Rāmānuja and Schleiermacher on Scripture: An Essay in Comparative Theology

Abstract

The study of any theologian is enhanced by the concurrent study of an other theologian from an other theological tradition. Such study provides an opportunity for comparison, that practice within which the same can be interrogated by difference. This interrogation elucidates details of the same that would otherwise remain submerged in obviousness. Difference exposes the obvious and renders it contingent rather than inevitable. Thus, the encounter with difference frees us from the constraints of inheritance, thereby expanding our range of spiritual opportunities. Difference gives us freedom. We know more, and in more detail, when the familiar is related to the unfamiliar. This article illustrates the above assertions by comparing the doctrines of scripture of two preeminent theologians: Friedrich Schleiermacher, an eighteenth–nineteenth-century Protestant Christian, and Rāmānuja, an eleventh–twelfth-century Śrīvaiṣṇava Hindu. In so doing, this article provides an example of critical comparative theology or theology that uses the critical power of comparison. Such comparison generates deeper insight and broader understanding of our own position within the array of theological options available to humankind.