| To many, Marxism and liberation theology seem to be identical. This is for two interrelated reasons. Both deal with the contradiction between the oppressors and the oppressed and seek how this contradiction is to be overcome. Both direct us to understand and commit ourselves to the process of social liberation in terms of dialectical analysis. However, although dialectical contradictions are identified by both Marxists and liberation theologians as constitutive of capitalism, they differ radically in their analyses of the bases of the contradictions in capitalistic society. Liberation theology is primarily concerned with the contradiction in the social relations of production (that is, the alienated relations of production), while Marxism is fundamentally concerned with the contradiction in the social mode of production (that is, the contradiction between the social relations of production and the social powers of production as a whole). My argument is that the dialectics of liberation theology is, therefore, one-sided in its analysis and, taken by itself, is inaccurate, or better, incomplete as a radical theology for social liberation.;The present study has a four-fold significance. First, it focuses attention on the matter of dialectics as the central clue to the question of social liberation in the theology of liberation--whether it is the theology of the Third World or the First World. This fact is frequently overlooked or relegated to a secondary status.;By this I mean the Marxist dialectical analysis of the relationship between (1) the determining power and (2) the influencing forces in the process of social and historical development. The process by which the determining power is ascertained in human development can only be through inquiring into the social mode of production as a whole. The present dialectics of liberation theology is criticized as focusing primarily on the alienated relations of production and a more radical dialectics is proposed that should significantly alter the way in which liberation theologians presently do their social analysis. Second, this study seeks to rediscover the Marxist dialectics of social and historical development, still in its formative stage, which clearly has an enormous importance in human history. Third, my study attempts to ground a theory of social cooperation and social forgiveness in a specific yet universal issue, critically analyzing the one-sidedness of present liberation theologies of the Third World. Finally, this process of critique is applied to the particular case of Korean minjung movements in their work toward the goal of reunification of the Koreas. |
