Abstract
The emergence of Latin American theology of liberation
was inspired by vistas exposed by a Marxian analysis of
society and international power relations. This fact is
attested to not only by critical analysts of liberation
theology but by liberation theologians themselves. For
the latter, the attestati on of this fact is backed by
deliberate attempts at applying a sele ct io n of
fundamental aspects of Marxist theory to theological
discourse. The resultant methodological orientation this
imposes on liberation theology, namely, a practicalmaterialist accent, is highlig ht ed as a feature which
distinguishes liberation theology from its antecedent
traditional Christian theology, and which expressly
establishes its so cio-political utility as a theology
for the liberation of the poor from historical forms of
oppression.
This study is a critical historico-philosophical
evaluation of this relationship between Latin American
theology of liberation and Marxist Theory. Drawing from
Louis Althusser’s per spective on Marxism, it reveals
that the former is formulated upon a systematic failure
to recognise the method ological-epistemological
implications of Karl Marx’s rejection of the humanist
materialism of the philosophy of Ludwig Feuerbach during
and after 1845.
In this way, liberation theology is exposed as being
trapped into a pre-Marxian Feuerbachian epistemological framework, which in some major respects, incorporates
precritical elements of the philosophy of G.W.F. Hegel
as expressed in the pre-1845 writings of Karl Marx. In
corroboration of this, similarities between the
fundamental Feuerbachian epistemological presuppositions
and liberation theology are identified. The conclusion
defended is that, instead of being Marxist in its
underlying philosophical orientation, as its proponents
claim it to be, liberation theology is essentially
Feuerbachian. As such, its usefulness in the struggle
for the liberation of the poor and oppressed from
capitalist domination is found as being extremely limited.
