Abstract
The author explores theological questions regarding the Korean novelist Hwang Sok-yong’s The Guest from interdisciplinary perspectives. This paper analyzes the novel in relation to the emotional complex of han as understood in Korean minjung theology, the political theology of Johann Baptist Metz, and Ignacio Ellacuría’s liberation theology. Drawing upon the perspectives of Korean, German, and Latin American scholars, this approach invites us to construct a discourse of theodicy in a fresh light, to reach a deeper level of theodical engagement with the universal problem of suffering, and to nurture the courage of hope for human beings in today’s stressed world. Contemplating the concrete depiction of human suffering in The Guest, the paper invites readers to deepen their understanding of God in terms of minjung theology’s thrust of resolving the painful feelings of han of the oppressed, Metz’s insight of suffering unto God as a sacramental encounter with God, and Ellacuría’s idea of giving witness to God’s power of the resurrection in eschatological hope. The paper concludes that the immensity of today’s human suffering asks for that compassionate solidarity with the crucified today which can generate hope in the contemporary milieu.
Highlights
In a General Audience, Pope Francis earnestly invited all the people of God to pray for an inter-Korean summit on the occasion of the historic meeting between Moon Jae-in, the president of the Republic of Korea, and Kim Jong-un, the leader of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (Pope Francis 2018)
We explore this theme in the novel in terms of the Korean preoccupation with the emotional complex of han as understood in Korean minjung theology
How can present-day theodicy enter into the throes of solidarity and offer a credible account of hope? Motivated by this challenge, the present paper begins with the voice of the forgotten victims of The Guest to seek the theological seeds of hope potentially embedded in the ground of suffering to yield forgiveness and reconciliation
Summary
In a General Audience, Pope Francis earnestly invited all the people of God to pray for an inter-Korean summit on the occasion of the historic meeting between Moon Jae-in, the president of the Republic of Korea, and Kim Jong-un, the leader of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (Pope Francis 2018). As a specific example of the courage of hope in the midst of human suffering, this article focuses on the pain experienced in the Korean War of the 1950s as recounted in the 2001 Korean novel The Guest. Latin American liberation theology stresses eschatological hope to decrucify the oppressed through the concretization of Christian witness These ideas work together to illuminate The Guest in terms of their particular perspectives on human suffering. By bringing to life the voices of the victims who were tortured and killed by their neighbors, his novel recounts the whole tragic episode and invites readers to understand what happened in the Korean War. The writer of the present paper aims to explore The Guest through the lens of remembering the suffering of that tragedy while at the same time being so bold as to offer hope for reconciliation between the victims and perpetrators. How can present-day theodicy enter into the throes of solidarity and offer a credible account of hope? Motivated by this challenge, the present paper begins with the voice of the forgotten victims of The Guest to seek the theological seeds of hope potentially embedded in the ground of suffering to yield forgiveness and reconciliation
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