To Speak of God as Father in a World that is Inhumane:
A Critical Analysis of the Christological Anthropology of Gustavo Gutiérrez

Abstract

This thesis offers a critical analysis of the christological anthropology that is developed by Gustavo Gutiérrez. I will demonstrate how Gutiérrez’s theological project may be read as a response to the challenge of how to speak of God as Father in a world that is inhumane. This question provokes a response whose focus is anthropological and whose framework is Christological. While many engagements with Gutiérrez’s theology centre on such themes as the option for the poor, the role of praxis, or the Kingdom of God, this project will delineate the underlying convictions and commitments within which these concepts cohere. The three parts of this project correspond to the three facets of the challenge to which Gutiérrez addresses his theology: First, there is the historical question posed by a world that is inhuman. Second is the theological question of how to speak of God. Finally, there is the eschatological perspective encountered within the knowledge of God as Father. In each of these three parts I will move from a systematic exposition of these themes to a critical examination of the Christology according to which they take shape. Having made the fundamental structure of his thought evident, I will aim to expose and identify the internal inconsistencies that make this structure unstable. I will explore how Gutiérrez presents the person, work, and presence of Christ and ask whether his Christology is consistent with his own convictions and stable enough to support the weight that his theological project calls for it bear. I seek to develop an analysis that is attentive to the unity and coherence of Gutiérrez’s thought and so resource a critique that is not only distinctive in its pertinence but also in the possibilities that it opens for the development of his project in the future.