La théologie comparative, vecteur d'une nouvelle approche de la diversité religieuse ? Évaluation critique par le prisme du dialogue interreligieux

Abstract

Over the past twenty years, comparative theology has been structured through a number of publications, with an increasingly precise presentation of its method of approach, its objectives and its benefits in interreligious learning. Situated within systematic theology, it aims to distance itself from the religious sciences and comparative religions. At the same time, comparative theology seeks to differentiate itself from the theology of religions and the theology of interreligious dialogue. By pointing out the limits of both, comparative theology seeks to extricate itself from the questioning that has locked theology into dead ends, in order to develop new paths. But does comparative theology live up to its promise of a return to oneself enriched by the other? Does it offer a way out of the dead-ends reached by theologies of religion? Doesn't its distance from a theology of interreligious dialogue run the risk of missing out on the benefits of the experience of dialogue? The following paper will trace the path of this new discipline, its liberation from the theology of religions, its conceptual and methodological development, and its contribution to a better understanding of the self through the other, with a view to its evaluation through the prism of the experience of interreligious dialogue.