Abstract

In American History, one of the hallmark examples of ethnic suffering is slavery and its accompanying racism. Various African-American philosophers within the Christian tradition have set out to propose a methodology for a theistic liberation philosophy. In the 18th Century, David Walker and William Whipper proposed competing strategies for liberation within the insurrectionist and suasionist traditions, respectively. Nevertheless, because of their theistic presuppositions, before the viability of their programs can be assessed in a Christian context, I believe there are important background issues concerning a methodology, the theistic God, and how such a God could operate in the actual world that should be addressed. This is begun by surveying the problem of evil along with certain theoretical and experiential defenses of the theistic doctrine of God. It continues with an analysis of some liberation methodologies that arise out of such defenses. One of the fundamental tenets that supports both Walker's and Whipper's methodology is a preferential option thesis which asserts that God exercises partiality on behalf of the poor and oppressed. This thesis is also present in the work of James Cone and Gustavo Gutierrez. In this work I reconstruct the argument for the preferential option thesis and show, utilizing the work of William Jones, that it is not consistent with a theodicy that would justify resistance by the poor to oppression. I further go on to identify resources in the work of Soren Kierkegaard that I hold to be useful toward the construction of a theoretically defensible theistic liberation philosophy