Toward a Latin American Protestant ethic of liberation: A comparative study of the writings of Rubem Alves and Jose Miguez Bonino from the perspective of the sources and substance of their social ethics. (Volumes I and II)

摘要

The problem of this dissertation is to deal critically and constructively with the contributions of Rubem Alves and Joes Miguez Bonino to Latin American Liberation theology from the perspective of the discipline of social ethics as an exploration of directions for a Latin American Protestant Ethics of Liberation. In continuity with the Personalist tradition of Boston University, social ethics is defined as an open-ended and reflective discipline from which a threefold set of criteria for analysis emerges: (a) an interdisciplinary approach which seeks "emergent coherence" in the appropriation of sources and data; (b) a set of three pairs of dialectical tensions (person/community, metaphysical/empirical and conflict/reconciliation) presumed in one's explicit or implicit ethical orientation; and (c) a set of formal and substantive questions, e.g., inclusiveness, pluralism, and self-criticism.;After a brief introduction to the paradigms which guide the works of Alves (the language of messianic humanism) and Miguez (his incarnational/trinitarian understanding of the kingdom of God), this study moves into the examination of their main sources, i.e., their appropriation of theology, philosophy and the social sciences. This analysis discloses the organizing perspective in the works of each one of them: for Alves, the concept of "humanization of the world"; for Miguez, a "historical project of liberation." The application to the works of Alves and Miguez of the three pairs of dialectical tensions and the formal and substantive questions raised by them helps to specify their respective orientations to ethics. Their interdisciplinary method and their sources suggest creative possibilities for the construction of a Latin American Protestant Ethics of Liberation such as the apposition of Weber's "Protestant work ethic" to Tillich's "Protestant principle" in order to transform the Protestant affirmation of worldly activity from one functional to modernity (the Protestant work "ethic") into one critical of it (a Protestant "ethics" of liberation) while also demystifying "hard work" and reaffirming praxis; i.e., reflective engagement in social action. This apposition presumes a distinction between "ethic" (as morality) from "ethics" (as a critical/self-critical discipline).