Liberating Eschatology: Reevaluating Early Liberation Theology and Marx’s Critique of Religion
The conclusion of this analysis, will seek to address specifically how to build upon the work of liberation theology, compensating for its idealogical and conceptual deficiencies, in light of the previous reading of Paul's letter. Another early liberation theologian, Leonardo Boff, was a Brazilian priest highly sensitive to the barriers necessary for the acceptance of liberation theologies by the Catholic Church. The reaction to his publication of Church: Charism and Power (Essays in Militant Ecclesiology) was critical and polemical. Its publication corresponded with his summons to Rome in 1984 and a conversation with (then) Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger in tandem with the Church publishing the Instruction on Certain Aspects of the "Theology of Liberation."46 Boff published another work with his brother Clodovis Boff coinciding with the instruction in an attempt to clarify disagreements and misunderstandings. In this publication he offers an autobiographical account of the meetings in Rome and point toward the work necessary for further development of theologies of liberation. In an account of these challenges Boff writes, "[...] [O]n the theoretical level, the theology of liberation must improve its 'epistemological profile,' its theoretical status [...]"47 This recommendation is not unprecedented as it appears commensurate with Ratzinger's primary critique of Marxian appropriations in Liberation Theology: [...] [T]he term "scientific" exerts an almost mythical fascination even though everything called "scientific" is not necessarily scientific at all. That is why the borrowing of a method of approach to reality should be preceded by a careful epistemological critique. This preliminary critical study is missing from more than one "theology of liberation."48 It is likely that Boff's epistemological recommendation is directly correlated to Ratzinger's criticism. In either case, the publication of these criticisms, and the controversy surrounding these meetings in Rome marks the end (or first major roadblock) in the development of liberation theologies within the Catholic church. It is from these remarks concerning the nature of systematic integration of Marxian critique to which we turn in our conclusion.
On one hand, part of the goal of this analysis could be interpreted as a response to calls for this "epistemological profile" pertaining to the appropriation of Marxist critique in Christian theology. A theology which can construct an adequate framework for appropriation must account for his ontological critique of religion and ideology; this is the essence of Kee's thoroughly developed criticism of liberation theologies' uses of Marx which, to a certain extent, we have followed throughout this analysis.49 However, following Marx's own ontological critique of religion there is a fundamental problem with calling for, or proposing, a framework for utilizing Marxist critique on epistemological grounds.50 That is, a framework proposed on epistemological grounds is premised on an ideological view of rationality which is subject itself to Marx's own ontological critique and is in conflict with its own terms. Any theology, therefore, which attempts to build a foundation from a purely epistemological premise toward these purposes devolves inevitably into an irreconcilable reliance on ideology (cased in rational idealism) and fails to account for its "real" premise in life-process.51 Part and parcel to twentieth century thought has been the struggle to develop a framework which reconciles ontology and epistemology and can account for the prevailing material, scientific and historical premises of life.52 This to say, epistemological solutions, in the traditionally rational mode of consideration, fall short as a comprehensive base for the appropriation of Marxist critique in theology.53 The conclusion therefore, is twofold: first, that we have proposed an ontological framework which provides a basis for the appropriation of a Marxist critique through our exegesis of Paul's letter to the Romans and the reconsideration of the God-world relationship; and second, that this framework can buttress theologies of liberation by casting contemporary eschatology in a historical and immanent mold more consonant with the early church's understanding of "the kingdom of God."
One of, if not the, most foundational message of the Gospel is that due to the Incarnation and the Holy Spirit humankind, along with material reality itself, can be located within the divine life of God rather than without. Humankind is not an abstract profanity squatting outside "God," trying to penetrate the inaccessible.54 This appears evident in the guiding Christological and pneumatological reflection of the early Church. Theology, when humankind is in fact a participant in the divine life of God, overcomes the alienating nature which so Marx astutely observes—as we have argued here, not unlike the Apostle Paul. In its truest form Christian theology is based on the dignity of mankind—because of its participation in the divine life—and therefore, can be founded on the material premises and circumstances of humankind. In this way, theology can continue beyond the criticism that religion and ideology reconciles people with evil, and operate as a dominating ideology over them. Not, however, in the traditional way, btu rather by emerging changed by Marx's trial of fire. If we are, in fact, participants in the divine life of God as has been stipulated here, there is an ontological bases for religious thought which does not tear from humankind from its "real" self and place it in subjection to an illusion.55 Religion, on these premises, is not "the illusory sun about which man revolves so long as he does not revolve himself;"56 but rather, the recognition that man himself stands in the sun, and the sun, burns in him.
Gutierrez (and other's like Bloch and Moltmann) rely on the notion of "hope" to categorize the applicability of the "eschatological dimension" in the present age. It seems, however, that even Paul himself, attempts to reframe this when he writes, "For in hope we have been saved, but hope that is seen is not hope; for who hopes for what he already sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, with perseverance we wait eagerly for it." Paul undermines the basic premise of hope as possessing a definite predicate, rather it is the absence of a predicate the determines the nature of the hope which Paul expresses. Recognizing that the present state of affairs is not what it could be, does not require the delimitation of its actualization in the future for us to achieve it. Rather, the potential for this "future" already exists pregnant within us, and present within the material world itself awaiting its release, realization and revelation. The liberating power of the gospel, and likewise, the mode of Marxist critique, lies not in the ability to harness the energy of humankind and direct it toward a world that could exist in the future, but in its ability to expose the world that could exist now. Until this basic modality of thinking and being shifts we will not reconcile the underlying incongruity of its ontological premises, the future—the eschaton—remains in ideological domination of the present.
It is evident that there are a plethora of implications for theology, sociology, pneumatology, Christology, and so on. The questions, which remain unanswered, are applicable for both the Christian and Marxist. More importantly, our premises accomplish precisely our goal: when eschatology is liberated from the alienation implicit to itself, the practical ends of study and critique are liberated likewise from eschatology.57 Not only is "eschatology" simply subsumed by new modes of "political theology," but it is transmuted into present- ology; to put it more precisely, ontology —the study of what we are, of what we could be, and of what we are not. We neither "descend from heaven to earth" nor "ascend from earth to heaven," instead we discover that these domains are not mutually exclusive.58 With Marx we can follow that "[...] the criticism of heaven is transformed into the criticism of earth," but not in the sense that they supersede each other as Marx implies—but rather, because the have become co-implicative realms.59 This does not only implicate the social level of study, but a study of all forms and stratifications of being from the lowest to highest level—their possibilities, their actualities and the unity of their existence.
And with the same spirit with which Leo Tolstoy ends his eponymous 1884 work, we can, on these bases, offer an emphatic rejoinder to Jesus' words: "And when he was demanded of the Pharisees, when the kingdom of God should come, he answered them and said, 'The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you.'"60
footnotes
Cf. Leonardo Boff and Clodovis Boff, Liberation Theology: From Confrontation to Dialogue, (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1985) trans. Robert R. Barr; 79ff; Boff's Church: Charism and Power has been republished (with a slightly more mollified subtitle) in light of recent recognition of his work: Leonardo Boff, Church Charism and Power: Liberation Theology and the Institutional Church, (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2012); see editor's note on p. vii for an recapitulation of the meeting with Cardinal Ratzinger. ↩
Boff, 37 ↩
Ratzinger, 8 (emphasis own) ↩
Kee, 282f; Cf. Peter Scott, "[Review:] Marx and the Failure of Liberation Theology by Alistair Kee," Journal of Theological Studies 42, no. 1 (1991), 436: "[...] Kee argues that liberation theology, contrary to the opinions of many of its critics, fails to take Marxism seriously enough;" cf. Kee, 195-201: Here, Kee takes Clodovis Boff to task for his work Theology and Praxis: Epistemological Foundations, (Maryknoll: Orbisbooks, 1987). He argues for the insufficiency of "theological presuppositions and assumptions" which C. Boff attempts to explicate methodological. However, it seems, Kee has missed the very point of his own criticism—the problem with reconciling Marxism and Christianity is not epistemological, it is ontological. ↩
Cf. Scott, 437ff: Here, Scott criticizes Kee (appropriately) for failing to properly develop the epistemological bases for Marx's critique of religion as reversal insofar as Kee relies on it for his criticism of Liberation Theology. Kee, notably, does this self-admittedly, and it is also agreed, by both Scott and Kee, that the debate with Marxism on this point emphasizes the lack of development Marx undertakes himself. Nevertheless, Scott's question of Kee is correct; however, it is framed within the confines of the "epistemology" of both theology, and Marx's critique of religion: "[...] [W]e have to ask the question: what sort of theology might respond to the Marxist critique? Or, put more sharply, we must ask what are the epistemological principles that Marxisim insists Christian theology must meet in order to be liberative and not ideological?" He concludes; 441: "[W]e need to know, at the level of epistemology, how any theory, including theology, functions as ideology, how it functions as reversal. And we need to know the Marxist conditions for a theology to be liberative. If we could answer these questions, we could begin to construct a theology, against the epistemological ground rules laid down by Marxism, that perhaps might escape the charge of reversing reality;" (emphasis original). From both the Christian and Marxian perspective the question is misplaced when seen, in the primary sense, as "epistemological" rather than ontological. In order for it to be epistemological, it must be based first on a proper ontological account of knowledge—this, it seems, is the fundamental "epistemological" suggestion Marx makes with his critique of religion as reversal: since religion (knowledge, ideology etc.) first arise from life-process, they must be understood first in this regard—that is, ontologically. Only from this standpoint, can one develop an "epistemology" which appropriately accounts for the place of humanity and life-process within the course of material history. ↩
Cf. Tucker, 149ff esp. 155: "Men are the producers of their conceptions, ideas, etc.— real, active men, as they are conditioned by a definite development of their productive forces and of the intercourse corresponding to these up to its furthest forms. Conciousness can never be anything else than conscious existence, and the existence of men is their actual life-process," (emphasis own). ↩
One under-appreciated writer worth mention, who has worked extensively along these lines is Hungarian chemist-turned-philosopher Michael Polanyi (1981-1976): cf. Personal Knowledge: Towards a Post-Critical Philosophy, (Chicago UP: 1958); Michael Polanyi, Knowing and Being, (Chicago UP: 1969), ed. Marjorie Greene; and Michael Polanyi, The Tacit Dimension, (Chicago UP: 2009). ↩
Cf. Boff, 53: "The 'urgency of practical incidences' proclaimed by the Instructions does not automatically produce these practical incidences, all idealistic illusions to the contrary nowithstanding. Hell is paved with good intentions. 'Good ideas" do no work ex opere operato. Liberation, as the structure of the word suggests, is an action, and it consists in the act of liberating captive freedom. Liberation activity can receive illumination and support from the 'thematics' of liberation, but they cannot replace it;" Liberation theologians (like Boff does here), attempt to address a similar sentiment insistently through their emphasis on praxis over theory, action over idea. This, of course, is a consonant and appropriate response to Marx's critique of religion as we see Boss express here. All this to say, early theologies of liberation would support the implications here, although laying the groundwork for appropriation epistemologically, rather than ontologically, fails to give a complete consideration of the basis for "action" (as Boff insists) that holds up against Marx's critique of ideology. ↩
Cf. Tucker, 53: "But man is not an abstract being, squatting outside the world." ↩
Cf. Ibid, 54: "The call to abandon their illusions about their conditions is a call to abandon a condition which requires illusions." ↩
Cf. Ibid, 54: ↩
Cf. Teilhard de Chardin, 273f: Despite what is often deemed a deterministic evolutionary framework for the progress of man, Teilhard's concluding sentiments on the future, are consonant our basic thesis here: "No one would dare to picture to himself what the noosphere will be like in its final guise, no one, that is, who has glimpsed however faintly the incredible potential of unexpectedness accumulated in the spirit of the earth. The end of the world defies imagination," (emphasis own). ↩
Tucker, 154. ↩
Ibid, 54: "Thus the criticism of heaven is transformed into the criticism of earth, the criticism of religion into the criticism of law, and the criticism of theology into the criticism of politics. " ↩
Luke 17:20f KJV; cf. Leo Tolstoy, The Kingdom of God is Within You, (US: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1970), 380. ↩
references
- Karl Marx — Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy — Peer-reviewed institutional overview of Marx’s philosophy, historical materialism, ideology, and political thought