Towards a pedagogy of grace: In search of transcendence and integration in Paulo Freire (Gustavo Gutierrez)

The work of an educator in northeastern Brazil is not so different from that of an immigrant artist. It is the art and craft of helping to open our matulãos, and perfect the dancing of our music. This task is not only a matter of introspection, or activism. It is rather a work of conscietization in finitude. It is a work of grace.; Gutierrez' question persists: how can we talk about a God of love in a context of death and violence? The reality of millions of human beings at the opening of the 21st century is one of misery, hunger, disease, illiteracy, homelessness and, indeed, violence. Such conditions steal what is most precious in the human spirit, hope. Hope is not denial, illusion, or alienation; neither it is cynicism or conformism. Rather, it is the action of the most fundamental drive of the human spirit: to be more human, to self-transcend the circumstances that strips possibility.; The theologies of liberation, the popular movements and Paulo Freire's education for freedom responded by taking stock of one's situatedness and engaging in transformation. Social transformation, inspired by conscientization, quickly confused the human drive to be more “human” with human idealistic certainty. Finitude was not an included category for reflection. Idealism running unchecked, the movement of liberation exposed itself to promoting a co-opted self-development, one that externalized internalized oppressions, violence and hate, while it was unable to reintegrate them into a complex representation of reality. This nuances Gutierrez's question as how can we speak of a loving God in a context of finitude? Can we support emancipation dynamics, but with an intentional support for the integration of a complex reality?; The contention of this dissertation is that a pedagogy for emancipation and integration is a pedagogy of Grace. The pedagogy of grace reemphasizes the necessity of emancipation or liberation, understood as the capacity of human beings to transcend, to go beyond any limitation that dehumanizes them; and the necessity of integration of good and evil, therefore going beyond the externalization of evil or its objectification.