Experiencia, lenguaje y mística cristiana: Diálogo entre la dimensión mística y la experiencia espiritual en la obra de Michel de Certeau y los desafíos actuales de la teología y la espiritualidad latinoamericana.

Michel de Certeau's analysis of 16th- and 17th-century mysticism, which emphasizes practices of enunciation arising from crisis and the absence of God, can be adapted to understand Latin American spirituality and theology today. Latin American theology is defined by its preferential option for the poor as a place of enunciation and by orthopraxis over orthodoxy, elements that function as 'mystical operations' linking contemplation and commitment. Certeau's categories provide epistemological validation for Latin American theology by resisting rationalism and privileging the otherness and historicity of faith experience.

Study at a glance

Abstract

This article asks how the mystical dimension and spiritual experience in Certeau's work dialogue with the current challenges of Latin American spirituality and theology. The text aims to establish a critical dialogue between Michel de Certeau's analysis of mysticism and the current challenges of Latin American Spirituality (LAS) and Theology (LAT). Certeau's work highlighted the singularities of 16th- and 17th-century mysticism and spirituality by showing how the practices of certain groups and individuals differed markedly from the predominant trends in the religious and cultural sphere of the time: Protestant Reformation and Catholic Counter-Reformation. Many of his categories, approaches, and methodologies can be adapted to the analysis of Latin American theology in the 20th and 21st centuries because, on the one hand, its internal dynamics fall within the boundary between the renovating imprint of the Second Vatican Council and the currents that attempt to confine its impact to the approaches that predominate in Europe and the First World. To this end, he takes Certeau's categories on mysticism—understood as a practice of enunciation or ‘modus loquendi’ that arises from a crisis and focuses on the absence of God—and attempts to show that they are relevant to understanding Latin American spirituality. TLA is defined by its preferential option for the poor as a place of enunciation and by orthopraxis (transformative action) over orthodoxy, elements that are analyzed as ‘mystical operations’ of articulation between contemplation and commitment. Ultimately, Certeau's analysis offers epistemological validation for TLA by resisting rationalism and privileging the otherness and historicity of the experience of faith.