialogue into a hermeneutical challenge,involving the question of mutual understanding or the degree towhich individuals belonging to one religion can grasp the meaning ofsymbols, teachings, and practices of another.

5.3. Appropriation through Disappropriation

Moving beyond the requirement of hermeneutical openness, Clooney’sethics of reader responsibility also entails the cultivation ofcertain humility as the appropriate attitude by which to approach areligious text. Clooney sees the religious text more as a subjectspeaking to the reader and challenging him. It is a poetic whole,constructed by its author to address, challenge, and interrupt thereader ([39], p. 368). Gifted with an “excess of meaning,” it hasthe capacity of intruding on the world of the reader that it intendsto transform. To do justice to the specific nature of religioustexts and their inherent purpose to bring about transformation, thereligious nature of reading these texts should prevail. Religiousreading revolves around giving up control and surrendering to thedomination of the text. From this perspective Clooney reacts against a “consumerist …

mining of texts in service of a preconceived agenda neglectful ofthe text’s own purposes” ([31], p. 8). The interruptive andtransformative power is immunized by the grasping approach of themaster reader. But he also criticizes readers who limit their roleto that of the neutral investigator, examining the texts from adistance in as objectively and impartially as possible. The text isnot an object to be analyzed or even dissected. It is not a carrierof information to be discussed or a depository of interesting ideasto debated. Here too, Clooney objects that, by placing the text at adistance as an object to be analyzed and dissected by the reader,the reader becomes immune to its message. “[Religious] texts expectand invite a humbler, less self-confident reasoning, even off-balance, that draws the mind into a situation it cannot control andthat illumines and ignites the heart” ([1], p. 79). Submissionrather than control is the appropriate attitude by which a responsiblereader approaches religious texts.


The possibility of transformation requires an attentive reading,the crux of which is that the reader surrenders to the influence ofthe text and thereby becomes vulnerable to the possibilitiesprojected before the text even to the extent of inspiring a radicallife change ([1], p. 208). This implies that the reader placesherself under the authority of the text: the text takes on the roleof teacher, the reader that of student. The text asks of theinterpreter to take a distance from the known and the familiar andto walk into the world of the unknown. Drawing on the reflections ofPaul Griffiths, who wrote a book on the habit of religious reading,Clooney claims the following:

To learn, we must … be vulnerable to possibilities we can probe only toa modest extent, and ready to surrender ourselves to the mysterieslatent in what we read.… This humble practice changes readers, as theyare inevitably drawn into the worlds brought to life in their reading.Readers who are willing to take the risk become competent to readreligiously and, upon receiving the riches of the great texts, they alsobecome able to speak, act, and write with spiritual insight and power([28], p. 59).

This reminds me of what the French philosopher Paul Ricoeur, knownespecially for his textual hermeneutics, calls the dynamic playbetween appropriation and disappropriation. According to Ricoeur, aresponsible reader can appropriate the world of the text only to theextent that he disappropriates himself. Appropriation is thusinextricably linked to disappropriation. Appropriation is not amatter of imposing our finite capacity for understanding on the textbut of exposing ourselves to the imaginative possibilities projectedby the text. In this way, hermeneutical appropriation is not theexpression of imperialism or colonization but an expression ofdetachment and of letting go. Thus, understanding is quite differentfrom a constitution whose key the subject possesses; on thecontrary, it is the process by which the reader is constituted bythe text. Ricoeur puts it as follows, “as a reader I find myself bylosing myself. The movement toward listening requires giving up(désaissement) the human self in its will to mastery, sufficiency, andautonomy” ([40], p. 224). Ricoeur also speaks about “la dépossessiondu soi narcissique.” Understanding means to understand oneselfbefore the text and in submission to it as reader and student.

6. Conclusion: Reciprocal Hospitality in Response to Invulnerability


In my reading, the comparative theology project embodies thevirtue of hospitality, which reaffirms and strengthens its ethicaldynamics. It does this in a very specific way, since the comparativetheologian wants to be both host and guest at the same time. In thisreciprocal form of text-oriented interreligious hospitality “thepleasure of dwelling in the other’s language is balanced by thepleasure of receiving the foreign word at home, in one’s ownwelcoming home” ([41], p. 10). Over against reducing the other tosameness (cf. pluralism) on the one hand and alienating the other(particularism), comparative theology seeks to build bridges betweentwo text traditions while always recognizing that both areirreducible to one another. It concerns an attitude of “activereceptivity: it is making room for the stranger in one’s own space—it is the strange other received into one’s home in a way that doesjustice to the otherness of the other.” Comparative theologyactually teaches that interreligious relations are not exhausted inattempts to defend one’s identity against the unfamiliar, nor is itappropriate to try and reduce what is other to sameness. Thisintertextual hospitality refuses, on the one hand, to distance theother—this would lead to indifference—and, on the other, to attemptto dominate the other. The other is received in its otherness. Whatwe learn from this intertextual practice is that that happiness canalso be found precisely in reciprocal hospitality, in becomingvulnerable to each other. Dwelling in the realm of the other and returning home to one’s own

religious community with meanings received from another tradition,Clooney argued and illustrates how Christian believers can enrichtheir understanding of Christian texts and doctrines by re-readingthem after deep learning from non-Christians texts. It is a learningin the proximity of the other. This practice of reciprocalhospitality is a form of reaching out to the other, rather thankeeping her at a distance, as well as returning home with fresh,challenging, and interrupting insights. Here one values the otherfor leaving his trace in “our” identity.The main challenge confronting comparative theology is not merely

theoretical in nature, but ethical. The challenge is to overcome allsorts of resistance emerging from a certain fear of otherness thatleads to desire to control the in-between space (the ideal ofinvulnerability). These resistances come from both the “home” andthe foreign tradition.6 The resistance on the side of the home

6 See [42].


community is related to a strong desire to sacralize the mothertradition out of fear of contamination. Hence the empathic claim isthat one’s tradition is incommensurable, untranslatable andincomparable. But the refusal of comparison equals the refusal torecognize what is foreign as a challenge and source of nourishmentfor one’s own religious identity. One sets out to keep one’s ownlanguage pure, though this self-sufficiency has secretly nourished“numerous linguistic ethnocentrisms, and more seriously, numerouspretensions to the same cultural hegemony” ([43], p. 4). The resistance on the side of other tradition flow especially from

a certain conceitedness: the foreign religious text is soexceptional that it is beyond comparison. But the recognition thattraditions cannot be reduced to one another, the affirmation thatreligious texts are always also beyond comparison, with reference totheir uniqueness and the acknowledgment that their meaning can neverbe exhausted in comparison, does not amount to a denial of thepossibility of comparison. Rather, it points to the continuingasymmetry between traditions that cannot be removed by comparison. Butthis is no reason to dismiss the validity of comparison. Speakingabout the incomparability of religious texts expresses the irreducible valueand uniqueness of texts. This is a precondition to comparison ratherthan an insurmountable obstacle. Reciprocal hospitality, which implies mutual affection,

contradicts the ideal of invulnerability and the illusion of self-sufficiency, and uncovers its underlying xenophobic dynamics. Beyondthe fear of contamination and loss of meaning, the textual other isno longer seen as a problem to be solved but as a possibility givento us ([33], p. 38). Here, the genuine attitude of hospitality isrealized: recognizing that another tradition may be a source ofenrichment for one’s own. Comparison is, indeed, always andinevitably a matter of balancing between fidelity and betrayal. Tocompare and interpret religious texts belonging to differenttraditions is not possible without loss of meaning. But it is a one-sided view of comparison to focus solely on the loss of meaning.Comparing texts is also a way of giving new life to one’s ownreligious tradition and uncovering new truth dimensions. Comparingseemingly incomparable texts is also an opportunity, for it opens upthe possibility of creativity and innovation. From this perspective,we can conclude by paraphrasing a saying from 2 Corinthians 12:9:“Power is made perfect in weakness.”

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© 2012 by the author; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. Thisarticle is an open access article distributed under the terms andconditions of the Creative Commons Attribution license(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/).

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