À procura de um método teológico libertador

da epistemologia clássica ao círculo hermenêutico de Juan Luis Segundo

Abstract

This article aims to discuss the theological methodology of Liberation Theologies. To this end, it starts from explaining the epistemological and methodological foundations of classical Theology, going through its development within Liberation Theologies, arriving at the methodological discussion in the thought of Juan Luis Segundo (1925-1996). One of the first generation theologians of Liberation Theologies, he revealed a special interest in founding a theological reflection that not only talks about liberation, but that is in fact liberating. To this end, in his understanding, it is necessary to suspect, based on a prior humanizing political option and a critical experience of reality, that the superstructures (Church and theology), as they are configured, are a source of maintenance of unjust social structures. Therefore, it is necessary to de-ideologize them. To carry out this task, the anthropological-liberating key reverberates over the theological method. For J. L. Segundo, both the classical theological method and its common liberating elaboration are insufficient and end up reproducing a progressive discourse in traditional language, succumbing to what they criticize. Therefore, it is necessary to bring to light a prior political option for the humanization of the human being as an essential presupposition of a liberating theological method and apply it, in a hermeneutic circle, to theology.