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by Jon Sobrino
Chapter 7 from Systematic Theology - Perspectives
from Liberation Theology
edited by Jon Sobrino, S.J. and Ignacio
Ellacuria, S.J.
SCM Press Ltd 1996 pg 124-145
reproduced on this www.womenpriests website with the kind permission of
Orbis publishers. See more details of this book on
http://www.maryknollmall.org/description.cfm?ISBN=1-57075-068-8
The chapter will develop, in the form of a sketch, the core of a
systematic christology that presupposes the content of the foregoing account
(Jesus the Mediator, Christ the Liberator), as well as the specific premises of
liberation theology(1),that is: (a) that the central object of the theology of
liberation is the Reign of God,(b) that the goal of this theology is
liberation, and therefore that it understands itself as the theory of a
praxis,(3) and (c) that liberation theology is developed from a determinate
locus, that of the poor of this world.(4)
I. THEORETICAL CHRISTOLOGY: JESUS AS THE MEDIATOR OF THE
REIGN OF GOD
All christology must assert the ultimacy and transcendence of Christ,
and the christology of liberation must do so from what it regards as actually
ultimate: the Reign of God. To this end, methodologically, liberation
christology begins its reflection with the person of Jesus of Nazareth himself,
since it is here that the relationship between Jesus and the Reign of God
appears with all clarity.
Let us state from the outset that our attention to Jesus is not a
reduction of christology to a pure “Jesuology,” but only the
selection of a determinate methodology. Whether our approach will be a fruitful
one will be seen after the execution of our analysis. But let us observe that
it is at least possible for it to be fruitful, as other systematic
christologies today have established. Karl Rahner, for example, concludes that
a christology could be developed from something central to the historical Jesus
and wonders “whether a human being who is the vessel of an absolute, pure
love, free of any kind of selfishness, must not be something more than merely
human(5) For our purposes, the important thing in this citation does not reside
so much in its specific understanding of Jesus (“an absolute, pure
love”), but in the proposition of the possibility of constructing
christology on the historical Jesus. For our part, we shall attempt to do so in
terms of the relationship of the historical Jesus with the Reign of God.
1 Ultimacy of Jesus in Terms of the Reign of God
In the Synoptics, Jesus’ relationship with the Reign of God, which
we here define formally as the ultimate will of God for this world, is central.
That Reign and its proximity are presented by Jesus as the actual
ultimate. This shapes his person, in the exteriority of his mission (with
respect to “making history”) and in the interiority of his
subjectivity (his own historicity). It is also this that precipitates his
historical destiny, that of the cross. His very resurrection is God’s
response to one who, for serving the Reign, has been put to death by the
anti-Reign. In other words, in order to come to know the specifically Christian
element of the Reign of God, one must turn to Jesus. But just so, conversely,
in order to know Jesus one must turn to the Reign of God.
Jesus himself asserts this relationship between the Reign of God and his
person. At times his assertion is explicit: “If it is by the Spirit of God
that I expel demons, then the reign of God has overtaken you” (Matt. 12:28
and par.). At other times he posits this relationship in an implicit but real
way: in various of the actions of his praxis which can and should be
interpreted as signs of the coming of the Reign in behalf of the poor (his
miracles, his exorcisms, the welcome he extends to the weak and oppressed); in
his struggle with the anti-Reign (controversies, denunciations, exposé
of oppressors); or in his celebration of the presence of the Reign (meals).
Thus, Jesus appears in an essential and constitutive relationship with
the Reign of God, with the ultimate will of God - with that which we call
systematically the mediation of God. And systematically we call this
Jesus, in his relationship with the mediation, the mediator of the will
of God; that is, the person who proclaims the Reign, who posits signs of its
reality and points to its totality. For systematic christology, the question is
how to move from the reality of Jesus as mediator to his reality as definitive
mediator of the Reign of God. All christologies must face this question, since
all of them must take the step - the leap, really - from Jesus’ historical
reality to a profession of his ultimacy. (We could make an exception for those
obsolete christologies in which certain of Jesus’ deeds - his miracles, or
his prophecies - or his resurrection automatically provide the step, the leap,
to the ultimacy of Christ. But almost no one today accepts the miracles and
prophecies as automatically forcing this transition, and the leap justified by
the resurrection ultimately requires faith in the resurrection.)
In an analysis of the qualitative bound from Jesus as mediator to Jesus
as the definitive mediator of the Reign, it must be taken into account whether
and where there is some kind of discontinuity that would make that
transition reasonable - although to accept it as radical discontinuity will in
the last analysis always be a matter of faith. Along these lines we might
recall Jesus’ daring proclamation of the imminence of this Reign and the
indefectible victory of God, his daring in declaring the symmetry broken
forever in which God could possibly come as a savior or possibly as a
condemning judge - to all of which would correspond the discontinuity in his
hearers: “At last salvation has come for the poor.” This daring on
Jesus’ part in announcing the coming of God in the Reign, and in
proclaiming the gratuitous, salvific, and liberative reality of God that draws
near with the proximity of God, would offer some kind of discontinuity
regarding the historical viewpoint, in terms of which theology could now
reflect upon the special relationship of Jesus with the transcendent.
At the same time, Jesus appears in continuity with other, earlier
mediators - Moses, the prophets, the Servant, and so on. In other words, Jesus
appears as a human being immersed in this same current of a historical course
traversed with honesty before the truth, mercy before the suffering of another,
justice before the oppression of the masses, a loving dedication to his
mission, total fidelity to God, indestructible hope, the sacrifice of his life.
(This last element - although disdained by christologies that seek only the
specific, peculiar element in Jesus - offers a very considerable systematic
advantage when it comes to establishing the later dogmatic tenet of the true
humanity of Jesus as a participation in the best that the human being has ever
been or done.) The assertion of Jesus’ absolute discontinuity is a matter
of faith, as we have said. We cannot, therefore, propose a reality of Jesus
that would mechanically force the qualitative leap to his status as the
mediator (as Rahner cannot move mechanically from Jesus’ love presented
historically to a total love in total discontinuity). What we can propose is a
reality of Jesus in terms of which we can also gain a meaningful formulation -
in our opinion, a more meaningful formulation than we gain from a point of
departure in other realities - of this leap to the mediator. What we
have called Jesus’ daring can function as an index, a pointer, an
indicator, of the transcendent ultimacy of his person. And a grasp of what is
human in Jesus - which is in no way novel in its formal characterization - can
point to his human ultimacy, not as differentiation, but as fullness of the
human.
Christians actually made this qualitative leap after the resurrection.
From our perspective we add that the resurrection can also be presented as
confirmation of the truth of Jesus as the mediator of the Reign, and not only
as an arbitrary act posited by God for the purpose of revealing the reality of
that God - which could have just as well occurred in the resuscitation of any
other corpse. If this had been the only “reason” for the resurrection
the resurrection would be something extrinsic to Jesus’ life and would say
nothing of his being as mediator. But if the one to whom “life has been
restored” is one who proclaimed the commencement of life for the poor and
therefore was deprived of life himself, if the one who has been raised is one
who ended as a victim of the anti-Reign, then the resurrection can very well be
understood systematically as the confirmation of the mediator, the confirmation
of his (objectively) theological daring, and the confirmation of the fullness
of the human occurring in his person. Then the qualitative leap of faith can be
made, and the christological concept formulated of Jesus of Nazareth as the
mediator of the Reign of God.
In terms of the Reign of God, then, the reality of Jesus can be
formulated, and in terms of the ultimacy of the Reign the ultimacy of Jesus can
be formulated. What must be analyzed - due to the fact that it has been
consecrated in the dogmatic formutations - is whether this formulation, in
terms of the Reign of God, is compatible with the more usual focus on the
divine ultimacy of Jesus in relation to the person of God the Father, as well
as with a focus on his human ultimacy (the former, surely, usually being held
much more in account in a theological analysis of the historical Jesus than the
latter).
Jesus’ Divinity
With respect to establishing the divinity of Jesus, it is clear
that the gospels place Jesus in a relationship with the person of God in which
he calls God his Father. However, the content of this concept of God as Father
is not incompatible with that of the God of the Reign - although each of these
expressions of ultimacy has its own specificity. They are not interchangeable
as concepts, nor can either be adequately deduced from the other by way of pure
conceptual reflection. But at least it must be admitted that they are related,
and that to a large extent they converge. To this same extent, Jesus’
relationship with the divine ultimate - on which his own divine ultimacy will
be based-can be developed in terms of the God of the Reign and in terms of God
as Father. And then, also in terms of the ultimacy of the Reign of God, the
divine element in Jesus can be approached. Let us briefly examine the
convergence of the God of the Reign with the Father of Jesus.
In both perspectives Jesus appears in a relationship with a God who has
a specific content - a positive one for human beings, with the qualities of
mercy, justice, partiality toward the poor, the weak, and the little ones, and
a God who generates, and elicits, honesty, trust, hope, freedom, joy, and the
like. This fundamental convergence can be observed in the texts in which Jesus
appears in his personal relationship with God the Father, as well as in the
many parables of the Reign that show this kind of God, a God who makes possible
and who demands such a relationship.
At the same time, once more in both perspectives, Jesus appears in a
relationship with a God who is mystery-who must be allowed to be God, and with
whom one must strike a relationship of absolute openness and availability.
Thus, in darkness before this Father, Jesus asks that the divine will be done;
and in the darkness of the coming of the Reign, he exclaims that only the
Father knows the hour of that coming.
Jesus’ personal relationship with the divinity, then, can be
analyzed in terms of his relationship with his Father, surely; but it can also
be analyzed in terms of his relationship with the God of the Reign. In this
sense the mediator of the Reign of God can also be understood as the Son
of God without doing violence to either term.
Jesus’ Humanity
When it comes to establishing the humanity of Jesus, Jesus’
relationship with the Reign of God offers greater advantages than any other
biblical or dogmatic focus (such as a general profession of his human nature,
an analysis of his attitudes, or the like). The fundamental reason for this is
that, in confrontation with the Reign of God, the totality of the person of
Jesus in action comes into view. Guided by Kant’s three questions - to
which we shall add a fourth-in the answer to which is expressed the totality of
the human, we readily observe that Jesus’ relationship with the Reign of
God evinces (a) the knowledge Jesus has and communicates concerning the
Reign of God and the anti-Reign, (b) the hope that he stirs in others
and that supports him as well (hope in the coming of the Reign), (c) the
praxis he performs in the service of that Reign, and his historical
celebration of the fact that the Reign has “already” come.
Should someone wish to argue that this comprehensive actualization of
the human element of Jesus can also be deduced from his relationship with the
Father, we answer that, quantitatively, there are far fewer texts bearing on
Jesus’ relationship with the Father than with the Reign of God;
systematically, Jesus’ human interiority is better known from the
exteriority of his relationship with the Reign. It is this exteriority that
shows us concretely a Jesus who is honest with the truth, merciful and just, a
denouncer and exposer, available and faithful. It is this exteriority, required
by the building of the Reign of God, that shapes his personal interiority with
reference to God.
Finally, his relationship with the Reign sets in deeper relief the
specific characteristics of the authentically human: honesty with reality,
mercy as a primary reaction, justice demanded in the face of the oppression of
the masses, fidelity in trial and persecution, and the “greatest
love” of the laying down of one’s life.
In synthesis, Jesus’ human element, when seen in relationship with
the Reign of God and in its service, appears with certain particular
characteristics. Furthermore - something that is not usually emphasized in
systematic christologies - this human element appears as partiality, in
Jesus’ placement and incarnation, in the addressees of his mission, and in
his very fate. It appears as a human element in solidarity-as a specific
realization of the human in regard to other persons, as their brother, as a
human being who is for others and who wills to be with others.
2. Comparison of the Christology of "the Mediator of the Rein of God"
with Other Theoretical Chrisologies of the New Testament
The ultimacy of Jesus can be established from a point of departure in
the Reign of God, then. Now let us compare this way of proceeding with the
christologies of the New Testament. We make this comparison for the sake of a
better understanding of the specificity, and novelty, of the focus that we have
presented, as well as in order to discover a possible biblical justification
for our focus.(6)
The Titles
Generally speaking, as the New Testament proceeds, the Reign of God
tends to disappear as an expression of the ultimate, and more specifically, as
an explanation of the ultimacy of Jesus. Not that there is no longer an
expectation of the arrival of the ultimate-now joined to the parousia of Christ
- or that the notion of the Reign has no theological equivalent, such as the
“new creation,” or “new covenant,” which are also set in an
essential relationship with Jesus. But while there are surely these analogies
with the Reign of God, the latter - as Jesus proclaimed it - gradually dwindles
away, along with an attempt to identify Jesus’ ultimacy in terms of his
relationship with that Reign.
Indeed, the christologies of Jesus’ titles and destiny show that
some titles by their nature bear more directly on the Reign of God (the Prophet
who announces it, the Son of Man who proclaims it at the end of the ages, the
High Priest who strikes a new covenant, the Servant who burdens himself with
the anti-Reign), but these titles never become central in the New Testament
discourse itself and have practically disappeared in later history. The title
of Messiah (the Anointed One, the Christ) constitutes a case apart: it does
bespeak a primordial relation to a people’s hopes of liberation (in
various ways, as we know). It is akin, then, to our systematic title Mediator,
but in coming to be transformed into the proper name Jesus Christ,
paradoxically it lost its essential reference to the Reign of God.
In its place, New Testament christology explicitly developed the
ultimacy of Christ in titles that express his direct relation to the person of
God: Son of God, Lord, Word, Son. At the same time, although there are titles
that express the concrete manifestation of Jesus’ humanity, these never
attain the importance enjoyed by the others. Expressions like Revelation’s
“lamb that was slain” or Hebrews’ “brother,” for
example, do not come to be regarded as titles of Jesus’ humanity.
The reason why theoretical reflection took this direction could seem to
be that Jesus’ humanity was too obvious to need this sort of penetration.
But the fact is that we have a concentration on the titles that point to
Jesus’ relationship with the divinity, and the divinity understood rather
as the person of God the Father of Jesus than as the God of the Reign.
The Gospel Narratives
Surprisingly, along with these theoretical “title”
christologies, and after certain of them have been developed, the Christian
scriptures show us another way of doing theoretical christology: that of the
gospel narratives. The latter have, on the other hand, assimilated Jesus’
special relationship with the Father and so profess Jesus as Son of God (in
John, simply as Son). But the Synoptics react to this previously established
christology by showing Jesus’ ultimacy in his relationship with the Reign
of God, and showing the reality of his humanity as history.
They do not doubt that Christ is the Son of God; but they emphasize,
and from the very outset, that - in our terminology - the mediator of the Reign
of God has a concrete, specific history. In the first place, the gospels turn
to Jesus of Nazareth in a very precise manner: by narrating his history. True,
the gospels find themselves unable to historicize Jesus without theologizing
him. The gospels are theological narratives, then. But the converse is also
true: they are unable to theologize Jesus without historicizing him. This is
supremely important for systematic christology, at least as a possibility, and
it is this possibility that the narrative christology of the preceding chapter
reduces to reality.
In the second place - and more decisively for our topic - in the gospel
narratives what for Jesus is the ultimate is presented, it is true, in two
expressions: Reign of God and Abba. But quantitatively, the former
appears more than the latter, and the latter can well - indeed, better, to our
view - be understood in terms of the former rather than vice versa. Thus we
have an undeniable attempt on the part of the gospels to express the intimacy
of Jesus in terms of the Reign of God. In the third place, the gospel
narratives present the ultimacy of the Reign in the presence of what we may
call an anti-Reign. The Reign, then, is a dialectical reality, subsisting in
conflict with its antithesis. This point - which is not frequently made in the
systematic christologies - is essential for an understanding of the mediator,
as well. The mediator’s mission in behalf of the ultimacy of the Reign is
carried out in the presence of and in opposition to other ultimacies. Thus, the
mediator proclaims and serves the Reign, but he does so precisely by denouncing
and exposing the anti-Reign. He is presented in a, relationship of ultimacy
with a God who is his Father, but he maintains this relationship by renouncing
and combating the idols (all manner of oppressive power) that hold themselves
out as God. He strikes a solidarity with everything human, but he does so by
taking upon himself that which is dehumanizing: sin.
To be sure, this dialectical, conflictive dimension of reality is
present in other New Testament writings; but the concrete form in which it
appears in the gospel is more adequate-by reason of being historical and
narrative-to the purpose of making it understood. We might say that Jesus does
not appear as mediator, as Son and as human being, on a tabula rasa, but
amid a reality with which he struggles. He must come to be mediator,
Son, and human.
Finally, the gospel narratives show forth the partiality of God, the
mediation, and the mediator. This celebrated central point of the Hebrew
scriptures - the partiality or partisanship of God’s revelation in favor
of the poor, the weak, and the oppressed - could understandably have lost its
central place in the New Testament. After the resurrection, undeniably, the
universality of salvation is proclaimed. That is, in order to belong to the new
people of God one need no longer belong to any particular people or religion.
It is enough simply to be a human being. In this sense Jesus’ vision of a
primary mission to the sheep of Israel is transcended. But this real
universalism - in which the very existence and self-understanding of the church
is at stake implies no reason why the partiality of the mediation and the
mediator for the poor should be eliminated. This is the meaning of the gospel
narratives: the Reign of God is of the poor. The resurrection of Christ cancels
one kind of partiality, that based on religion or ethnic origin. But there is
no reason why it should cancel the partiality of the Reign and its mediator
based on poverty and oppression. On the contrary, the gospels emphasize this
partiality.
Choosing an Approach
We have entertained this brief reflection on two distinct theoretical
ways of doing christology in the New Testament, not in order to deny the
validity of one of them, that of the titles, which is the more consecrated
approach in the history of christology, but in order to come to a realization
that, throughout history, christology has de facto developed more along the
lines of only one of these possibilities, and that it happens to have been that
of an expression of the ultimacy of Jesus in terms of his relation to the
person of God. The gospel narratives show that there is another possibility.
Theoretical christology can also be done in terms of historicotheological
narratives. As Albert Schweitzer remarked, the most important thing about the
gospel of Mark is that it should have been written at all. When we proceed in
this manner, the ultimacy of Jesus can be expressed in terms of his
relationship with the Reign of God.
These two ways of doing christology are not mutually exclusive; indeed,
they actually require one another. In this brief systematic sketch, we have
expressed Jesus’ ultimacy precisely with a theoretical title, that of the
mediator of the Reign of God; but we have done so after, and on the basis of,
the previous chapter, which concerns itself with a narrative christology. We
have no intention, then, of excluding a christology of titles. However, we do
wish to analyze where systematic reflection ought to assign logical priority:
whether to narrative or to conceptual titles. Narrative offers the obvious
advantage of history itself: Jesus’ real life preceded his theorization at
the hands of faith. Furthermore, a narrative approach in christology enables us
to avoid the grave dangers that beset a christology of titles divorced from
christological narrative. Thus, the gospel narratives not only function as
expositive christology, but they also perform a critical and corrective
operation vis-à-vis a christology of titles alone.
The most serious danger, in terms of the perspective adopted in this
chapter, has already been cited: the titles can incline us to prescind from the
central thing about Jesus, the Reign of God, and ignore a christology
consistently based on the Reign. Furthermore, the titles, in their concrete,
historical development, can lead us to ignore the human element in Jesus (a
problem of content for christology), and to the serious error of imagining that
we know the content of his titles - his being lord, being Son, being high
priest, and so on - before knowing Jesus himself (a methodological problem).
In summary, we may say that Latin American systematic christology sees
within the Christian scriptures the theoretical possibility of beginning
christology with the evangelical narratives, and of finding in them the
ultimacy from which the ultimacy of Jesus will be better understood. Thus, it
sees a “New Testament justification” of its particular approach.
Finally, it finds in those same scriptures the importance of assigning priority
to the narrative concerning Jesus over his pure titles, inasmuch as the dangers
to which the former responds in the Christian scriptures continue to be present
in current history: ignoring the Reign of God, and the poor as its correlate;
neglecting Jesus’ humanity; and manipulating the concrete reality of
Christ.
II. PRAXIC CHRISTOLOGY: THE FOLLOWING OF JESUS
The believer’s faith does not create its object (fides
quae). It is of the essence of the Christian comprehension of the faith
that God has made a self-bestowal on us by grace. At the same time, however, no
object would have come to be recognized as an object of faith had it not
occasioned an act of faith (fides qua). Now if, as Rahner explains,
nothing created can be an object of faith, then, if there is such a thing as
faith, it must be a faith in something actually transcendent. A fides
qua, accordingly, testifies to a reality believed in and is an existential
help to understanding what the concrete content of this reality is. For
christology, this means that, besides being theoretical and analyzing a
fides quae, it must also analyze the corresponding fides qua -
for existential and pastoral reasons, as well as because to do so will help in
an understanding of the object of faith, in this case, Jesus Christ.
1. The Following of Jesus as an Existential Expression of Faith in
Christ
The fides qua can become real in the act of accepting the
transcendence of Christ, which can be proclaimed liturgically and
doxologically. But this fides qua can be expressed in another way, and it seems
to us a more radical way, by explicitly con fronting the historical Jesus. To
cite Rahner once more:
If the moral personality of Jesus in word and life, really makes such
a compelling impression on a person that they find the courage to commit
themselves unconditionally to this Jesus in life and death and therefore to
believe in the God of Jesus, that person has gone far beyond a merely
horizontal humanistic Jesuolatry, and is living (perhaps not completely
spontaneously, but really) an orthodox Christology.(7)
An Existential, Praxic Expression of Faith
This, we think, is what has actually occurred in the Christian
scriptures. Faith in Jesus was originally expressed in an existential, praxic
form, before Christians ever undertook to supply themselves with a theoretical
formulation of Jesus’ reality. Thus, they professed Jesus, liturgically
and doxologically, as the One raised, the One exalted, the Lord. But while this
is an expression of the fides qua, it is not its maximal expression.
Jesus’ ultimacy is expressed before all else - and in very principle - in
the ultimacy of one’s own life. This means a kind of life that, generally
speaking, is nothing other than a reproduction of the life of Jesus. One must
have the same sentiments as Christ (Paul), one must keep one’s eyes fixed
on Jesus and, as Jesus did, remain steadfast in suffering (Hebrews), and so on.
Comprehensively, one must follow Jesus. Thus, the Christian scriptures testify
that existential faith has priority over formulations of faith, and that the
former is expressed more radically as praxis of faith, as following or
discipleship.
A following of Jesus is the maximal expression of faith in Christ, since
the formal reason for it (although it may be accompanied by ancillary
motivations, such as the hope of a reward) is the sheer fact of the call of
Jesus; its content flows simply from the fact that this is the way Jesus was.
We see this relationship in the Christian scriptures between the act of faith
and following; it is all the more significant when we take account of the
opinion of some exegetes to the effect that the historical Jesus did not call
everyone to his discipleship, but only those who wished to be his active
followers. After the resurrection, however, when genuine faith in Christ
begins, “following and discipleship began to be the absolute expression of
Christian existence.”(8)
must conclude that, whatever the explicit consciousness that the first
Christians were acquiring of Jesus, as indicated in their ascribing titles to
him, they were expressing in their very lives and deaths the ultimacy they
attributed to him. It is this existential ultimacy that is consecrated in the
word “following” of Jesus. This is how the historical Jesus is
recovered in faith. When one attempts to reproduce the following of Jesus, then
the Reign of God reappears once more in a central place. Let us recall that, in
the first stage of Jesus’ public life, discipleship or following meant
proclaiming and positing signs of the Reign, while in the second stage it meant
steadfastness in the face of the mighty reaction of the anti-Reign. Without the
Reign of God, the following of Jesus would have neither its central motivation
nor its central content.
Historicization of the Following of Jesus
The following of Jesus throughout history must be historicized and
transformed into the continuation of his deed and his intent (as actually
occurred in the Christian scriptures), but the most important thing for
systematic christology is that there actually be this following in history.
This is what is happening in Latin America; the magnitude and quality of the
phenomenon are such that christology must take it seriously into account. It
cannot be doubted that the act of faith in Christ exists in Latin America, and
that this is shown in the following of Jesus and martyrdom. Nor can it be
doubted that the continuation of Jesus’ deed and intent in Latin America
recovers the fundamental structure of the historical Jesus. Therefore,
following stands in an essential relationship with the building of the Reign of
God and the destruction of the anti-Reign. This is occurring - in historical
factuality, without passing a judgment upon subjectivities - in a clearer
fashion, and in a more similar fashion to that of Jesus, than in other forms of
following throughout history. Nor can it be doubted that the actual martyrdoms
are historically very similar to that of Jesus and inflicted for the same
reasons as that of Jesus: the proclamation to the poor of the Reign of God and
the defense of the poor in combat with the anti-Reign.
2. Meaning of Following for Theoretical Christology
If this is the case, then we may say that the act of faith in Jesus, the
fides qua, still exists today in its maximal expression, following. What we
must ask ourselves is whether that following has a meaning for christology, and
if so, what meaning.
Witnesses of Faith Shed Light on the Fides Quae
The follower is a witness, someone who reproduces - in historicized
fashion - the life of Jesus. To what extent, and in what degree, this occurs is
open to discussion, of course, and should be analyzed; but it ought to occur in
principle, since otherwise the design of God that human beings be sons and
daughters in the Son would be in vain. And if per impossibile there were
no such thing as following, we should have the utter failure of God, and Christ
would not be the Son. Then, of course, there would be no christology.
But
if there actually is following, there can be christology, and account will have
to be taken of its content. Human beings may be faulty or defective ways of
being Christ, as Rahner says, but this implies positively that there is
something of Christ in them. To formulate the same thing in traditional
theological terms, and once more positively: if we are by grace what Christ is
by nature, then something of the reality of Christ must be knowable even by
looking at us, graced ones that we are.
Within this circularity, obviously the criterion of an analysis and
verification of the extent to which current witnesses express what is Christian
will be Jesus. But it is also clear that these current witnesses can say
something about Jesus. This is the familiar hermeneutic problem, only here its
circularity is demanded by the very essence of revelation. If Jesus is true God
and true human being, then anyone transparent to the divine and the human will
say something of Christ.
Our theoretical assertion seems to us to be an undeniable reality in
Latin America. Although the argument has to stand on its own, since one can
only point to the fact, it happens that many who saw Archbishop Romero - to
cite a single example of a faith witness - assert that he made Jesus better
known to them. It is also a fact that the Latin American witnesses have at
least opened the eyes of us who are exegetes, supplying us with new hermeneutic
horizons. It is a fact that peasants who hear the reading of the passion of
Jesus state very simply: “Exactly what happened to Archbishop
Romero.” Conversely, in terms of their knowledge of Archbishop Romero they
better understand the passion of Jesus. It is also a fact that the witnesses
have led persons to a more in-depth understanding of how the authentically
human becomes a sacrament of the authentically divine. In the words of Ignacio
Ellacuría “With Archbishop Romero God has visited El
Salvador.”
Theoretical christology can and should incorporate this argumentation.
It should argue in part from the reality of current witnesses. That this
argumentation ought to be cautious is supremely evident; but it would be even
more incomprehensible if no argumentation were ever based on witnesses in order
to know the antonomastic Witness, the witness par excellence. It would
be vain to ask the witnesses to keep their eyes fixed on the Witness, if
thereupon no reflection of him could ever be found in them.
Following Makes Possible the Limit Assertion of the Reality of Christ
Besides supplying content, the following of Jesus expresses the fact
that the object of faith is regarded as something ultimate. But like any
ultimate reality-which will be a mystery in the strict sense - this object not
only is unapproachable, it cannot be directly intuited. It can be meaningfully
conceptualized and verbalized after a “journey” - a transition from
what is already in some manner subject to experience and verifiable, to the
limit assertion in question.
he need to make this journey in order to be able to formulate limit
assertions has already been acknowledged by various christologies. For example,
it has been emphasized that the limit assertions of Chalcedon can have meaning
only after the completion of the theoretical pilgrimage of the New Testament
and the tradition of the first centuries. That is, knowing who Jesus was and
how he was theorized in the scriptures and church tradition has logical and
chronological priority if the limit assertions of Chalcedon are to have any
meaning.(9) Without this journey, this pilgrimage, the Chalcedonian formula
would be not only mysterious and incomprehensible, in the sense of being
ultimately unfathomable, but simply unintelligible, which is not the same
thing.
What we wish to emphasize here is that this journey must also - and more
radically - be praxic. That is, one must traverse the route of real following
in order for the formulation of ultimacy to have any meaning. This need abides
throughout history, and it would be naive of theoretical christology to think
that the task of traversing the route of actual following, in order to be able
to make limit formulations, could be delegated to the first Christians alone,
while afterward it would suffice to analyze these formulations, as
formulations, and to rest content with a theoretical development of their
virtualities throughout the rest of history.
This ultimate task is necessary and good, but - if it is a matter of
asserting the ultimacy of Christ - one cannot prescind from the fides
qua. Thus, one cannot prescind from realized following. Only in the
following of Jesus do we become like unto the reality of Jesus, and only on the
basis of this realized affinity does the internal knowledge of Christ become
possible. That Jesus is thereupon professed as the ultimate is the fruit of the
leap of faith, but it is supremely important to determine with the greatest
possible precision the locus of this leap. According to what we have said, that
locus is following, since apart from following one could not actually know what
is being spoken of when Christ is mentioned. After all, following means doing,
in terms of the present, what Jesus did, and doing it in the way that he did
it. It means the mission of building the Reign with the attitude and spirit of
Jesus. In this praxis a kinship is acquired - greater or lesser, obviously -
with Jesus, and this praxis (like all praxis) explains one’s antecedent
concept of Jesus, his mission, and his spirit.
On the other hand, our praxis, like that of Jesus, is also subject to
the vagaries of history. That is, although its horizon is the ultimate, its
concretions are not, and depending on how these come to be, the same praxis can
be verification of or temptation for faith itself. As a logical consequence,
even following could be the locus of not making the leap of faith, since it
could happen that, in following Jesus, one would come to the conclusion that
this route does not offer ultimacy. Within following, then, one can make the
act of faith and the limit assertion concerning Christ (just as one can omit
it). But then this act of faith is transformed into victory, as well, as
John’s theology teaches. We can only conclude that a following realized in
terms of the present is the reality in which limit assertions concerning Christ
can have meaning, or cease to have it.(10) In summary, christology must take
serious account of a realized following, for two important reasons of
christological epistemology. A contemplation of the witnesses of the faith can
help us know the Witness better; and in actual following, a conviction of the
ultimacy of Christ can be deepened (or abandoned).
III. CHRISTOPRAXIS OF LIBERATION
The ultimate finality of theology, as of all Christian activity, is -
according to the theology of liberation - the maximal building of the Reign of
God. But in our current situation of oppression, this building must be
liberation. Therefore liberation theology understands itself as a theory of a
praxis, as an intellectus amoris, which must be historicized as
intellectus justitiae. This being the case, christology in the concrete
must develop and supply a knowledge concerning Christ that by its nature will
further the building of the Reign of God. Because that Reign is effected in
opposition to the oppression of the anti-Reign, this knowledge of Christ must
be a knowledge of liberation, intellectus liberationis.
1. Specific Christological Moment of Praxis
Christology must propose a knowledge concerning Christ such that, of his
very nature, this Christ will move a person - the person who knows him, in
order that this person may know him - to a salvific activity. This means
introducing into the very reality of Christ the dynamism of the dispatch to
that salvific activity. It is not, then, a matter of first knowing who Christ
is and then adding the knowledge that one of the elements of his reality is to
be someone who confers a mission. To be sure, a hermeneutic circularity obtains
between an understanding of the being of Christ and a grasp of his conferral of
a mission. But at least the moment of dispatch as essential to the being of
Christ must be maintained as central.
In the Christian scriptures, it is a matter of conjecture whether the
dispatch to a salvific activity is essential to the very being of Christ, in
such wise that - systematically speaking - without the availability to be so
dispatched one would be unable to know Christ adequately. That at least there
is in Jesus this unified duality of being and sending appears in programmatic
terms in the evangelical “being with Jesus and being sent by Jesus.”
In certain gospel scenes the dispatch even seems to have priority over
knowledge of Jesus. And in the scenes of the apparitions, Jesus appears not to
“seers,” but to “witnesses”; that is, he is at the same
time one appearing and one sending, and correlatively, availability for an
activity - bearing witness - is essential, according to the interpretation of
certain exegetes, in order to grasp the being of Jesus in the apparitions.
No unequivocal thesis can be deduced from these fragmentary reflections,
but at least we have an indication of what interests us here. Both in life and
after his resurrection, Christ appears not simply as a someone-in-himself who
can simply be known, or even a someone-for us of whom salvation can be hoped,
but also as a someone-who-sends, whose mission must be prosecuted. Thus, the
praxis inspired by Christ is essential to Christ himself (and to christology).
Here we have the context in which we must speak of the christopraxis of
liberation.
In this understanding of Christ as one who sends we confront a
theoretical novelty. It is not a novelty that Christ is presented salvifically
- and let us remember that a salvific concern is what moved the development of
christology in the scriptures, in patristics, and in the conciliar dogmas. This
is accepted by liberation christology, which formally prosecutes this line and
radically transcends the dissociation that began to appear in the Middle Ages
between christology and soteriology. The novel element is in
(1) the determination of salvation as liberation, and
(2) the manner in which a concern for liberation has an influence on
theoretical christology, that is, not only for having to think the reality of
Christ in such a fashion that he can be savior (the interest of the New
Testament and of patristic speculation), but in thinking him in such a fashion
that he may already produce historical salvation.
In the context of this
chapter, this means that it is not enough to assert that Jesus is the mediator
of the Reign of God; it must also be asserted that he is the one who of his
very nature dispatches to the building of the Reign. He is a mediator by
essence sent (the dimension of gratuity with respect to us); and he is a
mediator by essence sending (his fundamental demand on us). Besides the
sheer fact of the essential dispatch to praxis, a starting point in Christ can
determine the content and utopian horizon of that praxis (the Reign of God),
the spirit with which to perform it (that of the mediator), and the hope to be
maintained amid the praxis (the possibility of defeating the anti-Reign).
2. Christopraxis
Inasmuch as this Reign to be constructed comes into being in the
presence of and in opposition to the anti-Reign, the Reign is a good entity, of
course. Specifically, it is a liberative entity. This explains why it is called
Good News; it is the apparition of the good that is hoped for in the presence
of evil, oppressive realities. Consequently, the praxis of building the Reign
will be good, but it will also be liberative. In order to show what it is that
is good and liberative in the praxis to which Christ sends, let us analyze the
various levels of the reality of Jesus in which he appears as Liberator.
Liberative Aspect of Jesus’ Mission
The most specific mission of the historical Jesus is the proclamation
and inauguration of the Reign of God in behalf of the poor and outcast. This is
how the Markan-Matthean gospel begins, and even more explicitly, in the
language of the Good News, that of Luke. This does not militate against the
need for salvation from sin or transcendent salvation. Indeed, part of the
responsibility of current christology will be to show how all of the plural
salvations converge in the Reign of God. But it is with Jesus’
proclamation and inauguration of the Reign for the poor and outcast that one
must begin if one would understand liberation. In other words, liberation is
the coming of the Reign of God for the poor. In terms of the reality of the
poor, the content of liberation will have certain basic minimal content: a just
life worthy of a human being. We might call it an economic and sociological
opportunity, since what is at stake is an oikos, house and home, the
basic element of life; and a socius, or social relationships of
authentic kinship. This Reign is formally liberation, and not simply the good
that is hoped for, since it will come in contravention of the anti-Reign.
This is what is directly meant - although it is not the only thing
meant-when Jesus is called Liberator, and this is why we have called him the
mediator of the Reign of God. Without a central inclusion of this meaning of
liberation, there can be no christology of liberation. And let us note in
passing that it is in this manner, after twenty centuries, that Latin American
christology recovers the nucleus of Jesus’ most primitive title, that of
Messiah (christos), which had become his proper name, but had been
deprived of any reference to a popular hope of liberation.
Someone might object that this conception of liberation neglects a key
element of the later New Testament: liberation from sin. Here it must be
granted that one of the essentials of the historical Jesus’ liberative
mission in behalf of the Reign of God is his salvific attitude toward sinners.
But this assertion must be understood precisely and correctly. Those we might
call sinful out of weakness, or more precisely, those regarded as sinful by
their oppressors, Jesus cordially and affectionately welcomes, with an attitude
that includes, but goes further than, simple forgiveness of sins. To the
sinners in the sense of oppressors, Jesus announces the Good News, it is true,
but in the form of a demand for radical conversion, as in the case of
Zacchaeus.
Liberation from sin, even the universality of such liberation, is
present in Jesus’ mission, then, although it is present there in
historicized fashion and without the elements introduced by later speculation
based on explanatory theoretical models (sacrifice, expiation, and so forth, in
the New Testament; assumption of the totality of the human, in patristics;
satisfaction de congruo, in the Middle Ages). The historical Jesus
surely appears as the liberator from sin, but what we must emphasize is that
sin, sinner, and forgiveness are all understood in reference to the Reign of
God.
Liberative Aspect of Jesus’ Person
Another assertion implied in the denomination of Jesus as Liberator is
that the very person of the mediator is liberative. It is liberative because
Jesus was as he was. In pure theory, the liberation of the Reign of God could
have been proclaimed and furthered by another kind of mediator (acting with
power, at a distance from the poor but acting in their behalf, with more
rigidity and less tenderness, with more calculation and fewer risks, and so
on), who thus could have delivered the victims of oppressive structures, but
whose spirit or interior attitude would have been different from that of Jesus.
The liberative element in the person of the mediator is the spirit with
which he executes the proclamation and inauguration of the Reign of God. His
personal fidelity to God and his mercy to human beings - to summarize
systematically, as Hebrews does - his way of being before God and human beings
as related in the gospels, the spirit of the Beatitudes as expressed in
himself, a life lived in gratuity, his empowerment by truth-all of this is
something good, as well as human, and humanizing for others.
We call this spirit of Jesus liberative, not only good, because Jesus
came to be thus in the presence of the temptation to be otherwise, as appears
in the scene of the temptations. The mediator is shown to be liberated himself,
then. This is also liberative for others; yes, one can live this way, delivered
from self, delivered from selfishness and dehumanization (a problem that also
occurs in historical liberation processes), one can walk humbly with God in
history, at once in absolute confidence in a God who is Parent and in total
availability to a Parent who is still God.
In Latin America christology has focused from the very beginning on the
Jesus who is Liberator of the poor and marginalized, but it is coming to
emphasize more and more as well the Jesus who is himself liberated, and who
thereby delivers us from ourselves if we keep our eyes fixed on him. But Latin
American christology insists on relating the two elements; without this
interrelationship, the historical liberation of the poor goes one way and the
personal spirit of Jesus another. It observes - not only by virtue of its
acceptance in principle of the gospel narratives, but through actual historical
experience-that the practice of historical liberation with the spirit of Jesus
is efficacious for liberation itself, as Archbishop Romero exemplifies so very
well.
To put it simply, many rejoice that Jesus proclaimed and initiated the
liberation of the poor of this world (the Reign of God), and rejoice as well
that the mediator (Jesus of Nazareth) was as he was. The mediation, and the
mediator, are Good News.
Liberative Aspect of Jesus’ Resurrection
In the Christian scriptures it is evident that the Reign of God is not
the only symbol of utopia - a new earth and a new heaven. Jesus’
resurrection, as well, is a symbol of this utopia. It is likewise evident that
the specific element in the latter symbol is liberation from death. Liberation
christology accepts all of this. Nevertheless, the theology of liberation also
regards it as essential to determine what elements of historical liberation are
generated here and now by Jesus’ resurrection.
In the first place, Jesus’ resurrection generates a specific hope -
indirectly, perhaps, for all, but directly for this world’s victims, the
addressees of the Reign of God. Indeed, Jesus’ resurrection is presented
in Peter’s first discourses as God’s reaction to the injustice that
human beings have committed against the just, innocent Jesus. In this sense the
resurrection is hope especially for this world’s victims, and it is a
liberative hope, because it occurs in the presence of the despairing fear that,
in history, the executioners may triumph over their victims. It occurs in the
presence of the temptation to resignation or cynicism.
A further liberative aspect of Jesus’ resurrection is that it
indicates the present sovereignty of Christ over history by generating human
beings who are not history’s slaves but its sovereigns. But sovereignty
over history does not consist in living immune and detached from history; still
less does it mean attempting-intentionally and idealistically - to
“imitate” the immaterial conditions of the state of resurrection (as
ancient theologies of the religious life recommended). It consists in
triumphing over the slaveries to which human beings are subjected by reason of
the fact that they live in history.
The fulfilling element in Jesus’ resurrection is shown forth here
and now, in history, in the freedom with which the following of Jesus is
lived. Liberty is not license here; nor is it some mere type of esthetic or
existential freedom. On the contrary, the freedom of the following of Jesus is
a freedom to become more incarnate in historical reality, to dedicate
oneself more to the liberation of others, to practice the love that can
become the greatest love. Here is a freedom, then; realized not in
fleeing the historical and material, but in incarnating oneself in it
more, for love. Here, when all is said and done, is Jesus’ own
freedom, the freedom to lay down his life without anyone’s taking it from
him; the freedom of a Paul, voluntarily enslaved to all to save all. The
fulfilling dimension of the resurrection is also shown forth in the ability to
live with joy in the midst of history. It appears in finding in the
following of Jesus the pearl of great price, the hidden treasure for which one
will sell everything one owns, for the sake of the joy it produces. It is
living for others and receiving from others (grace). It is being able to be
with others, being able to celebrate life “right now,” being able to
call God Parent, and to call that God, in relationship with all others,
our Parent.
This fulfilling dimension of the resurrection is also liberative because
it is a victory. The freedom made flesh in history, which does not flee that
history, is destined to conquer the slaveries generated by history: fears,
failures, persecutions, the cross. Joy transpires in the midst of suffering,
and especially in the face of the understandable temptation to sadness, the
temptation of meaninglessness. Thus, Jesus’ resurrection is recognized as
a liberative element introduced into history itself.
In synthesis, Jesus’ resurrection is liberative because it enables
and inspires people to live in history itself as risen ones, as persons raised;
because it enables and inspires people to live the following of Jesus, too, as
a reflection of the fulfilling, triumphal note of the resurrection with
indestructible hope, freedom, and joy. Let us remark in passing that, when this
occurs, then the One who has been raised is shown to be Sovereign of history.
In this sense, it could be said - and it comes as a shock - that he has left it
in our hands to make him the true Sovereign of history.
Liberative Aspect of the (Metaphysical) Reality of Christ
Let us observe, finally, that liberation christology must show that the
element of Good News, of liberation, also resides in dogmatic truth concerning
Christ, a truth that liberation christology unequivocally accepts.
The assertion that dogma is not only truth but Good News is an
assertion of faith, and of an intrinsically gladsome faith. Thus, it is not
available to further analysis; although the vere Deus and vere
homo can surely be interpreted and received not only as truth, but as the
Good News of the bounty, indeed the tenderness, of a God who has deigned to
descend to that which is human and the Good News that the human can be a
sacrament of God.
Nevertheless, christological dogma can be specifically one of liberation
if we reformulate it in the following words: Jesus Christ is verus Deus et
verus homo. Then Jesus Christ is strict revelation of that which is
supremely basic for the human being - what it is to be God and what it is to be
a human being - and is victorious revelation over the innate tendency of human
beings to decide beforehand, on their own authority and in their own interest,
the truth of both basic realities. Christological dogma appears as liberative
if it is accepted not only as an unveiling of what until now has not been
known, but as the victorious revelation of repressed truth. That is, it is seen
to be liberative if one accepts that the proposition that Christ is vere
Deus and vere homo is true not because it fulfills the conditions
that we human beings impose on the truth of both realities, but because this
truth has the power to transcend - and radically - our self-interested
comprehension of the divine and the human.
To say it in simple words, it is great Good News of liberation that at
last, despite the innate propensity of human beings to evade and oppress the
truth, the truth has appeared of what God is and of what we human beings are.
What it is to be God and what it is to be a human being have been seen in
Jesus, have been revealed in Jesus, triumphing over the concupiscent
inclination of human reason to decide both realities in terms of its own
interests.
The fact that the dogma presents the subsistence in Christ of both
realities, divine and human, without division yet without confusion, is Good
News, liberative news. The manner by which the divine and the human subsist in
Christ is a strict mystery and hence not subject to analysis. But if we observe
the reverberation of this mystery in historical reality, we can assert that it
is indeed Good News.
It is good that the divine and the human be “without
division,” especially if their unity be understood as transcendence in
history, such that history renders God present historically, and God, being
transcendent, causes history to transcend itself and give more of itself. Also
good is the “without confusion,” the nonmixing of the two realities,
let alone their mutual reduction to each other. History shows that a reduction
of the divine to the human necessarily deprives the divine of its mystery,
while an elevation of the human to the divine absolutizes the human and
transforms it into a troop of monsters: those idolatries that go by the name of
despotism and triumphalism. We might say simply that it is good to let God be
God and human be human.
History shows how deleterious it is for human beings to violate, on the
religious level, this elementary truth of christological dogma. But the
violation is just as pernicious in its historical, secular equivalents. For
example, utopia (corresponding to the divine) is sometimes divorced from
concrete realities in such a way as to be relegated to the trans-historical
exclusively, and thus deprived of any influence on the attempt to render it
real in concrete realities; thus these realities lose their value as signs of
utopia. This is the temptation of the right. Or again, all of the concrete
(corresponding to the human) can be subordinated to utopia, as if the concrete
had no entity of its own. This is the temptation of the left, even in
liberation processes, which can be tempted to replace the whole of the concrete
(personal, family, social, artistic) with what is deemed to be the correct
route to take to utopia - the political or the military route, depending on the
case.
These attempts either to separate the two constitutive elements of
dogmatic christology or to reduce one to the other have dehumanizing effects.
Hence, the dogmatic formulation of the reality of Jesus Christ is both good and
liberative. Despite the dehumanization occasioned by both the separation and
the reduction, we human beings undertake to commit these errors because we
think that we already know the ultimate structure of reality. The dogma reminds
us that the structure of reality is that of transcendence in history, and this
is good and liberating news.
Integral, Transcendent Liberation
On the strength of what Jesus does, of the fate that overtakes him, and
of what he is, both in his historical reality and in his ultimate transcendent
reality, he can and must be called the Liberator. Each of these liberative
aspects enjoys its own entity and autonomy, so that none of the three can be
deduced from another by pure conceptualization. But if they all be taken
together and seen as a whole, then we have the christological basis for the
possibility and necessity of the integral liberation so earnestly
recalled and demanded by the magisterium.
From a point of departure in Christ, that integral liberation is
possible and necessary. But in view of what has been said, we think that there
are three things to be insisted upon. First, liberation is transformed into
integral liberation not by the mere accumulation of disconnected liberative
moments, but by the complementarity of all liberative moments in the dynamics
of the following of Jesus. Second, in dealing with the christologic liberative
dimension, it is necessary (or, in our view, at least very useful) to invoke a
logical reproduction of the route that we have proposed chronologically: to
begin with and center on the liberation of the poor, thereupon, in virtue of
the very dynamics of that liberation, to integrate the other liberative aspects
of Christ. Third, an analysis of the integral liberation of which Christ is the
vehicle is carried out ultimately in order to foster a liberative
christopraxis.
Finally, let us say that, in terms of the adoption of all of the
liberative moments cited, objectively theological, transcendent liberation can
be formulated. Those who implement Christ’s mandate to liberate are
thereby realizing the demand voiced by God in the Book of Micah: to act with
justice and to love with tenderness. In so doing, these persons can walk humbly
with God in history. Now they can really interpret theoretically, and live
existentially, their own lives as a life with God. And they can, theoretically
and existentially, interpret that life as a journeying toward the definitive
encounter with God, when God will be in all - the Pauline formulation of the
transcendent fullness of the Reign of God.
IV. THE POOR AS LOCUS THEOLOGICUS OF CHRISTOLOGY
Let us say a brief concluding word on the locus of christology, as we
have developed it in these pages. As we know, liberation theology has developed
the topic of the locus theologicus in a new manner, and this by way of
its own existential experience. In doing theology from a determinate place or
locus, with the poor as the point of departure, it has rediscovered content of
extreme importance, content central for the faith. This content has not been
rediscovered from a starting point in other loci; hence the extreme importance
of an analysis of the theological locus. Theology knows that it must respect a
methodological distinction between theological locus and font of theological
cognition. “The distinction,” however, as Ellacuría says,
“is not a strict one, let alone an exclusive one. The locus itself, in a
sense, is a font, in that it is the locus that determines whether the font
yields this or that. The upshot is that, thanks to the locus, and in virtue of
the same, a certain determinate content is actually rendered
present.”(11)
The sketch that we have attempted to present here has been constructed
from the theological locus that in Latin American theology, admittedly, is
constituted by the poor. We should only wish to add that, in the case of
christology, there is an additional, specific reason why theology must be done
from the locus of the poor. The poor are not only a reality from which one can
reread the whole of theology. They are a reality with which christology must
eventually come into confrontation as its object. Thus, with christology, the
reason why theology must be done from a theological locus among the poor is
more than one of methodological exigency or convenience. It proceeds from
revelation itself: the Son of Man is present in the poor of this world.
This presence of Christ in the history of today can be accepted or
rejected. But if it is accepted, it would be supremely irresponsible on the
part of christology not to take it into central account. This is what is
transpiring in Latin America. In simple, nontechnical words Medellín
asserts that, where sin is committed against the poor, “there we have a
rejection of the Lord’s gift of peace and of the Lord himself’
(Medellín, ”Document on Peace," no. 14, citing Matt. 25). Puebla
makes the very carefully considered statement that “with particular
tenderness [Jesus Christ] chose to identify himself with those who are poorest
and weakest” (Puebla Final Document, no. 196, citing Matt. 25). Archbishop
Romero said, in his homilies to a persecuted community, “You are the image
of the divine, transfixed with pain,” and he compared the Salvadoran
people to the Servant of Yahweh. Ellacuría in a strictly theological
reflection, declared that the great sign of the times - the current presence of
God among us - is always the crucified people, the historical continuation of
the Servant of Yahweh, of Christ crucified.
These statements are not casual ones, nor do their authors intend them
as merely pious reflections. They are to be taken seriously. The poor function
as the locus of christology in virtue of the concrete content with which they
supply that discipline. They tell it something important about Christ. They
tell it of his self-abasement, his kenosis, his concealment, his cross.
And especially, they function as the locus of christology (and of course of
faith and following) because, as locus of the current presence of Christ, they
are a light illumining all things, and specifically illumining the truth of
Christ.
This argumentation is helpless in the face of questions that can be
lodged from other theological loci (and these loci always exist, acknowledged
or not). Therefore, it can only invite other christologies to place themselves,
as well, in the locus of the poor. But as a counterargument, Latin American
christology points to the undeniable fact that, from among the poor as its
locus theologicus, it has rediscovered basic christological realities -
realities central to the gospel message, as the Vatican Instruction on the
theology of liberation observes - which. lo, these many centuries, have slept
the sleep of the just.
From the locus of the poor, christology has made the theoretical
rediscovery of Christ as Messiah, as Liberator, and as definitive mediator of
the Reign of God. But the situation of the poor and the crucified peoples is
intolerable. Therefore these poor and these peoples have set christology its
fundamental task. It is a praiseworthy endeavor to demythologize Christ in
order to present a reasonable Christ, so that the “name” of Christ
may be acceptable by the modern, enlightened human being. But it is a more
urgent endeavor to “depacify” Christ, lest reality continue to be
abandoned to its misery “in his name” - and in extreme cases, to
replace an idolatry of Christ, that the poor may come to see in Christ someone
for them rather than against them, and no longer think they have to resign
themselves to being oppressed “in his name.” Understood as a
substantial quid rather than as an accidental ubi, the
theological locus has always been decisive for christology. It has given it its
profoundly pastoral character. If Luther developed a christology of the
“Christ for me,” Bonhoeffer a christology of the “person for
others,” Teilhard de Chardin a christology of the “Omega Point of
evolution,” and Karl Rahner a christology of the “absolute vehicle of
salvation,” it is because reality demanded it, albeit in various ways.
Reality itself had posed the questions: How may one encounter a benevolent God,
how may one present an authentic Christ, in a world come of age, a world in
evolution, a secularized, antidogmatist world? This pre-christological (but
pastorally determinative for christology) reality has always been present in
creative christologies. It is present today once more in the theology of
liberation: the reality of a dehumanizing poverty and of the hope of its
eradication.
Gustavo Gutiérrez declares that the decisive question for Latin
American theology is “how to tell the poor that God loves them.”
Christology responds with Jesus Christ the Liberator, the absolute mediator of
the Reign of God to the poor. The reality of poverty both motivates this
“theorization of Christ” and renders it possible. The agreeable
surprise is that, thus theorized, Christ is a bit more like - it seems to us -
Jesus of Nazareth.
Translated by Robert R. Barr
NOTES
1. Many of the methodological presuppositions of the theology of
liberation are analyzed in this volume and in Mysterium Liberationis. For
christology specifically, see Chapter 8 in Mysterium. “Christology in the
Theology of Liberation.”
2. See, in this volume, Chapter 3, “Central Position of the Reign
of God in Liberation Theology.”
3. See Ignacio Ellacuría “La teologia como momento
ideolôgico de la praxis eclesial,” Estudios Eclesidsticos 53
(1978):457-76; Sobrino, “Teologia en un mundo sufriente: La teologfa de la
liberacion como intellectus amoris,” Revista Latinoamericana de Teologia
15 (1988):243-66.
4. See Ignacio Ellacuría, “Los pobres, ‘lugar
teologico’ en América latina,” in Ignacio Ellacuria,
Conversion de la Iglesia al reino de Dios (San Salvador, 1985), pp. 153-78.
5. Karl Rahner and K. H. Weger, Our Christian Faith (London: Burns &
Oates, 1980), p. 93.
6. An analogous comparison ought to be made with patristic theology,
especially in regard to the destiny of the Reign of God, although we cannot
address this here.
7. Rahner and Weger, Our Christian Faith, p. 93.
8. M. Hengel, Seguimiento y carisma (Santander, Spain, 1981), p. 105.
9. See D. Wiederkehr, in Mysterium Salutis, vol. 3/1 (Madrid, 1969), p.
558.
10. An analysis of the systematic concept of following or discipleship
must invoke an analogy of discipleship precisely in view of the reality of the
poor. In his own age - and with his expectancy of the imminence of the Reign -
Jesus made different basic demands on, respectively, his disciples and the
poor. Of the poor he seems to demand not discipleship, but an active hope in
the coming of the Reign. Today a theological treatment of the discipleship of
the poor must take into consideration the non-imminence of the Reign.
Meanwhile, the material condition of the poverty of our times seems to render
the following of disciples impossible, which would lead to the paradox that the
poor, to whom the Good News is directly addressed, and whom Christ seeks to
liberate, could not acquire a similarity to Christ precisely as disciples.
Therefore one must speak of an analogy of discipleship or following. That is,
while the poor participate more radically (generally speaking) in the destiny
of the cross, and at times, in the hope of resurrection, than disciples do -
still, the active aspect of mission can be more absent in the case of the poor,
by reason of their material conditions. Thus, Ignacio Ellacuría proposes
an analogy of the systematic theological concept of the poor. The poor are:
(1) the material, impoverished poor,
(2) the poor who have become
aware of the causes of their poverty,
(3) the poor organized in a struggle
to be liberated, and
(4) the poor who wage this struggle with the
spirit of the Beatitudes. See Ellacuría, “Los pobres, ‘lugar
teologico,’ ” pp. 81-163.
11. Ibid., p. 168.
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