Theopathodicy:

Spirituality, Culture and Praxis

Abstract

The field of Theology and Literature is well established in the Brazilian context. The proposal of the research group teopatodiceia (theopathodicy) is to situate the dialogue of theology as a question for the meaning of God within human seeking of meaning; and to offer a critical rationality for a system of beliefs having literature as a privileged interlocutor, as well as other forms of narratives and artistic expressions of the human condition. Thus, the anthropological element aims, not only a dialogue with a literary anthropology, but, within the project of an archaeology of knowledge, it considers the productions of subjectivities implicated (pathos) in the different knowledges in dialogue and in the epistemological models that better favor the elaboration of a plural and counter hegemonical public theology to discern modes of becoming responsible for a public agenda based on an ethical sensibility (dike) common to contemporary dilemma.  Literature occupies a significant role as an heterology in the dialogue with theology. As an interdisciplinary approach, the archaeological project draws from the theoretical background of authors such as Antonio Manzatto, Paul Ricoeur, Michel Foucault, Michel de Certeau, and David Tracy. In a critique to theology’s self-referentiality the dialogical, interdisciplinary, and intercultural theological perspective of the group is grounded in the whole of human sciences.