Gustavo Gutierrez: A Theology of Liberation, Chapter Two: Liberation and Development

Having defined “theology” in the previous chapter, in this chapter Gutierrez moves on to defining “liberation.” This definition begins with the assertion that history is progressing rapidly and that this progress is uneven. Not only that, but both between and among nations progress occurs alongside decline. Moreover, the progress of some has resulted in the decline of many.

The Concept of Development

First, Gutierrez considers the term “development” as a possible description of an antidote to this historical crisis. Positively, the word is holistic, implying more than just economic progress. According to a recent definition,

development is a total social process, which includes economic, social, political, and cultural aspects. This notion stresses the interdependence of the different factors. (15)

That is to say, true development includes but is not reducible to economic development.

Interestingly, this definition corresponds with Bernard Lonergan’s notion of a “scale of values” (explicated more fully by Robert Doran): vital (i.e. material), social, cultural, personal, and religious values. As Doran puts it, wrongful distribution of vital goods reveals that every other aspect of the scale is unbalanced. By that he means that a society, its culture, and its personal and religious consciousnesses must be warped in order for material goods to be poorly distributed among those making up that society.

Likewise, Gutierrez holds that these different aspects of progress are interdependent. Then, he contends that development must be placed into the context of emerging human freedom, of a situation in which human beings control their respective destinies. This leads to his next theme, liberation.

The Process of Liberation

Unfortunately, “development” in Latin America has too often meant a process of slow reform that never ends up trickling down beyond the centers of power and wealth to the masses. Since colonization, established structures have favored the few at the expense of the multitudes. Meanwhile, wealthier nations have used development as yet another tool for maintaining the status quo (including through organizations such as the WTO). Thus, Gutierrez contends, liberation, which signals a radical change, is necessary for the situation to indeed be transformed.

This reality is rooted in the 15th and 16th century shifts that led to a new awareness of the human subject as an agent of history. Through figures like Descartes, Kant, and Hegel, this shift resulted in Marx’s twofold theory of dialectical materialism, which held that 1) there is an objective, material external reality and 2) human beings can recreate that world through the implementation of new ideas (the latter notion drawing heavily on Hegel).

In addition to this historical aspect of liberation, with Freud there arose awareness of and a necessity for psychological or interior liberation. Then, this emphasis is necessary to complement historical liberation. As in Robert Doran’s project in Theology and the Dialectics of History (which emphasizes the relationship between “psychic conversion” and historical progress), Gutierrez insists that these two aspects of liberation must be integrated.

Next, he reiterates that, in addition to material and social revolution, a “permanent cultural revolution” (21) is necessary in order to transform a society’s very notion of humanity. So “liberation” is not so narrow as one might think. Rather, it calls for a future-oriented transformation of our ideas about ourselves and our world (another idea found in Doran’s work, but drawn largely from Hegel there).

The Concept of Liberation Theologically Considered

Here, Gutierrez notes that the documents of Vatican II and the encyclical Populorum progressio were encouraging on the question of human liberation but also failed to be specific enough. But in the 1968 Medellin conference of Latin American bishops, things changed in that the view was from the “periphery” of the world’s nations, which ironically offered “insiders’ experience” of the issue of liberation (23).

Then, Gutierrez notes that, although sin is at the root of all oppression, this fact should not “negate the structural reasons and the objective determinants leading to these situations” (24). In other words, it is easy to use a focus on individual sin or virtue as a tactic for avoiding the reality of human oppression and liberation.

Conclusion

In closing, Gutierrez lists three meanings of “liberation”: 1) It is a conflictual rising up of the oppressed. 2) It is a taking hold of human responsibility. 3) It is more biblically-rooted than development as a description of the life that Christ brings. Indeed, this third level reveals that human liberation is interwoven with human salvation in Christ.

From what he says here, again I find it hard to disagree with Gutierrez. In Latin American, development, however well-intended it sometimes was, utterly failed as a means of changing the broader situations of societies (as opposed to selectively helping a few people on occasion). This failure was rooted in the lack of social and cultural transformation that was in turn largely the result of misplaced views of the human person and of God. From this perspective, the problem is theological. And, since Christ brings the salvation that liberates humanity, the solution is also theological.

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