Part Three
SOME ISSUES THAT AWAIT OUR ATTENTION
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Chapter VI
PRAXIS AND
RELIGIOUS THOUGHT: SOME NOTES TOWARD A "PRACTICAL"
THEOLOGICAL REFLECTION IN THE PHILIPPINE SETTING
The Question of
Praxis
The
constancy and sharpness with which the question of praxis has been posed to the
Christian community in our present context makes it obvious that the issues
arising from this question are among the most urgent to which we must give
serious and critical attention. The question does not come only generally from
the critical condition into which our social and political life has been
plunged. It comes more specifically from people both inside and outside the
Church who feel that Christians and the Christian community and the whole
structure of life and thought which they have traditionally brought into the
social and political sphere obstruct if not negate the active operation of
those "options" that are now needed to be taken so that the way to a
better future may be opened.
Were the
issues that the question poses a matter of theoretical adjustment only then our
task would not be so difficult, and they would not be so crucial and urgent. A Christian apology would be all that is needed, and
apologies have not been that difficult for the Christian community to make. The
issues that the question poses however go beyond theoretical consideration for
the simple reason that they deal not just with the retrieval and defense of the
past, nor only with our understanding of our pastoral duties in the present,
but more importantly with the consideration of those conditions
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that bring about and
out of which "openings" to alternative futures may begin to develop
and to become active. Questions that deal with the past and with the present only
can be dealt with apologetically. The past is past, and one can only reflect
upon it. The present on its way to the future however is a matter which has to
be acted upon and not only thought out. The former involves mostly what we may
do as we presently are or have been. The latter impels and implies the
question of what may we become. It involves in other words a
"conversion," a drastic and radical reshaping of the whole of
Christian life and of the priorities and solidarities to which it is willing to
give itself and to act upon.
It is
for this reason that praxis has been a sort of critical divide not so much
between varying forms of religious thought and theological reflection but more
between varying types of religious "animals," or, to use a more traditional
term, between varying types of spirituality. Though this divide need not be
absolute, it has nevertheless been quite deep so that either side of it at
times feel that the divide can not be forded, at least
not immediately. From one side of this divide, for example, there are
Christians who have taken "options" that involve taking far too many
liberties that go beyond the warrants of Christian "morality" and
social action. They end up as a result being instrumentalized
by forces that are outside Christian authority and need therefore to be
reinstalled within the pale of Christian teaching. From the other side,
meanwhile, there is only an intransigient and
unregenerate Church with its stultified and stultifying hierarchy of persons
and values whose reaction and backwardness only serve in the end the purposes
and the interests of the established powers and in whose "morality"
no "opening" to the future and for a real integration with the people
is possible.
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It is
in this context that praxis becomes also a pivotal indeed even axial
question around which the whole of Christian life and thought may be
reexamined. In the process, one tries not so much to bridge the chasm as to
clarify the challenge which this question poses to all, and to the task of
theological reflection in our present context.
Praxis and Social
Reality
The
constancy with which the word "praxis" is used can lead in fact, it
has already to its redundancy. It is important therefore that we start by
tracing its rich historical origins and development.
A. Like so many of the terminologies that are a
part of our present religious vocabulary, "praxis" is of Greek
philosophical origin. Its common and ordinary meaning roughly corresponds to
the English word "action" or "doing" and is usually
translated as "practice." The Greek verb "prasso"
from which it is derived has a number of closely related meanings such as
"I accomplish" (e.g., a journey), "I manage" (e.g., a state
of affairs), and "I do or fare well," or in general "I
act."
Likewise,
like so many of the Greek philosophical terminologies and words we have
inherited, it was in Aristotle where "praxis" took on a distinctive
and quasi-technical meaning. Aristotle used the term in the same general sense
to refer to a variety of biological activities. He also used it, however, in a
peculiar and restricted way by which he drew the contrast between "theoria" and "praxis". Here, the former
signifies sciences and activities concerned with knowing for its own sake,
while the latter signifies the more practical arts and disciplines that are
primarily a form of making something (e.g., building a house) or doing
something properly, and where the end or "telos"
of the activity is the production of an artifact.
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From this
early use of "praxis" as referring to the somewhat
"bread-and-butter" practical activities of human beings, it was soon
used by Aristotle to refer to those disciplines and activities predominant in
man's ethical and political life. These disciplines which require knowledge but
also practical wisdom are contrasted with "theoria"
because their end is not knowing or wisdom for its own sake, but doing or
living well. When we add that for Aristotle individual ethical activity is
properly a part of political activity, i.e., activity in the pelis, we can say that "praxis" signifies the
free activity, and the discipline concerned with this activity, in the polls.
"Praxis", in short, gains a clearly political character; it is the
activity that has to do with living in, maintaining and building the polls.
Given
the fact that the dominant philosophical mold within which this contrast was
drawn was an idealist one, where reality was conceived as immutably and
eternally lodged in the world of ideas and pure forms, it is not surprising
that "praxis" did not gain much critical attention and significance
after Aristotle. After all, if ultimate reality is in the world of ideas which
is transcendent and unchanging, then it was natural that attention was directed
and emphasis given to those activities that allow human beings to reach and
grasp this world, namely, the rational, intellectual and contemplative
activities. The man and woman of reason rather than the man and woman of
"praxis" became in this context the emulated and modal personalities.
Given
also the fact that it was within this idealist world that Christian thought
developed from the Patristic period on through the Middle
Ages, it was also natural that the conception of the theological task and of
Christian existence was constructed according to this modal personality.
In the
history of philosophy, as many of us would know, there are times when a concept
dazzles the
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imagination of a group of
thinkers. At such times hinge-points in the history of human understanding
the concept takes on almost a magical illuminative significance and suggests an
almost entirely new way of looking at things, or of perceiving a cluster of
issues or problems to be confronted. It was at such a time that around 1840, "praxis"
captured the imagination of a group of thinkers in Europe, the so-called Left
Hegelians, who after having plunged deeply into the intricacies of the idealist
system represented by Hegel felt that this system was no longer able to provide
direction and make sense of the milieu, especially the social and political
milieu, into which they have been thrust. In the quest for a new conceptual
framework, the concept of "praxis" emerged in the horizon. A
"new" view of "praxis" was coined, and along with it, a
"new" role for philosophy: philosophy was to become practical
philosophy, or rather a philosophy of practical activity, of
"praxis," exercising as it were a direct influence upon social life
and developing the future, no longer and not only in the realm of ideas, but in
the realm of concrete activity. "Praxis" was now the form or
discipline of concrete practical and political activity by which the present is
transcended in favor of the future, and philosophy's task was to reflect upon
that activity.
It was
from the Left Hegelians that. Karl Marx picked up the idea and developed a more
thorough and comprehensive understanding of "praxis". It has been in
turn from and through Marx that "praxis" has evolved and come into
our time as a new way of perceiving and grasping reality and the new basis from
which a new type of modal personality has emerged.
B. The social context out of which this shift in
understanding occurred, and out of which "praxis" emerged and drew so
much of its critical and illuminative power, is, I think, even more important
to comprehend and grapple with.
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1. It was first of all a context in which a more
dynamic and historical attitude towards social and political life and the
powers that control and direct it appeared and began to get hold of the
imagination of people. The prevailing structures and orders of society are
neither eternally given nor sacrosanct. They have a beginning, a development,
and therefore also an end. They are human constructs. As such they are subject
to human scrutiny and explanation, to human investigation and analysis, and to
human modification and reconstruction. Likewise, the ends for which these
structures and orders of society have been constructed are not divinely
conceived ends neither are they to be presumed ipso facto as having
universal validity. They are therefore also subject to human questioning in
terms of whether they are serving the good of all, in terms of for whose
benefit they have been conceived, and in terms of whom they victimized and from
whose suffering they are achieved. Society in this sense is less a homogeneous
body of commonly and universally perceived goals, and more as the arena of
conflicting interests and aspirations.
2. Within this more dynamic and historical
conception of social and political life, there emerged likewise a more dynamic
and historical conception of the relation ship between "ideas" and
the social order. Ideas cease to be seen as independent entities. They are not
to be judged solely, not even primarily, in terms of their internal logic or
coherence, not in terms of their moorings in eternal principles. They are
lifted out of their basic contemplative, and speculative mode and relocated, as
it were, in the arena of social and political life and action. They have a social
function, and are therefore subject to a social criteria.
In this sense, ideas are not to be left hanging in mid-air; they are to be
converted into social and political levers. "Praxis" involves this
conversion of ideas into political levers.
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Ideas, in this
sense, can not be and are never neutral. They are linked to political realities
and function always in a political milieu. They are therefore to be judged not
in themselves, but in terms of the political ends for which they are applied
and in relation to which they are evolved. Within a situation in which social
and political change has become a predominent
ingredient of the common life, ideas either serve the purposes of the present
order of things, operate within the circle of rationality and comprehension of
that order, or they may break out of that mold and become the bearers of
transcendence whereby the logic of the present system is consciously broken and
resisted in the name of a better future.
The
latter, however, must be consciously undertaken. It is something that does not
naturally happen, for the simple reason that those who are involved in the
labors of intellectual formation are not only natively embedded in the present
social realities and share in the consciousness which these engender; they are
also intentionally used and prostituted by the powers of the present for their
own interests and ends.
This
native imprisonment of ideas in the social and political system of the present
therefore can be changed only as a result of a conscious act of political will.
It is to come not from new intellectual formulations, but from a new practice,
that is, from those forms of practical action and experience by which the
prevailing natural, economic, social and political environment of man is
transformed and made more serviceable to the needs and aspirations of all.
3. What this new mode of thought requires above
all is a new commitment, a new act of solidarity. It means that the perception
of social reality is to be made from a different social angle. Social reality
must be seen less from the top and more from the bottom; less, in other words,
from the context of those who rule and exercise
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power and those who
benefit from the spoils of the exercise of that power, but more in the context
of those who are victimized by and who bear the burden of it.
Ideas
in this sense take on not only a new social function; they embody a new social
purpose. At the same time, they gain a new political role. They are no longer
simply the unconscious reflex of the present social order; they become a
vehicle for the historical redemption of those who have the least hope and
enjoy the least benefit from the present. They become the bearer of a new and
more just human future.
4. Thus, finally, it is not accidental that the
emergence of "praxis" as an important part of our intellectual and
political culture has been contemporaneous with the "rise of the
masses" in political life. "Praxis" re-appeared in the
intellectual horizon when solitary and detached reflectiveness
broke down and the sense of the "public" and the "common"
became more and more elevated as the proper arena in which political reality
was to be encountered. It became more crucial when the "masses of
people" were discovered and affirmed as the new subjects of political
history. Rather than being either the victims or the objects only of political
history, they became increasingly seen as its primary bearers and makers, so
that they began to constitute the new criteria by which any perception of the
present and any plans for the future were to be assessed.
Thus,
also, it has not been accidental that it has been in the name of "the
people" that all modern political systems have mounted their challenge
against colonial rulers, kings, and even priests and religious potentates.
"Praxis" and the ideas derived from it, in this sense, have played
the role of explaining the latent meaning of the "new" history that
was to be made, and providing the new symbols and goals around which "the
people" may be mobilized against the powers that previously
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dominated their lives and
the social myths that held them in their traditional places.
C. The impact of this shift in the mode of
perceiving and comprehending social reality can easily be seen in two very
important points of traditional Christian thought:
1. What is involved in the question of
"praxis" really is the question of "knowledge" and
"understanding" itself. How does one apprehend reality, how much of
it is accessible to human apprehension and worth apprehending, for what purpose
is the apprehension made, and what is the vehicle by which apprehension is
made. What is involved here, in short, is the "epistemological
question." "Praxis" emerged in the horizon of human understanding
precisely at the point when the claim of "reason" so long held and
assumed in the philosophical world to grasp the inner and basic core of
reality and to order it had become suspect, and there dawned the suggestion
that perhaps "act" and not "thought" is the prior and the
more trustworthy vehicle of grasping it and being involved in its imperatives.
"Act" in this sense does not follow "thought." On the
contrary, "act" precedes "thought" and provides in fact the
prior substance on which "thought" operates, and by which "thought"
is conditioned, if not bound. How, we are asked, is the whole gamut of
Christian thought and existence in the world to be shaped when it is perceived
from this "active" epistemological angle, and where action is not
just the by-product of "thought" but is the primary and prior bearer
of reality social in particular itself?
2. It impinges strongly also upon another very
important and related point, namely, our understanding of man, or anthropology.
It must be admitted that much of our inherited religious-theological tradition
has been rooted in the presupposition that man is primarily or essentially a
"knower." Man is at base a "rational
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being." Divine
reality, to use again a traditional expression, is linked to human reality through
reason or mind, through that which is orderly or gives order to the
multifarious and changing facets of a temporal world. Thus, it is not
accidental that theology has been traditionally linked with philosophy. Philosophy as the highest expression of human rationality and order
is at any given time the point of contact the point of intersection
between God and the human context, or God and the world. "Praxis"
interjects the assertion that man is not primarily a "knower" but a
"doer" or "actor." And not only a "doer" in the
bread-and butter sense of the word as doing all sorts of necessary things, but
"doer" in the sense that what he is and might become is not so much
the product of his thought, and of the thought of others upon him, but of his
action, and of the action of others upon him. He is entangled not primarily in
the web of ideas or voices whether loud or small (were that his problem, it
would not be too bad!), but in a web of human actions and human actors, and the
consequences and products of such actions upon Mm. His inhumanity lies in the
fact that he is only being acted upon, but could not himself
act, so that his life becomes the product of the actions of others, but not of
his own. He is able to move out of such an entanglement if he decides to do
so not by reflecting upon it, but by acting to get out of it. Man in
this sense is also a hoper (to use Ernst Bloch's term), not however a
romantic but an acitve hoper, and it is in his act
of breaking out of his entanglement that he asserts and regains his humanity.
"Praxis"
is the conceptual axis from which a challenge is posed to the understanding of
man as "knower", and of knowledge as "incorrigibly
contemplative." It asks that in order to achieve a better understanding of
what sort of creature man is and can be, we need to
understand him as an agent, as an active being engaged in various forms of
practice. Christian spirituality and Christian
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thought, it seems to me,
have yet to grapple fully with this fact.
D. The attack upon Christian thought and upon
its perception of social reality for that matter upon the whole structure and phenomenon of the
religious is not however partial and not peripheral. It is total and
it strikes deep into the very heart of the Christian life itself. Theological
reflection and religious thought in general appear, in this context, as so much
abstraction and generalization that is unrelated to reality and therefore
without any real practical significance. Christian spirituality, on the other hand,
looks so much like an "escape valve" into another level of existence
a transmigration into another world that
consciously or unconsciously plays into the manipulative hands of the
established powers. Both, in short, experience reality upside-down, so that the
relentless "criticism" of religion if not its dismantling becomes a
prerequisite of true social transformation and human redemption.
Praxis and the
Renewal of Theology
Are we
in this light to conclude that theological reflection has come to an end and
that theology has no future? Could there not, on the other hand, be a
"practical" theology of the future? If so, where and how would such a
"practical" theology emerge? The manner in which the question is
posed precludes any attempt at a complete answer, and the context out of which
it has been posed imply that it can only be answered
in the process of formation. I think however that one can indicate some hints
as to the possible shape and method of such a form of theological reflection
especially as it has began to be done in the
A. A "practical" theology of the
future must be a
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theology that arises from a
Christian life that is rooted in and primarily oriented towards
"earth." Such a theology, to put it differently, can only arise from
"below" and not "above."
1. It is not "heaven," insists C.S.
Song of
Theology
and the Christian life, of course, have not really been negligent and unmindful
of the "earth." One detects, however, that while these have not
neglected the earth, they have very often related to it in negative terms, or
if not in negative terms, then as tangential or secondary concerns. Concern for
"earth" comes, as it were, as a derivative of an ultimate concern.
Thus, we are told to esteem life, because we love God; we cherish freedom and
justice, because we cherish God; we do good to our
neighbor, because God tells us to do good to our neighbor. We make our concern
for this world and for life in it dependent upon and ancillary to a
metaphysical a priori.
When I
say here that the earth, man and woman, the nations, are the substance of
Christian life and of theology, I am saying that these must be their primary
and not their ancillary or secondary concerns. The whole gamut of the Biblical
narrative and the Christian tradition the so-called data of faith in this
sense become not the primary objects of our theological reflection. They are a
living memory that speaks in our lives, from which we draw inspiration,
insight, and strength as we live them in the swirling currents of our
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earth. They are a story
that becomes intertwined with our yet unfinished story an unfinished story
which we ourselves in concert with our fellow human beings must continue to
make with our lives in that particular point of earth in which we find
ourselves.
2. To say that theological reflection must start
from "earth" in other words means that it must begin at the point
where human suffering and human hope meet. "Where," cries a Kalinga
tribesman as he and his people struggle against the building of the
It must
be from the angle of the vicims of the disappearing
trees and forests that theology must start. To do otherwise is not ridding
theology of "heaven," it is simply transferring "heaven" to
earth. Theology, to put it differently, must take a wager, a bet,
that it is in the anguished cry and lament of that Kalinga tribesman
over the disappearance of his people's trees and forests and the intensity of
the will to resist and to fight it where its future lies. To put it
differently, theology must not only arise from "earth," but from the
under-earth; not just from the world, but from the under-world.
3. To de-romanticize the earth and to start from
the under-earth is not to despair. When one enters the shack of a deprived and
poor person, one sees desolation, but one might also discover in it the
infinite capacity and power of people to renew their lives and the world in
which they live. It is in the dialectic between the misery and tragedy of earth
and the possibilities for its
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transformation that theology and
the Christian life must locate themselves and where hopefully they may serve as
a vehicle for renewal and human hope.
B. Here, the issue of theological method arises
and is dealt with in a different manner. It arises first and foremost as the
concern for and the question of the method of human action, of
"praxis" and struggle, if you may, in which the Christian is willing
to be involved and to which he or she might be committed. It is only after this
prior question is given concrete answer that the question of the formal method
of theological reflection emerges, rather than the other way around.
Theological method, in this sense, does not determine a priori the
method of the human struggle. It arises from it, and reflects on it.
Thus,
the theologies which have emerged in our Asian "earth" among those
who have struggled in the "underearth" have
taken on a Wide variety of forms and methods commensurate to the form and
method of action which have evolved in the various struggles being waged for a
better "earth." It has taken the form of moving poetry (as in the
case of Kim Chi Ha, in Korea), of songs of suffering and hope (as in the case
of those who are involved in the Philippine struggle), of poetic and passionate
longings for a homeland "where one's head may rise above the clouds so
that the eyes could once more see the sky" (as in Taiwan), or of a simple
but firm declaration that "the resurrection of the Lord means the
restoration of democracy" (again, as in , Korea). These, as I see it, are
the expressions of Christian s struggle and hope that are beginning to
sprout in various; parts of our world so much of which has become human
jungles and it is in them that the future of theology and the theology of the
future are to be found.
C. Such a theology must perforce at this time be
partial. It is partial because there is an avowed partiality in its
solidarity and commitment. It is also partial
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because it knows that it can
not be complete and whole until the earth and the human community has become
complete and whole. A fragmented humanity and a deprived earth can not have a
full theology, nor do they deserve one. And if a theology emerges or is made
and presumes wholeness, it only rationalizes and covers the fragmentation from
which it arose.
If such
a theology recognizes its partiality, however, it also recognizes the
partiality of all theologies even when they claim universality from those
of the early Church to the present. Its partiality, in this sense, is also its
freedom, so that it can look at the whole canon of Scripture and criticize it.
Or as Ahn Byung Mu of
D. Such a theology must have as a primary
character of its work and focus of its attention the question of its efficacy
and serviceability. Efficacy and serviceability have not always been
integral to the understanding of truth, and theology has tended to assume that
it is in pursuit of a truth which has a meaning given "by a power
independent of us, in such a way that there can be a type of scientific
investigation relative to that which the word theology signifies"
(Wittgenstein). In such an understanding of the theological task, the problem
of efficacy and serviceability are not integral to truth. Truth has its own
sphere and practical efficacy is only a question of following out a truth that
is apprehended a priori.
A practical theology implies a change in this basic
perspective. Here, the "practical" question, i.e., the force and
process of action in a concrete and given issue, is a primary object and
ingredient of its reflection and the criteria on which it is to be judged. A
"practical" theology is, in this sense, a reflection upon
"praxis" and
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is to be judged in
terms of the power it is able to render to make that "praxis"
efficacious. It is in this sense a relatively focussed
theology. It concerns itself with a concrete issue at stake in a particular
time and place, helps in locating the participation necessary in such an issue,
and provides for this action a basis on which it is to be done. It is undertaken
in relation to an immediate and real problem in order to express the
involvement of the theologian in this problem.
Theological
language, in this sense, has no power of its own. There is no ex opera
operate in theological language (or for that matter in any language). The
power that theological language has is nothing more and nothing less than the
power which the community of the person who uses it is willing to invest in it
and through it.
Is Theological
Renewal Possible?
Is such
theological renewal possible? It is in fact not only possible but it is already
going on. It is going on in those increasingly larger and active pockets of
Christian work that are unequivocally and unconditionally committed to a
"preferential option for the poor." It is happening in the life and
work of Christian communities or individuals who have discovered and who now
bear testimony with their lives that justice and a full integration with the
people are the core of Christian spirituality.
The
question in other words is not whether such theological renewal is possible but
whether the Church can accept it as perhaps the one way for its theological
future, or at least will not obstruct it as an expression of the Christian's
witness to the incarnation in our time. One thing is certain. Such acceptance
can not occur unless the radical "conversion" on which it is
presupposed also occurs. It can not, in short, take place as a result of those
formal methods through which
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theological formation and training
have been undertaken. It comes primarily if not entirely from an incessant
exposure to the realities of the "under-earth," to the faces of human
suffering and hope that are found there, and from a willful turning away from
and breaking out of our identification with the centers of political and
economic power into a fuller and more unyielding integration with the
"multitudes" as the primary content of our spirituality and religious
life. Apart from this drastic re-orientation of priorities and directions,
theological renewal is not possible. It is in this sense that, as it has been
said so often in our time, theology can never go beyond the bounds of Christian
praxis.