Liberating Eschatology: Reevaluating Early Liberation Theology and Marx’s Critique of Religion

First, we return to Gutierrez's opening sentiments as quoted in the introduction, as it is worth representing in full to outline the basis stakes of his theology: [...] [T]he rediscovery of the eschatological dimension in theology has also led us to consider the central role of historical praxis. Indeed, if human history is above all else an opening to the future, then it is a task, a political occupation, through which man orients and opens himself to the give which gives history its transcendent meaning: the full and definitive encounter with the Lord and with other men. "To do the truth," as the Gospel says, thus acquires a precise and concrete meaning in terms of the importance of action in Christian life. Faith in a God who loves us and calls us to the gift of full communion with him and brotherhood among men not only is not foreign to the transformation of the world; it leads necessarily to the building up of that brotherhood and communion in history.7 This quote aids us in identifying the premises which form the bases for liberation theology's appropriation of Marx and its relationship to eschatology. It is worth, first, acknowledging that the Gospel message is seen as the assurance of a world defined by "full communion with [God] and brotherhood among men."8 Here, however, we must being by exploring the basic methodology of Gutierrez's eschatology. The main assertions, as we see them in this quote are twofold: first, that this "encounter with the Lord" rather than being "transcendent" is to be located within history; and second that the Church has a responsibility to pursue this "transformation of the world" in and through history. We will further explicate these essential premises with an exegesis of Gutierrez theology. The first premise, is essentially a theological interpretation of the eschatological work of Christ in the world. Nevertheless, it lays the important groundwork for Gutierrez to appropriate Marxist critique vis-à-vis the ethical implicative that the Church is responsible for participating in the salvific work of Christ. The second premise is where we will discover the role of "sin" and the Holy Spirit. Here, we will explore how Gutierrez does not develop a sufficient unideological framework for the Church to coherently embrace a Marxist mode of historical materialism, and the consequent power to critique, without falling into contradiction. However, it will also be where we uncover the Holy Spirit as a jumping off point from which we can develop an ontological formulation on which Christian theology can account for Marx's ontological critique of religion.

One of the motivations for Gutierrez's relocating of Christological salvation within history is to overcome the unfruitful dualisms intrinsic to overly spiritualized interpretations of salvation.9 That is, for Gutierrez, individual salvation (as well as the eschaton), cannot be relegated as a mere escape unto a supernatural, ahistorical or "transcendent" realm of being (i.e. individually or societally): [T]here are not two histories, one profane and one sacred, "juxtaposed" or "closely linked." Rather there is only one human destiny, irreversibly assumed by Christ, the Lord of history. His redemptive work embraces all the dimensions of existence and brings them to their fullness. The history of salvation is the very heart of human history.10 The implications of this standpoint undergird his non-dualistic view of eschatology, that is, whatever salvation future may exist, it comes to be only in and through history. "It is not sufficient," he writes, "to acknowledge that eschatology is valid in the future as well as in the present." Because eschatology must be linked intrinsically to history, (he calls it an "intrahistorical reality"11 ) the modern idea that eschatology can be both future and present leads inevitably to an alienating interpretation of the present state and supports a dualistic matter-spirit solution. Because of the close scriptural links between creation (specifically, in the material sense of the word and doctrine) and salvation, any interpretation that reifies a dualistic bifurcation of material versus spiritual salvation is not faithful to the Biblical narrative.12

Despite the fact that Gutierrez takes many lengths to overcome the dualism which has been reified through traditional motifs of eschatological thought (overcoming the tension between the present and the future) he still accounts for an essential discontinuity by developing how "liberating historical events" aid in the growth of the Kingdom, but ultimately the Kingdom must arrive as a gift: [...] [W]e can say that the historical, political liberating even is the growth of the Kingdom and is a salvific event; but it is not the coming of the Kingdom, not all of salvation. [...] It is a distinction made from a dynamic viewpoint, which has nothing to do with the one which holds for the existent of two juxtaposed "orders," closely connected or convergent, but deep down different from each other.13 Ultimately, as much as Gutierrez emphasizes the role of the Church in the coming of the Kingdom, and as the mediator of the salvific work of Christ in the material realm, there remains a necessary acknowledgement that the Kingdom (in its totality) will come as part of a gift which still appears future and inaccessible to humankind in the present.14

One underlying question which vivifies a dualistic matter-spirit interpretation of the eschatological unfolding of Christ's work in the world is the role of sin. For example, if the Christian is in fact "saved," and indwelled with God via the Holy Spirit, what role does can the "sinful state of being" play in the individual? What about in the fallen, material world? It would seem, sometimes, that the Christian is saved in the immaterial, ideological realm to act properly, but not in the realm of history as the promised, perfect material world has yet to arrived. A dualistic interpretation lends itself to bifurcating the realms of spirit and matter (as Gutierrez has previously alluded too) in an attempt to rectify this issue. It is, therefore, not a surprise that he continues to attempt to develop a harmartiology which can be assimilated into his historical and material interpretation of the salvific work of Christ. Gutierrez notes the tendency of historical interpretations of salvation—"theologies enthusiastic about human progress"—to imply a "naive optimism" and deny the role of sin.15 Instead, he recasts sin as a fundamental lack in individuals tied to and also preventing the historic unfolding of the social-eschatological dimension: [...] [I]n the liberation approach sin is not considered as an individual, private, or merely interior reality—asserted just enough to necessitate a "spiritual" redemption which does not challenge the order in which we live. Sin is regarded as a social, historical fact, the absence of brotherhood and love in relationships among men, the breach of friendship with God and with other men, and, therefore, an interior, personal fracture. [...] Sin is evident in oppressive structures, in the exploitation of man by man, in the domination and slavery of peoples, races and social classes. Sin appears, therefore, as the fundamental alienation, the root of a situation of injustice and exploitation.16 In other words sin does not transcend history. It can be tied specifically to a fundamental lack in humanity to fulfill the central purpose of overcoming alienation and achieving a communion among humankind. This communion is rooted in the very communion of the Triune God, and sin can be defined as anything that rejects the fullness of this participation in the life of God.17 Our participation in the life of God is the fundamental nature of God's being as communion—humankind as such can only achieve this liberated reality in communion with God, and communion with God can only be achieved through this liberation among men. Gutierrez unpacks this theme through the theological themes of justice, charity and love: "When justice does not exist, God is not known; he is absent;"18 "Charity, the love of God for men, is found incarnated in human love [...] and leads to its fullness;"19 "To love one's brother, to love all men, is a necessary and indispensable mediation of the love of God; it is to love God."20 All of these things, Gutierrez emphasizes are, and can only be, expressed essentially through "concrete action."21 This concrete action which fulfills the liberating work of salvation is set in opposition to sin.

How, then, can the imperative for "concrete action" be premised in a way that is unideological? Gutierrez implicates the role of the Incarnation and the Holy Spirit in this humanistic and material orientation of the actions of the individual: [...] Paul tells us: "It is in Christ that the complete being of the Godhead dwells embodied" (Col. 2:9; cf. Eph. 2:20-22; 1 Pet. 2:4-8). God manifests himself visibly in the humanity of Christ, the God-Man, irreversibly committed to human history.

Christ is the temple of God. This explains Paul's insistence that the Christian community is a temple of living stones, and that each Christian, a member of this community, is a temple of the Holy Spirit [...]22 Here, we see already, (and to which we will return) that God's presence in humankind vis-à-vis the Incarnation and the Holy Spirit serves as a guiding grundaxiom in Paul's theology, and furthermore, his anthropology and its ethical implications. In the ecclesiological frame of thought concerning Pentecost, the immanence of God (through the Holy Spirit) in humankind accounts for the proper consideration of other Christians. It is likely with this in mind that Gutierrez ensures that the process of the indwelling of God in man through the incarnation and the Holy Spirit is of universal application and not merely to the Church; "Since God has become man, humanity, every man, history, is the living temple of God. The 'pro-fane,' that which is locate outside the temple, no longer exists."23 This notion of utter dignity of all humankind as sacred therefore forms the bases for an ontological implicative which upends the traditional notion of religion as being based on a fundamentally alienating ideology. Gutierrez, here, identifies—scripturally, and as it is evident through the witness of the early church and faithful to the pneumatological development throughout the centuries—the basis for a reframing of Christian theology that is grounded in a humanistic and historical materialist ontology. This, then is the ontological, framework can effectively respond to (and dialogue with) Marx's critique of religion.

footnotes

  1. Gutierrez, 10. ↩

  2. Cf. Robert C. Tucker (ed.), The Marx-Engels Reader, (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1978), 64, 198: "This subsuming of individuals under definite classes cannot be abolished until a class has taken shape, which has no longer any particular class interest to assert against the ruling class." Marxist allusion to the "classless" society in both Contribution to a Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right and The German Ideology deserve further comparison to the liberation theologies vision of "full communion with God and brotherhood among men." As we see here, and in further consideration of Paul's Christological theology, the assertion of the equivalency between the personal and communal interest serve undergirding aspects to all of these constructions, but a through examination is outside the scope of this analysis. ↩

  3. Gutierrez, 166f. Gutierrez criticizes Yve Congar's interpretation of the salvific dimension of the Israelites' Exodus by divorcing spiritual and temporal redemption: "The impression does indeed exists that [...] there is an assumption which should be brought to the surface, namely a certain idea of the spiritual characterized by a kind of Western dualistic thought (matter-spirit), foreign to the Biblical mentality. And it is becoming more foreign also to the contemporary mentality. This is a disincarnate 'spiritual,' scornfully superior to all earthly realities. The proper way to pose the question does not seem to us to be in terms of 'temporal promise or spiritual promise.' Rather, [...] it is a matter of partial fulfillments through liberating historical events, which are in turn new promises marking the road towards total fulfillment. Christ does not 'spiritualize' the eschatological promises; he gives them meaning and fulfillment today (cf. Luke 4:21); but at the same time he opens new perspectives by catapulting history forward, forward towards total reconciliation." ↩

  4. Ibid, 153; (emphasis own). Cf. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Phenomenon of Man, (New York: Harper & Rox, 1959): Gutierrez refers at various points to Teilhard de Chardin approvingly on the subject of defeating the dualism between matter-spirit; at the same time, he distances himself from the "naive optimism" of which Teilhard has been accused in his evolutionary contextualization of the forward progression of man. For further reading of Teilhard's perspective on the position of man in the evolutionary system he creates see "The Requirements of the Future," (p. 229-232). ↩

  5. Ibid, 167. ↩

  6. Cf. Ibid, 153-160; Kee, 172f; Kee supports this reading of the importance of the scriptural links between creation and salvation in Gutierrez thought. Here, he also critiques the use of the Exodus narrative within theologies of liberation (the narrative is utilized throughout a variety of liberation theologians beyond Gutierrez such as José Miguez Bonino, Revolutionary Theology Comes of Age, (London: SPCK, 1975), p. 87). In response to Bonino's assertion that "The Exodus experience is paradigmatic, Kee writes: "Or is it not in important respects rather the opposite? First, in terms of conscientization, there is no evidence in the Exodus account that the Hebrews took any initiative in the analysis and transformation of their situation. But secondly, there is a moral issue. Were there no poor and oppressed Egyptians when the Hebrews lived in slavery? Is it entirely in order that their firstborn were killed so that the Hebrews might go free? How many brave liberation theologians who flourish Exodus like a weapon have read that smallprint?" Kee continues by quoting Ex. 12:29 (cf. Ex. 11:4f) where the narrative tells us the Lord also smote "the first-born of the captive who was in the dungeon" in Egypt. Kee's critique of liberation theologies use of the Exodus narrative is apt. It is not, however, debilitating to the use of this narrative in general, but rather a pointed critique of the less than sufficient depths which it has been probed by liberation theologians, despite their utilization of it. What really undergirds this critique—which, to this point, is not throughly dealt with by liberation theology—is how the Christian theologian accounts for the role of scripture within a historical materialist approach. ↩

  7. Gutierrez, 177; (emphasis original). ↩

  8. Cf. Ibid, 177: "Without liberating historical events, there would be no growth of the Kingdom. But the process of liberation will not have conquered the very roots of oppression and the exploitation of man by man without the coming of the Kingdom, which is above all a gift;" (emphasis own). It seems here, that Gutierrez is still required to recreate the dualism he is attempting to overthrow, but instead of being set explicitly in terms of matter-spirit, it is set in present-future terms within history. ↩

  9. Ibid, 175. ↩

  10. Ibid, 175. ↩

  11. Ibid, 198: "To be saved is to reach the fullness of love; it is to enter into the circle of charity which unites the three Persons of the Trinity; it is to love as God loves. The way to this fullness of love can be no other than love itself, the way of participation in this charity, the way of accepting, explicitly or implicitly, to say with the Spirit: "Abba, Father" (Gal 4:6). Acceptance is the foundation of all brotherhood among men. To sin is to refuse to love, to reject communion and brotherhood, to reject even now the very meaning of human existence." ↩

  12. Ibid, 195 ↩

  13. Ibid, 199 ↩

  14. Ibid, 200 (emphasis original) ↩

  15. Ibid, 195: "This encounter with God in concrete actions towards others, especially the poor, is so profound and enriching that by basing themselves on it the prophets can criticize—always validly—all purely external worship;" 199: "[...] [T]his charity exists only in concrete actions (feeing the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, etc.); it occurs of necessity in the fabric of relationships among men;" 200: "[...] [H]e will find the authentic love of God only by means of a real, concrete approach to men." ↩

  16. Ibid, 192f. ↩

  17. Ibid, 194 ↩