A Pneumatology of Liberation Theology —Significance of the Holy Spirit in the Theology of Leonardo Boff

Abstract

This paper will focus on the significance of the Holy Spirit in liberation theology, especially according to Leonardo Boff. Liberation theologians usually do not attempt to delineate a doctrine of the Holy Spirit in a systematic manner, although the doctrine is extremely important to them for an understanding of the church, society, history, and the reign of God. Among liberation theologians, Boff delineates his view on the Holy Spirit in a systematic fashion in his explication of the Trinity. Chapter I introduces the story of Boff silenced by the Catholic Church. Chapter II explains Boff’s understanding of the Holy Sprit in the trinitarian and christological context. He understands the Triune God as communion in the trinitarian community, and the Holy Spirit as the unifying Person of the trinitarian community. This trinitarian community becomes the model of all human communities, which enables the union, communion, and reconciliation of all persons with others and with God. It is the principle of God’s creation and all humans are called together as a community to participate in the life of the Trinitarian community. Boff also understand the Spirit as the Risen Christ in the christological context. He understand the Holy Spirit as the new reality of the risen Christ, liberated from space and time. By this he shows the basic unity between the Christology and Pneumatology of Boff. Jesus Christ was the ultimate concretization of the Spirit in history, and the Spirit is the risen Christ who continue to be present in history. Chapter III discusses about the locus of the Holy Spirit, who is not confined to the outward form of the church or the institutional church. The Spirit of Christ is free from the limitations of earthly existence of the institutional church as a human structure. The power of the church does not come from its institutional structures but from the Holy Spirit, the risen Christ, who freely and vitally is involved in history. The church is the sacrament, sign, and instrument of the Holy Spirit. Not confined within the institutional church, the Holy Spirit works freely the world and in history and be with each and every person who lives in a particular situation, preferentially with the poor and the oppressed in the world. Here Boff focuses particularly on the Christian base communities as the locus of the Holy Spirit in Latin America, and as a reaction to the institutional church. By his Pneumatology Boff shows that the Holy Spirit is essentially significant in his theology of liberation. He stands firm with traditional Nam, byung Doo, A Pneumatology of Liberation Theology 197 Catholic theology in Trinity and the Holy Spirit but still be able to overcome the institutional aspect of the Catholic Church. Boff’s understanding of the Holy Spirit leads his ecclesiology to be more compatible and works better with that of the Free Church than of Catholic Church. His Pneumatology has a potential to subvert revolutionally the Catholic ecclesiology.