The Dipolar God and Latin American Liberation Theology

Abstract

Anyone reasonably familiar with the contemporary theological scene of the North and South Americas will readily recognize that process and liberation theologies are the two predominant currents of thought, the former in the northern hemisphere and the latter in the southern. Chronologically process thought is the elder sibling; and though it originated in modern times with Alfred North Whitehead1 primarily as a cosmology and metaphysics, its basic insights have been appropriated by a number of theologians to revitalize classical Christian theology which, in their judgment, had suffered atrophy on account of the static substance metaphysics it employed.2 On the other hand, liberation theologians, also disillusioned with classical Christian theology, the primary purpose of which they perceive as the achievement of contemplative wisdom and rational knowledge, propose instead as the proper task of theology a critical reflection on political, economic, and social praxis in favor of the integral liberation for the poor and the oppressed.3