Abstract

Central to this dissertation is the suggestion that dialogue between the mystical and prophetic trajectories of the Christian tradition should prevail over any binary opposition. I have found the reflections of Simone Weil and Gustavo Gutierrez provocative and extraordinary in their creative ability to engage both the mystical and prophetic traditions. In their thought, prophetic commitment to the poor and marginalized groups of history is inspired by a mystical vision. Both Weil and Gutierrez are suspicious of forms of mysticism that ignore or minimize the harsh reality of suffering and violence in history and society; conversely, they reveal a serious mistrust of prophetic traditions which deny the contributions of mystical interpretations, practices, and ways of speaking to and about Divine mystery. More specifically in relation to the question of God, they ratify both expressions of God's transcendence and mystery in the mystical tradition, on the one hand, and God's hiddenness in the prophetic and tragic traditions, on the other. ;Since there are important differences in the thought of Simone Weil and Gustavo Gutierrez, the second element of this thesis contends that Weil's development of the mystical tradition contributes to Gutierrez's understanding of mysticism, while Gutierrez's interpretation of the prophetic tradition corrects and contributes to Weil's understanding of prophecy. The fruit of this study is a more complete and developed mystical-prophetic formulation than that of either Weil or Gutierrez alone