Gustavo Gutierrez: A Theology of Liberation, Chapter Three: The Problem

Building on the previous chapter (which developed the historical notion of human liberation), Gutierrez plainly summarizes the question at the heart of a liberation theology: “[W]hat relation is there between salvation and the historical process of human liberation” (29)? Unfortunately, as he rightly points out, reflection on this question (which is parallel to that of the relation between Church and world) has usually been vague.

Like Bonhoeffer in his Letters and Papers from Prison, Gutierrez believes that humanity has reached some sort of adulthood, a time at which we must take responsibility for the world in which we live if only because we are now able to do so. As Robert Doran also points out, this new sense of human responsibility is a sense of communal responsibility, which Gutierrez links to the polis. In other words, human activity is now inevitably related to the political (in a broad sense) in that the community as a whole is the subject and the object of human responsibility. No longer can individuals treat moral responsibility as a private matter with limited consequences.

So what does this new-found responsibility call for? According to Gutierrez, it calls for the building of a just society, a society in which economic and social domination of some by others is no longer an intrinsic aspect. This call for social and economic transformation is inevitably “conflictual” in that pursuit of consensus within the existing order through compromises can only cement that order.

In order to avoid such conflict, some advocate for a vague notion of the common good and for a gentle holistic humanism. As Robert Doran similarly argues, classical conservative perspectives (such as that of Eric Vogelin)–while rightly emphasizing the importance of cultural, personal, and religious values–neglect the material and social values that can massively affect these “higher” aspects of a society.

Here, Gutierrez introduces a central aspect of liberation theologies: “Participation in the process of liberation is an obligatory and privileged locus for Christian life and reflection” (32). Due to the importance of historical action that he discusses in Chapter One, it becomes apparent that the question of salvation in history “is a question concerning the very meaning of Christianity” (32).

In response to liberation theologies, many commentators rightly hesitate to give in to claims that reflection on human liberation might supplant more traditional theological concerns. Still, some similar skepticism is rooted in avoidance of the issue at stake, in avoidance of the encounter with Jesus in the history of human liberation. Although it is true that a theology of liberation is not the only legitimate starting point for theology, it is also true that avoiding the issues raised by theologies of liberation is a dangerous path for systematic theologies that aim to adequately account for the Word of God being spoken today.

Too often more traditional theologians simply ignore the concerns of liberation theologies, and in doing so ignore a crucial aspect of the concrete meaning of Christianity: human liberation on a social scale. As Gutierrez has explained, this is a genuine problem, and evasion is not an option. Rather, we must have some convincing answer to the question with which he began: how are concrete historical liberation and the gift of divine salvation related to one another?

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