12. Methodological Considerations on the Role of Experience in Comparative Theology

Abstract

Emma O’Donnell explores the implications of the fact that comparative theology primarily based in textual studies has to date been the norm in comparative theology. While textual study tends to be central to most theological work and has provided strong foundations for comparative theology too, the operative intellectual virtues—close attention to detail, reflective and patient learning, openness to change—can also be taken outside the text, so to speak, in order to pave the way for a new methodology attuned to the richer and living contexts in which texts are composed, read, and lived. Accordingly, O’Donnell explores the possibility of comparative theological work grounded in the experiential elements of faith. A comparative study of religious experience, for instance, has the capacity to bring to light specific aspects of interreligious relationships such as will not be evident simply through textual study.