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from the comparative agenda. Though in an exemplary and not a comprehensive fashion, the resources of Indology have been crucial to this book. And though it cannot be labeled an Indological monograph, it would also be inaccurate to suggest that only certain parts of itChapters 2, 3 and 4are Indologically informed: the very project of a "theology after Vedanta" occurs due to the reformulation of my theological concerns by engagement in the study of Advaita and its Mimamsa predecessor (about which I will say more below). As my study is Theological, so is it Indological. |
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The distinction between comparative theology and the range of disciplines collected under the title of "the study of religion" points to the fact that comparative theology, like theology in general, is invested with the dimension of faith. The faith of the inquirer cannot be separated from the faith claims of the inquirer's community; this faith is explicitly at issue in the comparative exercise, as much as is a concern for the truth that may be emerge and claim the scholar more or less profoundly during the project of comparison. While scholars committed to the study of religion are frequently enough believers who are committed to certain traditional formulations of religious truth, such commitment does not need to be explicitly an issue in their writing; often scholars devise ways of distancing their professional work from their personal religious roots. |
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One may distinguish comparative theology and the study of religion also by their goals. The aim of the study of religion, in the most general terms, is an understanding of religion in its various forms and actualizations, and the accomplishment of this understanding by a methodology which enables one to study and talk about religion(s) comprehensively and productively. Particular studies of particular religious texts, symbols, and practices are often undertaken with the announced goal of using them to understand better the larger phenomenon of religion which they exemplify. |
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Comparative theology differs in its resistance to generalizations about religion, its commitment to the demands of one or another tradition, and its goal of a reflective retrieval, after comparison, of the comparativist's (acknowledged) own community's |
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