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One may find that the Summa Theologiae is thus enhanced, because it is now privileged to exemplify the Christian side of comparison, as a superior, articulate version of the Christian faith. Placed in a new context by being reread after Advaita, it is given a new and prominent position vis à vis both sides of the comparison. It is as if Aquinas has now been identified, by experiment, as the "Sankara of Europe," the Summa Theologiae as the "Christian Uttara Mimamsa Sutras," etc. But we may also find that the Summa Theologiae is thereby reduced to a (mere) example; it becomes "one important Christian text," importantat least at the momentless for its content or its success as an authoritative articulation of the Christian worldview and its knowledge about God, than for its function as a vehicle for the clarification of issues not contained directly in the Summa Theologiae itself. The relationship between a very important Christian text and the comparativist as reader has been radically revised, as the text becomes a mere tool in the comparativist's hands: it is marginalized, for one has stepped outside it, instrumentalized it. It now occurs in a larger world than it could have imagined, it no longer entirely constitutes a world, it is reused in a way that is strikingly divergent from the intention of its author and from the tradition's habitual handling of it. The comparative reader sees not only how the Summa Theologiae presumes and entails a complete Christian worldview, but also how that worldview reaches no farther than its margins, what it has been able to say in its vocabulary, rules of language, and accumulated set of references. All of this is so, even if one wishes to avoid, as I do, a reduction of the compared texts to mere materials for consumption in a comparative project which seeks a tertium quid, some wisdom which reaches beyond both the UMS and Summa Theologiae Texts. |
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The general transformation of the Summa Theologiae as Text is further specified in the comparativist's selection of examples by which to highlight similarities and differences, to uncover and accentuate the implicit presuppositions of the text, details which, however small, are crucially important in conveying its texture. This process of finding examples need not be a matter of identifying those parts of the Summa Theologiae which are considered (by contemporary Thomists) to be the most important, most repre- |
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