Archives: Book Chapters

We turn now to Bonhoeffer’s work, Christ, the Center. The choice is an arbitrary one, but perhaps not without justification. The lectures entitled Creation and Fall could well be considered next, because the questions raised in Creation and Fall brought Bonhoeffer to consider the place of Christ.

Christology is fundamental to Bonhoeffer’s thought, yet in turning to the Christology we have an unusual problem. The Christology lectures are reconstructions of notes taken by students. Eberhard Bethge, the man who knows Bonhoeffer most intimately, reconstructed them, and their accuracy is enhanced by his position and understanding of Bonhoeffer. The lectures were delivered in the summer semester of 1933 at the University of Berlin. Intended to be complete in three parts, Bonhoeffer only finished two of them.

QUESTIONS ABOUT CHRIST

The introduction places the question of Christology in its setting. Christology must be studied by the worshiping community. The Word of God, the Logos, is not an idea which cannot be worshiped, but a person. How does one understand a person? The meaningful question is: Who are you? The wrong questions are: What are you? or How can you be what you are?

Bonhoeffer rejects two questions in Christology. The first is: How should the Incarnation be conceived? The early church foundered on this one. The second is: What is this being? Modern liberal theology foundered on this question. The New Testament and, of course, Bonhoeffer’s inspiration, Luther, followed the middle path. The central question is: Who is this Person?

Bonhoeffer questions the traditional rubric of theology, "the person and work of Christ."¹ The question was asked: "Does the work interpret the person or the person the work?" Bonhoeffer agrees with Luther that the person determines the meaning of the work, not the other way around. The work may appear good, but it could have been done by the devil. If the person is primary, then an "example-type" religion is out, because Jesus is the Son of God. A merely idealistic founder can be imitated, but the Son of God does a work which I am not capable of imitating. All avenues to God are excluded through the self-revelation in Christ wherein is learned his work. "If I know who the person is who does this, I will also know what he does." But the separation of person and work is artificial. We have to do with the "whole Christ, the one Christ . . . [who] is the historical (geschictliche) Jesus. . .²

Christ, the Center is divided into two parts. The first is "The Present Christ — The ‘Pro Me’." It emphasizes the contemporaneity of Christ and what he is for me. Two theological statements serve as the basis of Bonhoeffer’s views. First, "Jesus is the Christ present as the Crucified and Risen One." Second, "Christ is present in the church as a person."³ In clarifying his position Bonhoeffer rejects any understanding of Christ as an influence, a force, or anything short of being a person. Further, Christ must not be viewed as something outside history. Rather, Christ is a historical person who, because of the resurrection, still confronts men in history on a personal basis. Perhaps a third statement summarizes his position on Christology: Jesus Christ is all of this — for me.

Granting these assertions, Christ is said to confront men in three ways. (1) In the Word. The Word is not met as an idea, which is abstract and timeless, but as person. An idea demands no commitment, but a person-to-person communication demands a response. In being confronted with the Word, man is "put in the truth." Thus Christ does not declare a way to God, but is the way. Ideas are held by man, but the Logos holds man.⁴

(2) In the sacrament. Bonhoeffer presents a Lutheran view of Christ as sacrament. "The Word in the sacrament is an embodied Word." Not all of nature is a sacrament, only the creaturely elements which "God addresses, names and hallows with his special Word," that is, with Jesus Christ. "This Word Jesus Christ is wholly present in the sacrament, not only his Godhead, and not only his manhood."⁵ Symbolic interpretations of the sacrament are rejected: the sacraments "do not mean something, they are something."⁶

Bonhoeffer attempts to resolve the differences between Lutherans and Calvinists by denying the validity of the questions they raised. The "how" of the sacrament brought up the Calvinist question of how Christ’s bodily limitations in heaven could be present in the sacrament. The Lutherans answered with their communication of attributes of the divine nature, or the doctrine of the ubiquity of his flesh. This question is rejected. One may only ask, "Who is present in the sacrament?" The answer is: "The whole person of the God-man is present in his exaltation and his humiliation; Christ exists in such a way that he is existentially present in the sacrament."⁷

(3) In the community. Christ as community speaks of the presence of Christ in the church. This means "that the Logos of God has extension in space and time in and as the community."⁸ "The Word is in the community in so far as the community is a recipient of revelation."⁹ To say that the community is the Body of Christ is not a metaphor, it is his body.

The contemporaneity of Christ is viewed from three perspectives: (1) Christ is the center of human existence. Although this cannot be demonstrated, the center of Christ is seen where man fails to fulfill the law and Christ is the fulfillment of it for man. (2) Christ is the center of history. Man’s history holds forth promise and fulfillment. The promise of history, being corrupted by sin, has experienced only corrupt messiahs, apart from that one in Israel in whom God fulfilled his promise.¹⁰ Like the first, this is proclaimed, not demonstrated. (3) Christ is "the Mediator between God and Nature."¹¹ Nature, not being free and thereby not having guilt, cannot be reconciled, only redeemed. The sacrament, speaking of an old thing become a new creature, proclaims a word for nature. Christ is the liberator of creation.¹²

WRONG ANSWERS ABOUT CHRIST

In the second half of his work, Bonhoeffer speaks of the history of doctrines concerning Christ. The familiar distinction made by modern liberalism — the historical Jesus versus the Christ of faith — is rejected by Bonhoeffer. There is only one historical Jesus Christ.¹³ In this Bonhoeffer follows the conclusions of Martin Kahler.¹⁴ The Logos, who is personal, who is incarnate in Jesus of Nazareth, is confronted through the historical scriptural narratives and is known in no other way or form.

The history of Christology shows that the wrong questions have been asked: how rather than who? Bonhoeffer deals with the early heresies of doceticism, Ebionism, monophysitism, Nestorianism,¹⁵ and others, and concludes that the Council of

Chalcedon in A.D. 451 rightly condemned these early attempts to deal with an invalid question. He rejects the charge that Chalcedon was a compromise solution. Actually it safeguarded the real question: Who is incarnate in Jesus Christ?

Chalcedon’s conclusion gave impetus to theological development in Protestantism. Much of the development followed the "how" pattern. How can one relate the power of God to the powerlessness of man? How can God be tired, hungry, and thirsty? These questions cropped up in the Reformation. Luther gave the answer of the communicatio idiomatum, or the interpenetration of attributes of each nature.¹⁶ On the basis of the communicatio idiomatum, the Lutherans could say that the body of Jesus Christ is omnipresent and thereby affirm a real presence in the sacraments.

The Calvinistic tradition dissented by saying that Lutheran Christology is no longer talking about the Savior of the New Testament. The Lutheran view says that a change in God takes place, and that the real humanity of Christ is illusory.¹⁷ The human nature of Christ is taken up in the attributes of deity. Thereby Luther could be charged with reviving the ancient heresy of monophysitism.

The solutions of post-Lutheran orthodoxy developed a Christology around the humiliations of Christ. Two types arose: the Kenoticists, who spoke of Christ renouncing the use of his divine nature, and the Cryptics, who spoke of the powers of deity being concealed during the Incarnation. Bonhoeffer rejected these because neither the divinity nor the humanity of Jesus were made comprehensible. The touchstone for his Christology is Chalcedon. To this he returns repeatedly.

Although a section on the "Eternal Christ" was proposed, it was never completed, or did not survive. We can make some evaluations on what remains of his lectures. Very significant is the question of who, rather than how, in the Incarnation. The merit of establishing different ground rules in the Christological discussion is noteworthy. The avoidance of speculative questions which cannot be answered would have saved the early church much heartache. Bonhoeffer does appear arbitrary in some of his positions, however. A question in passing relates to his attitude toward "the hypothesis of the Virgin Birth."¹⁸ He regards the biblical evidence for it as indecisive and uncertain. One can justly wonder what hermeneutical principle Bonhoeffer employs to determine for himself that certain things are "biblical" and others are "not biblical." He accepts the miracles of Jesus as being genuine, although performed incognito. This appears to be an arbitrary distinction.

In another example he describes the sacrament as a stumbling block. In his attempt to rid Christianity of "religious elements" is arbitrariness not at work? Is not Bonhoeffer subject to the same criticism as many theologians? I may jettison as "religion" those items which are scandals to me, while those items I keep are the essential nature of Christianity. But in reality, what I keep may be a binding tradition which someone else is eager to cut out as being a "burden" to modern man. Is not the real scandal or stumbling block the fact that I choose to make it that? Is not the whole ecumenical movement stopped here? What is a scandal — verbal inspiration, for instance — to one may be the very nature of authority to another. In spite of these criticisms, Christ, the Center is a fruitful book for its emphasis on religious knowledge. If God is not incarnate in Jesus Christ, we have no knowledge of him that is worth knowing.

LECTURES ON GENESIS

In the winter semester of 1932-33, Bonhoeffer gave a series of lectures on the first three chapters of Genesis. They were well received by his students, who persuaded him to publish them. They appeared in 1937 under the title Schopfung und Fall (Creation and Fall) ¹⁹ The lectures present a theological rather than exegetical exposition of the Genesis chapters. Bonhoeffer’s interest in Christo-ecclesiology still prevails in these lectures. Particular attention is directed toward the Bible as the book of the church.

The chapters reflect the outline of Genesis. The beginning is treated not as a point in time which man cannot know, but is referred to the One who was there — God. It is impossible to search behind God’s creative act. Creation is a free act without cause or necessity. The God who creates is linked by Bonhoeffer to the God of the resurrection. No Marcionite ²⁰ gnosticism is permitted. The resurrection of Christ is essentially a creation out of nothing and by it we know of the original creation. God the beginning is at the same time the end of man.

God the Creator stands over the waters in creation. No ancient cosmogonic identification of God and the world is permitted. God gives it form and direction, but he himself is glorified in the creation. In fact, Bonhoeffer declares that "God is worshiped first by the earth,"²¹ which might raise questions about worship as an act of free creatures toward a Creator.

God creates by his Word. Speaking is akin to freedom. Because God works in the world as transcendent, we know him only by means of the Word. The ways of knowing God by natural theology (eminence, negation, and causality) are rejected because of the revelatory Word.²² Indeed, it is not true to speak of the creation as an "effect" of the Creator. To reason from effect to cause means that God "had" to create. More correctly God created in freedom without necessity. The world God created is "good," but this does not mean that this is the best of all possible worlds. Its goodness "consists in its being under the dominion of God."²³ God continues to uphold the creation (the doctrine of preservation).

In writing of the second day of creation, Bonhoeffer rejects its "ancient world picture in all its scientific naivete."²⁴ The question arises as to why he should be so rigid in his rejection of this account, when earlier the point is labored that we cannot know anything of the beginnings.²⁵ In spite of this problem, he introduces the concept of fixedness in which the laws of days, years, and seasons are understood.

With the appearance of various forms of living beings, God gives this kind of being the power to continue life. God is Lord of the living, not the dead. Yet the living is nothing divine, only creaturely. Without the sustaining power of God the universe would "sink back into nothingness."²⁶ God’s real creativity is reflected only in man. The previous works assume the form of his command. In man God began a new creation. God’s image in man means that man is free, but it is a freedom "for" something. Men are free "for" God and for one another. The freedom of man and God’s image are the same thing. Bonhoeffer rejects the analogy of being (analogia entis) for an analogy of relation (analogia relationis). The analogy of relationship is not a likeness of being, but a relation in which freedom is given. ²⁷ Man in freedom was to rule the earth, but man’s sin has made him the ruled. Paradoxically, man could only rule when he was under the dominion of God.

Chapter two of Genesis is treated in the same manner. Genesis 2 is regarded as an older account than Genesis 1, perhaps from a different source. Genesis 1 gives an account of the transcendent God, while Genesis 2 speaks of his nearness to man. The garden story (2:8-17) is regarded by the world as a fantastic myth, while the church looks upon the story as "our pre-history, truly our own." ²⁸ The imagery must be translated into "the new picture language of the technical world," ²⁹ but it is a story that is to be taken seriously. The anthropomorphisms of the chapter may be offensive to modern thinking, but the picture of Yahweh’s creative activity in forming man is important. First, it points up who made me: God’s closeness indicates concern and nearness. Second, it shows whose I am. Regardless of how far I may run from him, I am yet his. The ultimate concern for man is seen in the closeness of God to man in the Incarnation. ³⁰

Man’s origin merges two entities: spirit and matter. In common with other creatures of the earth, man has a body of substances. But only into man did God breathe the breath of life. Only then was man alive. Thus man is a living body, not a body who has a soul or a soul which has a body.

The second picture of chapter two is the garden. Two trees stand out — the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The tree of life is in the middle, and Bonhoeffer speaks of our lives coming from the middle — God. Man’s life circles the middle but never grasps it. Life is a gift. But man’s life is real only as long as it exists in unbroken obedience. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil is set off-limits by a special word to Adam. The threat of death is joined to the command. How can Adam know the meaning of good and evil? What does this mean? To the free Adam, Bonhoeffer says, God is charting off his limitations. God is, in essence, saying, "You are a creature, Adam, be what you are." ³¹ Adam is limited and must live by God’s grace.

Bonhoeffer states that Adam could not know, before his disobedience, the meaning of good or evil. He says that Adam was beyond good and evil. ³² But is Bonhoeffer’s interpretation the correct one? Could not Adam know the meaning of good without the polarity of evil? Must we always experience evil before we know good? Did not Adam know good in knowing God? There is not a little of this in popular thinking — "you can’t know the good without the evil." Why not? Evil need not be justified solely for the sake of a definition. This would require some form of eternal dualism, for God could not know evil without its existence and the experience of it. Surely Bonhoeffer is weak at this point. Bonhoeffer raises the question of how Adam could do his monstrous deed, but he cannot give an answer to this unanswerable question.

According to Bonhoeffer, the marriage statement that the husband leaves father and mother to be with his wife reflects the application of the story by the writer. But the story has meaning beyond Adam, for we are that Adam, and marriage entails the leaving of the father and mother to become one. The profundity of this union — man and woman in the community of love — is related to the church, which shows its original form in Adam and Eve. ³³ Where love exists there is no shame. Where shame prevails it is because one person cannot accept another as the gift of God.

Genesis 3 centers on the temptation, fall, and judgment of man. Bonhoeffer forbids the attempted identification of the serpent with the devil. To do so is to misplace the guilt which properly belongs only to man. This stresses also the "inconceivable, inexplicable, and inexcusable" nature of the event. However, it is not Adam alone who is guilty, for "I have committed evil in the midst of the primeval state of creation." ³⁴ How this is done Bonhoeffer does not say.

The serpent’s approach is to question God’s word: "Did God say . . . ?" It is assumed that evil already exists in the world in some enigmatic form, although the creation is still "good." The serpent asks the first religious question which wraps evil in the garment of good. This question has contemporary significance: Did God really say that I should not steal, commit adultery, bear false witness? Will not my case be different from the others?

The second question undergirds the first and also contains some truth and some falsity. God did not restrict all the fruit of the garden, just some. But doubt was cast upon God’s goodness, which helped Eve come to the point of making judgments about God’s Word. Man’s resistance to the adversary’s question can only be met by saying "Begone, Satan" (Matt. 4:10).

The conversation progresses from statements concerning the correctness of God’s utterances to the question of why God uttered them. The integrity of God comes under attack: God is selfish about his existence and does not wish for you to share it. You will not die. You will become like him. What does it mean to become like God? It means casting off the desire to be a creature; it means freedom, the power to create, and placing oneself in the middle, "ordaining a new way of ‘being for God’." ³⁵

Paradoxically, in wanting to be like God and gaining much of this, man loses God, life, and harmony. The fall, or man’s disobedience, results in man’s rejecting limitations on himself. Sin violates the tree, the other person, and humanity in general.

Three things are to be understood about the fall, says Bonhoeffer. First, the act in the first sin is inconceivable and without excuse. Rational explanations are merely accusations that try to place the blame on the Creator. Second, once in sin, man cannot go back to unsin. Third, Adam’s act is interrelated to Eve and vice versa. Thus "each man is guilty of the deed of the other." ³⁶

Bonhoeffer makes a startling statement about the effects of the act of disobedience: "‘The end of the ways of God is bodiliness’." ³⁷ The man and the woman realized, not good and evil, but their nakedness. Man’s existence is ruptured to the extent that he stands ashamed before the other. No longer accepting the other person in love is shame. Bodiliness relates to sexuality also. Up to this point sexuality was not divorced from the purpose of belonging to another. ³⁸ But now the paradox of being both an individual as well as one with another is split. "Man and woman are divided," which means that each "puts forward his claim to the possession of the other. . . This avid passion of man for the other person first comes to expression in sexuality." ³⁹ That is, man refuses to accept the limits of the other person. At the same time he covers himself, because nakedness is unity with the other, which is now lost. ⁴⁰

It is possible to interpret Bonhoeffer as saying that sexuality arises from the fall of man, although he does speak of it in connection with Adam and Eve in their innocence. However, he also speaks of life created through unrestrained sexuality, because man is a dying creature-man is creative in his destruction of another person. To interpret nakedness in a sexual way probably raises more questions than it answers. Was procreation possible before the fall? Bonhoeffer at one point tends to imply that sex is evil. ⁴¹

The act of disobedience was followed by a flight into hiddenness. It is ludicrous to think that man can hide from God, but sin is never rational. Bonhoeffer calls this flight, conscience. Conscience speaks of a division in man, and conscience always puts man on the run from God. At the same time, conscience is deceptive in letting man think he can flee from God. Bonhoeffer does not equate conscience with the voice of God, but rather sees it serving as a defense against God’s Word. ⁴² The call of God to Adam, "Where are you?" is interpreted as God’s mercy attempting to keep man from hiding, from entering into self-reproach, self-torment, and religious despair. The command is for Adam to stand before God as he really is — a creature. Adam’s rationalizations of his actions are reflected before God in the actions of the woman, who in turn blames the serpent.

The fall brings both a curse and a promise. ⁴³ The opposites of pain and pleasure both become alive for Adam and Eve. This is true for their relationship with one another, in their disharmonic world, and within themselves. Man is cursed in being cut off from the tree of life. He is promised new life in Christ. This parallel of curse and promise is also seen in Eve and Mary: the first and second beginnings.

Although man is naked before God, God made for him garments. There is no exposing of man to man by God. Bonhoeffer would not have accepted the current tendencies in religious psychology to strip away all masks and forms. Some masks are necessary, and God gives the example for it in making garments for Adam and Eve. At this point, Bonhoeffer shifts from speaking of God as creator to God as preserver. Henceforth God directs the world by means of ordinances. An ordinance is a directive designed to preserve life in the sinful world.

Following the clothing of man — God’s new action — man is driven out of the garden lest he eat of the tree of life and live forever. Ironically, man’s desire to live forever independently of God brought his death. In his desire to be like God, man now is like him — alone. God cuts off man’s access to him — sin naturally does this — and man assumes the lordship of a world that is mute and death-producing.

The story of Adam is the story of man’s history. Adam and Eve created life — Cain, who became the first murderer. The story repeats itself with greater intensity, for men have a greater desire to live and hence they destroy to do it. Only in Christ is there an end of the story in which man desires not his own life but commits it to Christ — whose cross becomes a tree of life — and thereby in dying to himself comes to live forever.

Bonhoeffer’s book is a profound attempt to interpret the Genesis narrative. It must not be mistaken for a critical, exegetical attempt. It is a theological interpretation that reads more into the accounts than is warranted. Thus the lectures are more devotional and sermonic than theological.

Bonhoeffer raises questions which traditional theology has answered, but which he finally skirts. The problem of the nature of man in Eden and the interrelatedness of Adam to mankind needs further explication. The question of the identification of the serpent, or who speaks through the serpent, and the questions of nakedness and sexuality need further explanation. One might question whether pain itself is evil and is a result of the fall, or whether the pain was more mental and psychological than physical? Regardless of its weaknesses, however, the book possesses dynamic insights into the meaning of the first three chapters of Genesis.

PRACTICAL ADVICE ON TEMPTATION

A work quite similar to Creation and Fall is the shorter work Versuchung (Temptation) . ⁴⁴ It repeats some of the themes found in the former, but its occasion and setting were quite different. The former was a series of lectures in a university setting. Temptation was given over a five-day period in April 1937 to a group of clergymen of the Confessing Church to whom Bonhoeffer had been the chief mentor in the Finkenwalde seminary. The challenge to Christian living of the possibility of martyrdom — for any Christian — is posed as the ultimate threat.

The preliminary statement centers on the Lord’s Prayer, "Lead us not into temptation." This plea is set over against the natural inclination of the non-Christian to assert his own strength and be victor over the enemy. The Christian realizes the real truth that in temptation one is robbed of his own staying powers. Temptation implies an abandonment — by men, by God. Man is no match for the devil. For this reason he prays, "Lead us not into temptation." Temptation is experienced on occasions. It comes like the seasons. All of life is not a temptation; the Christian also knows seasons of joy and rest in the living God.

Adam’s temptation can instruct us in three things: (1) where there is innocence, there the tempter will come; (2) the tempter comes denying his origin by concealment; and (3) access to the innocent is gained by denial until the tempter has succeeded in turning the heart from God. ⁴⁵ The innocence Bonhoeffer describes is "clinging to the Word of God with pure, undivided hearts." ⁴⁶ The universal question that brings all men to sin is: "Has God said?"

Christ’s temptation was different from Adam’s — and harder. Christ assumed the burden of Adam’s flesh which was under condemnation. "Even Jesus Christ . . . was born with the question: ‘Has God really said?’ — yet without sin." ⁴⁷

Alone in the wilderness, hungry and tired, Jesus was in a sense abandoned by God, and the tempter himself — without disguise — came to assault him. The first temptation was directed to the weakness of manhood — his flesh. To satisfy the needs of hunger is legitimate, but not at the expense of losing the redemption of mankind. Jesus’ reply was that he would depend upon the Word of God. The second temptation was spiritual. It was to "demand a sign from God," to charge God with guilt, to tempt God rather than lay claim to his promise and walk by faith. The third temptation Bonhoeffer designates as the "complete temptation." Jesus’ allegiance to God was at stake. Satan opposed his power and rule against God’s, and asked for deliberate apostasy from God.

The defense of Jesus in all three temptations was the "saving, supporting, enduring Word of God." ⁴⁸ Because Jesus was tempted — and is the risen Savior — our temptation is no longer specifically our own. "Lead us not into temptation" has meaning because Christ was victor over temptation in our flesh. Because we are linked to Christ, Bonhoeffer declares that "we are not tempted, Jesus Christ is tempted in us. " ⁴⁹ To share in his atoning life is also to share his triumph. Knowing that he has won the victory, that we are not tempted alone, gives us the help we need.

Bonhoeffer is quite to the point on the sources of temptation. The devil is the author of temptation, and his illusory claim to man is: You "can live without God’s word." ⁵⁰ He offers to men peace, happiness, and power — none of which he has. The devil’s temptation involves separating man from God and accusing man in his sin to God. Job’s temptation serves as an example of the latter. To separate man from God the devil uses robbery, sickness, and rejection. The tempted must recognize his enemy, for he can be overcome. This is done — in part — by unmasking Satan’s lies.

The second source of temptation is man’s lust. When the adversary is recognized, man cannot blame him for sin. Man’s evil desires must be accorded the most significant role in temptation. Mine is the guilt when I say "I will."

The third source is God himself. Bonhoeffer approves of St. James’s statement that God tempts no one (James 1:12, 13), but there was a real testing of men in the Old Testament. The temptation of God is his abandonment for a time of his servant. Even Satan who is in God’s power is used against his will to God’s service. Satan works in three ways: (1) in temptation he leads men to see their own weaknesses; (2) he brings suffering to the tempted; and (3) at Satan’s hand the sinner dies. ⁵¹ But when Satan works and obtains his "rights," he is destroyed. And, more important, when man comes to a knowledge of sin and is deserving of death, he has a greater understanding of the meaning of salvation in Jesus Christ.

"Resistance to the devil is only possible in the fullest submission to the hand of God." ⁵² The Christian must accept the truth of 1 Corinthians 10:13 that God will not let him be subjected to temptations above his strength but will make a way of escape. Thus the Christian need have no fear of temptation as long as he knows that in Christ it can be conquered.

The temptations we face parallel those of Jesus. Desire of any kind — power, sex, fame, money — turns off joy in God for enjoyment of creaturehood. Bonhoeffer’s analysis of smoldering desire, forgetfulness of God, and man’s self-vindication are incisive. Against desire one must hold to the image of the Savior and his power. Resistance in temptation is out of the question; fleeing is the answer. The flight to the Crucified gives help.

The second temptation of the flesh is suffering. General suffering is in some way connected with the devil. ⁵³ God does not will suffering of any kind. This is linked with sin and man’s rebellion against God — not necessarily specific sins, but sin in general. The Christian should receive suffering in protest against the work of the devil but at the same time use it to strengthen faith rather than to defect from it. When Job was deprived of everything, he rested solely in God.

Unlike general suffering, which may come to anyone, the Christian may suffer for Christ’s sake. This too is a temptation. Suffering for Christ’s sake may mean one of several things: (1) it may drive one to apostasy which would be tragic; (2) it may drive one deeper into the arms of Christ; (3) it may mean that one suffers the judgment of God upon the household of faith (1 Pet. 4:18); (4) one is allowed the joy of suffering for Christ in a meaningful, purposeful way.

Man’s temptations of the spirit parallel the second temptation of Jesus. Two temptations are mentioned. Securitas (spiritual pride) is the temptation to sin that God’s grace may abound. With this is connected the hardening of the heart and a provocation of the wrath of God. Desperatio (despair) is the fruit of wanting to put God to the test. Inability to rest in God’s promises leads to despair. Bonhoeffer’s advice is practical: (1) don’t argue about your sins with anyone but God; (2) remind the devil that Jesus called the sinners, not the righteous, to repentance. This last temptation is the complete one. To give in to this temptation is to make an alliance with Satan for which there is no forgiveness.

To the departing pastors, Bonhoeffer gave a final word that the defense against temptation is the armor of God described in Ephesians 6. It is God who gives, clothes, arms, and shields us. And so, Bonhoeffer says, we pray, "Lead us not into temptation" knowing that Jesus has conquered temptation for all time.

Temptation reveals the pastoral insight and concern of Bonhoeffer. This quality, expressed also in the next work, Life Together, serves to make Bonhoeffer attractive not only to Protestant but also to Roman Catholic readers.

NOTES:

1. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Christ, the Center, trans. John Bowden (New York: Harper & Row, 1966), p. 37.

2. Ibid., p. 40.

3. Ibid., p. 43.

4. Ibid., pp. 49-52.

5. Ibid., p. 54.

6. Ibid., p. 55. 7. Ibid., p. 58.

8. Ibid., p. 60.

9. Ibid.

10. Ibid., p. 64.

11. Ibid., p. 66.

12. Ibid., p. 67.

13. Ibid., pp. 71-72.

14. Martin Kahler, The So-Called Historical Jesus and the Historic Biblical Christ, trans. Carl Braaten (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1964).

15. Doceticism denied the real manhood of Jesus while the Ebionites denied his divinity. The monophysites regarded the divine and human as merged into a third entity, while the Nestorians hardly admitted a union of the divine and human natures of Jesus Christ.

16. Christ the Center, p. 93. Thus one could say that "the man (Jesus) is God and that God is man" (pp. 94-95).

17. Ibid., p. 95.

18. Ibid., p. 109.

19. Creation and Fall, trans. John C. Fletcher (New York: The Macmillan Co., 1959). (In same volume with Temptation.)

20. Marcion was one of the first to draw up a list of accepted Scriptures of the New Testament. He rejected the Old Testament and regarded the God of the Old Testament as different from the God of the New Testament.

21. Creation and Fall, p. 20.

22. Ibid., p. 23.

23. Ibid., p. 25.

24. Ibid., p. 29.

25. Ibid., p. 17.

26. Ibid., p. 34.

27. Ibid., p. 39.

28. Ibid., p. 50.

29. Ibid.

30. Ibid., p.48.

31. Ibid., p. 52.

32. Ibid., p. 53.

33. Ibid., p. 62.

34. Ibid., p. 65.

35. Ibid., p. 73.

36. Ibid., p. 76.37. Ibid., p. 77.

38. Ibid., p. 62.

39. Ibid., p. 78.

40. Ibid., pp. 78-79.

41. Ibid., p. 79.

42. Ibid., p. 81.43. Ibid., pp. 83ff.

44. Temptation, trans. Kathleen Downham (New York: The Macmillan Co., 1959). (In same volume with Creation and Fall.)

45. Ibid., pp. 101-102.

46. Ibid., p. 102.

47. Ibid., p. 103.

48.Ibid., p. 106.

49. Ibid., p. 107 (italics his).

50. Ibid., p. 109.

51. Ibid., pp. 112-13.

52. Ibid., p. 115.

53. Ibid., pp. 118-19.

Bonhoeffer’s second work, Act and Being, was written in 1931 and presented as his inaugural dissertation, giving him the right to lecture at the university. Act and Being, like the first work, is abstract and difficult to read. Certainly Bonhoeffer’s popularity has come from other works than these. Yet Act and Being deals with the important problem of revelation. What philosophical modes should be used to express God’s self-revelation? Should one speak only of God’s self-revelation as events in biblical history? Is there a better way of speaking of God’s self-revelation than in the category of being? Is there some other alternative? Bonhoeffer treats these questions in three parts in his work.

THE ALTERNATIVES OF PHILOSOPHY

Part One exposes the problem of act and being as a problem of how and what one may know, especially about God. He treats two alternatives: the transcendental and the ontological endeavors. The transcendental approach is traced from Immanuel Kant to Karl Barth who, at the time, was regarded by Bonhoeffer as being dependent upon Kant in some ways. The development of philosophical thought from Kant (1724- 1804) to G. W. F. Hegel (1770-1831) serves as a backdrop to these issues. In his theory of knowledge, Kant divided reality into two types: phenomena and noumena. We experience phenomena only by the senses in the things we see, hear, taste, touch, etc. The noumena, or the reality behind appearances, the thing-in-itself, can never be known by the senses, and hence cannot be known at all. Noumena may refer to God or the existence of the soul. Bonhoeffer is especially interested in the subject of God, for he is transcendent. How is one to know God, the numinous? Needless to say, Bonhoeffer introduces the idea of God’s self-revelation, in which God comes to man who is incapable of searching out God on his own. But in what way and how is this done? This is a crucial question for Bonhoeffer, and to this we will return later.

Kant’s successors eliminated the distinction between phenomena and noumena. In Kant there was always something set over against the personal "I" which was not known. In later philosophers when the noumena was dropped, God and the self became identified.¹ There are serious problems both with Kant’s transcendental philosophy and with the idealism of his "specious" successors. Bonhoeffer’s main criticisms are directed at Kant’s successors. If the "I" becomes paramount, its knowledge is restricted. It never knows anything other than itself. Thus, what is supposed to be revelation is turned into the study of anthropology or psychology. God "becomes the prisoner of the consciousness."² "What reason can learn from itself (thus Hegel) is revelation, and so God is incarcerated in consciousness."³ Equally untenable is the inference that "if God is to come to man, man must be in essence divine."⁴ Bonhoeffer admits that transcendentalism has a solution, but that it is inadequate without "radical transformation and completion."⁵

The second alternative is the ontological endeavor. A true ontology,⁶ says Bonhoeffer, aims at showing real being existing apart from consciousness. "Systematic ontology supposes pure being to be intuitively beheld in its transcendence of consciousness."⁷ In his treatment Bonhoeffer outlines the approach of Edmund Husserl (1859-1938), the father of philosophical phenomenology. Phenomenology "is the study of the phenomena in the pure consciousness."⁸ Husserl rejected the Kantian concept of noumena, and this led him to affirm greater areas of knowledge for man. More than simply knowing phenomena, one might know being.⁹ Because Husserl says that man can intellectually intuit being, Bonhoeffer places him in the idealist tradition. But as far as the question of God is concerned, Husserl attains no great clarity and does not advance beyond the purely human word of Hegel. He may shed light on man’s way of thinking but not on the problem of being.

In this alternative Bonhoeffer treats the view of Max Scheler (1874-1928) who altered Husserl’s emphases somewhat but who, for Bonhoeffer, did not solve anything. Also included is a pupil of Husserl, Martin Heidegger (b. 1889). For Heidegger, being is "understood from Dasein" or existence. Existence is known by an existential analysis of man. Although Heidegger aims at exposing being to the philosophical world, he never proceeds further than man. The implication, for Bonhoeffer, is that Heidegger has left no room for the idea of revelation¹⁰ and is useless for purposes of theology.

The last example of a being-approach to theology is that of Roman Catholic writers. Up to this point the transcendence of God has been either rejected, overlooked, or identified with nature. In Thomism, God’s transcendence is allowed. Thomism, which follows the principles elaborated by St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274), employs the analogia entis or analogy of being. The analogy of being supposes that God has left a trace of himself in nature which indirectly and proportionately testifies of himself. Thomism rejects the identification of God and man, yet argues that some likeness of God is perceived in man. But if one accepts the analogia as useful for theology, one may arrive at a "being" which may not be God.¹¹ Being is still self-projection, and thus is not successful.

The offending element in all these attempts at arriving at being is that they suppose that man is capable of bestowing truth on himself. One fundamental problem in this issue is man and his sin. Bonhoeffer declares, "Thought is as little able as good works to deliver the cor curvurm in se from itself."¹² There is little room for revelation in philosophy. Philosophy’s hope is to confess itself as Christian, for it seeks to give, and cannot, what only Christ can give in understanding the universe and man.¹³

THE PROBLEM STATED FOR THEOLOGY

Part Two deals with the act-being problem in revelation. Revelation is defined in terms of the acts of God. Thus revelation is transcendent. When God comes to man this act becomes the means whereby man can know the truth of God and come to understand himself. Revelation as act means: (1) that God is free; (2) that man is receptive; (3) that God is not "haveable" or graspable, in the sense that he comes under man’s power through knowledge; (4) that God is known only because of self-revealing grace. Consequently, God is nonobjective and nonavailable. In act, "God is always the ‘coming’, not the existing’ deity (Barth)."¹⁴ If God is conceived in act as nonobjective, Bonhoeffer concludes that one may also speak of faith as nonobjective. The practical problem of the act-theology relates to decision. Is not the act inadequate in fulfilling the needs of the "everydayness" of the religious life and decision?¹⁵ The religious life needs some basis for continuity.

The alternative to the above position is to speak of revelation in terms of being, and this can take one of three possibilities: (1) doctrine, (2) psychic experience, and (3) an institutional form.¹⁶ The latter may be understood as the institution of the Catholic Church or the Protestant idea of verbal inspiration of the Bible. Bonhoeffer rejects all three of these because: they understand the revealed God as an entity, whereas entities are transcended by act and being. Man assimilates them into his transcendental I, and so they are unable to be objective in the full sense, hence are useless for theological explanation of the revelation in Christ. . .¹⁷

While any of these may be reassuring, man is always in control of them.

A true and meaningful ontology, or being theology, "must satisfy two all-important requirements: 1. it must involve the existence of man; 2. it must be possible to think of the being in continuity," i.e., it must define "being in."¹⁸ Because these two alternatives, revelation as act and revelation as being, are inadequate alone, Bonhoeffer turns to a synthesis in which act and being take on a new dimension in the church.

BONHOEFFER’S SOLUTION

The heart of his proposal is in the chapter, "The Church as a Unity of Act and Being." Assuming the inadequacy of philosophy’s understanding of existence, Bonhoeffer declares that existence can be understood only in the church, because the church gives an explanation "outside" of man. Revelation is only confronted in the church. Thus revelation is not the past remembered, but exists presently and continually in the church, for "the Church is the Christ of the present, ‘Christ existing as community’. . . Christ is the corporate person of the Christian communion."¹⁹

Because of the personal involvement of Christ in the church, Bonhoeffer asserts that the old issue of act or being, as it relates to revelation, is now resolved. God gives himself in act to the individual who at the same time is in the communion of Christ. Man’s existence is affected because he is "in Christ." If man’s existence were unchanged, being in the community of revelation "would be pointless."²⁰

Bonhoeffer claims that the problem of subjectivism is overcome because the church is "concretely visible."²¹ Faith supposes an object outside of itself, but faith is a mode of being in the church. Although faith might be viewed as a series of broken discrete acts, Bonhoeffer declares that "faith as an act knows itself as the mode of being of its being in the church, the continuity is indeed only ‘in the believing’ but thereby is really preserved as being in the Church."²² Even sin does not disrupt the continuity of the new existence of man in Christ. Man’s inability to put himself beyond "the pale of God’s commonwealth" underlines the "everydayness" of life in the church — which is in Christ.²³

Bonhoeffer closes²⁴ his work by considering the act-being problem in man. Man has a relationship to either Adam or Christ. In either case, revelation is necessary to know this.²⁵ The act-being relation for "being in Adam" is the problem of sin. Sin must be defined initially as a willful "act." But if sin were only an act, "it would be theoretically and humanly possible to find one’s way back to a sinless being."²⁶ The death of Christ would have been unnecessary. Bonhoeffer does not assume a historical beginning point of sin with Adam. Rather viewing man as a corporate being, he declared, "I myself am Adam, am I and humanity together; in me falls humanity; as I am Adam, so is every individual, but then in all individuals the one person of humanity, Adam, is active."²⁷ Thus the "everydayness of Adam" is related to the "everydayness" of life — man’s sin is both act and being. In act he is responsible, in being he corrupts the rest of mankind. Being in Adam means guilt, despair, isolation, temptation, and death.²⁸ Being in Christ is to become a new being, yet one susceptible to the old being’s influence. But faith brings forgiveness for guilt, hope for despair, communion with God instead of isolation, help for temptation, and life through death.²⁹ The new being belongs to the future; the old being belongs to the past.

In closing this chapter, certain questions may be raised about Bonhoeffer’s ideas. First the concreteness of the church and its objectivity are points quite well taken, but one wonders whether Bonhoeffer fully distinguishes his view from the Roman Catholic view of the church, particularly when Roman Catholicism sees the church as the mystical body of Christ. Second, his emphasis on faith as a gift of God, rather than salvation being a gift of God (Eph. 2:8), is suspect exegetically. When faith is regarded as a gift of God, faith as response and commitment is sidetracked. This is particularly pertinent to the issue of infant baptism.³⁰ Third, one feels uneasy and unclear about Bonhoeffer’s use of the term "God’s Word." It is used with ambiguity because he speaks decisively about God’s Word but then rejects the role of Scripture as incapable of fulfilling the demands of the "being" aspect of revelation. The Bible becomes an "entity," "whereas entities are transcended by act and being."³¹ This is particularly puzzling since one of Bonhoeffer’s favorite passages of Scripture is Isaiah 55:11 in which God promises that his Word would not return to him without fulfilling his purposes. Since the Word of God is described as a double-edged sword which man cannot control, Bonhoeffer’s view seems out of character with his overall position.

NOTES:

1. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Act and Being, trans. Bernard Noble (New York: Harper & Row, 1961), p. 30.

2. Ibid., p. 39.

3. Ibid., p. 41.

4. Ibid.

5. Ibid.

6. Ontology is an area of philosophy that examines the nature of being, or reality. What does it mean to be? What is existence?

7. Ibid., p. 51.

8. Ibid., p. 52.

9. Cf. Quentin Lauer, Phenomenology: Its Genesis and Prospect (New York: Harper & Row, Torchbook, 1965), pp. 65-81.

10. Act and Being, p. 65.

11. Ibid., p. 69.

12. Ibid., p. 72.

13. Ibid., p. 70.

14. Ibid., p. 83.

15. Ibid., p. 105.

16. Ibid., p. 108.

17. Ibid., pp. 111-12.

18. Ibid., p. 115.

19. Ibid., p. 120. Bonhoeffer appeals to Scripture for several statements like this one. See I Cor. 12:12; 6:15; 1:13; Rom. 6:13, 19; Eph. 2:14. "The Church is the body of Christ: I Cor. 12:12ff.; Rom. 12:4ff; Eph. 1:23; 4: 15f.; Col. 1:18. Christ is in the communion as the communion is in Christ: I Cor. 1:30; 3:16; II Cor. 6:16; 13:5; Col. 2:17; 3:11. The communion is a corporate person whose name is also Christ: Gal. 3:28;. Col. 3 :l0f.; cf. Eph. 1:23" (pp. 120-21).

20. Ibid., p. 124.

21. Ibid., p. 125.

22. Ibid., p. 128.

23. Ibid., p. 134.

24. One of the concerns of Act and Being is the theology of Barth, which Bonhoeffer regarded as an "act" theology. Barth changed his position considerably, perhaps under the criticism of Bonhoeffer.

25. Ibid., p. 155.

26. Ibid., p. 163.

27. Ibid., p. 165.

28. Ibid., p. 166.

29. Ibid., p. 179.

30. Ibid., p. 182.

31. Ibid., p. 111.

Bonhoeffer’s first and in many ways most difficult work was the Sanctorum Communio, or The Communion of Saints. It is abstract, technical, and important. This work is not an example of the "popular" Bonhoeffer. Yet the book serves as the foundation for much of his writings. Should the reader bog down here, he might with justification turn to chapter 4 and continue there to the end of this work before coming back to chapter 2.

DEFINING SOCIOLOGY AND THE CHURCH

The Communion of Saints attempts to relate sociology and theology to one another. Sociology is defined as "the science of the structures of empirical communities."³ An empirical community is one that can be viewed objectively. Bonhoeffer aimed then to study the church from the standpoint of sociology. If, however, one is to understand a religious community, one must examine it from within, taking the claims of the community seriously. Without assuming this internal stance, the church cannot be understood at all.

Because the religious community is composed of people, it becomes necessary to define the Christian concept of person. The concept of person will determine the type of community that will come forth. Bonhoeffer speaks of different types: Aristotelian (man becomes a person by partaking of reason); Stoic ("a man becomes a person by submitting to a higher obligation");⁴ Epicurean (man’s life is heightened by pleasure, though it has a "defective concept of spirit");⁵ and the idealist tradition flowing from Immanuel Kant (the perceiving person is the starting point for philosophy).

Bonhoeffer trades blows predominantly with the idealist tradition. In turn, he defines the Christian concept of a person in nonstatic terms. Person is fluctuating and can be said to exist only "when a man is morally responsible."⁶ The person comes into existence only when "he is passionately involved in a moral struggle, and confronted by a claim which overwhelms him."⁷ Into this struggle Bonhoeffer introduces the idea of a"barrier" that man faces. The barrier involves "the absolute distinction between God and man."⁸ The deeper man realizes this separation to be, the more profound will his self-understanding be. The barrier is a problem for man not only with reference to God, but with other men in community. In community the "I" is confronted by a "Thou" which may be either God or man. Yet one may not know oneself as a "Thou," nor can one know another person as an "I."

Bonhoeffer rejects the idea that encounter creates persons, and declares that "God, or the Holy Spirit, comes to the concrete Thou, only by his action does the other become a Thou for me, from which my I arises. In other words, every human Thou is an image of the divine Thou."⁹ Thus Bonhoeffer concludes that personhood is related to social relations.

Building upon his definition of person, Bonhoeffer develops the idea with reference to man’s first state of existence before God in contrast to man’s existence after rebellion against God. In contrast to idealism, which knows only continuity in man’s life in the Spirit, Bonhoeffer recognizes sin as a reality in history. The conflict of man with God poses problems for any idea of community, but community is God’s design for man. Thus ethics and morality have meaning only in sociality.

If man stands in community, what is the relation of the community to his own being? Bonhoeffer answers: "The individual personal spirit lives solely by virtue of sociality, and the ‘social spirit’ becomes real only in individual embodiment.¹⁰ Therefore Bonhoeffer can speak of both the individual and a collective being.¹¹ The design of God for men to live in community leads to the natural question of the religious community.

The community is constituted by desire, or will, and not necessarily on the idea of commonness, or formal agreement. Because willing is important, conflict thereby arises in the community: Bonhoeffer assesses several forms of human relationships: the community, the society, and the mass. A community is where "life is lived," a society is an association in rational action, and the mass is man caught up by stimuli in which there are no real social bonds.¹² The idea of the community — the willed entity — is important for the form of the church.¹³

Having set forth his idea of community, Bonhoeffer relates it to sin’s entry which causes a broken community. Sin breaks communion with God and man, and man with man. The natural forms of community are now corrupted. Why is the I phenomena of sin universal? In answer he says that the Bible speaks of the universality of sin but nothing of original sin. Bonhoeffer’s solution is that "the guilt of the individual and the universality of sin should be conceived of together."¹⁴

Sin must not be understood biologically. Instead, sin and guilt are the bases for understanding the species, or mankind. The race is in sin because I am in sin. With each individual falling into sin, the race falls, and hence "in principle none of us is distinct from Adam — which also means, however, that each of us is the ‘first’ sinner."¹⁵ Sin itself is unfathomable. One might understand it psychologically up to the deed, but "the deed itself is . . . psychologically inexplicable."¹⁶

Building upon the idea that sin affects the species, Bonhoeffer proceeds to speak of collective persons. Israel is an example of God’s relation to the collective group. "It was the people, and not the individuals, who had sinned."¹⁷ A community — the collective person — stands before God and is dealt with as a whole regardless of what certain individuals may or may not do. The old race in Adam is a collective person in contrast to the new collective person, "Christ existing as the church."¹⁸ Yet a collective person is subject to fragmentation.

WHAT THE CHURCH IS

The heart of the book comes in a long chapter (118 pages) entitled "Sanctorum Communio." In setting forth basic principles, Bonhoeffer declares that "the Christian concept of the church is reached only by way of the concept of revelation."¹⁹ He rejects as untenable the explanation that a concept of "the Holy" leads to community.²⁰ Accepting the revelatory nature of the church, he briefly sketches the New Testament view of the church. The significance of this lies in the conviction that equates the two statements "to be in Christ" and "to be in the church."²¹ This equation means that "Christ is really present only in the church."²² Bonhoeffer does not mean that a second incarnation takes place but that "we must think of a revelatory form in which ‘Christ exists as the church’."²³ The church so understood brings together many persons, is a community, and has unity, although it is not without conflict of wills.

Regardless of sin and man’s alienation in the primal state, God’s purpose for man is in the church.²⁴ The isolation of man from man and from God is nullified in the life and death of Christ. Repentance becomes the avenue of entry into the new community and the exit out of the community of Adam. The new community is unlike other communities in that the Holy Spirit lives in it.

There are other implications of the central theme: the church is Christ and Christ is the church. Christ in the church is related to the Word through which the Spirit speaks. Christ is in the Word and the Word is directed to "a plurality of hearers."²⁵ The Spirit is active in three sociological relationships: the individual spirit of man, the spiritual community, and spiritual oneness. The Spirit makes a claim on the individual in his loneliness, to bring him to Christ. In trusting Christ, men are made members of the divine community. Being a new creation, they come to know the meaning of agape. Love seeking a response means communion with God and man. Loving communion also means self-surrender to the "Thou" before man — either God or man.

The acts of love for man in community with Christ are:

(1) self-renunciation — to work for others by giving up personal claims to happiness; (2) intercessory prayer; and (3) "the mutual granting of forgiveness of sins in God’s name."²⁶

Bonhoeffer’s comments on intercessory prayer follow the inspiration of Luther and need serious reconsideration in modern times. More controversial is the matter of mutual granting of forgiveness. This leads most naturally to Bonhoeffer’s proposal that a Protestant confession be reinstituted, but only if proper instruction is given concerning its meaning.

Bonhoeffer’s treatment of spiritual oneness anticipates a theology for the ecumenical movement. Spiritual, unity is willed by God and is not the result of a concord or agreement between men. Unity is misunderstood. The unity of the New Testament is not "one theology and one rite, one opinion upon all things both public and private, and one mode of conduct in life," but rather "one body and one Spirit, one

Lord, one faith, one baptism. . ."²⁷ Oneness and unity are different. Oneness suggests conformity; unity exhibits the possibility of diversity in the Spirit. This unity is invisible, but it must be believed.²⁸ On the ecumenical movement, Bonhoeffer declares that "unification from below is not the same as unity from above." The first may never be achieved, but the second is real. Spiritual unity is related to equality. There is equality before God, but neither in the church nor in any community are men identical.

He devotes considerable space to the empirical form of the church. The church is simultaneously the community of the holy as well as a community of sinners. The church is not to be identified with the kingdom of God; rather, it is the kingdom of Christ and does not include Old Testament believers. He rejects the "gathered-church" concept for the Lutheran Volkskirche or national-church concept.²⁹ The universal church embraces "all individual churches."³⁰

The church has certain functions, primarily worshiping. There is need of a ministry to a congregation, for preaching is divinely ordained. The function, not the person, is ordained to the congregation. For a Christian to be unattached to a congregation is "unthinkable" as a reality.³¹ The church also comes together for the sacraments. Bonhoeffer follows a Lutheran position on infant baptism, in which faith is located by proxy in the congregation rather than the infant. Because Bonhoeffer takes the church seriously as life in Christ, he looks critically at the pietistic movements designated as "the church within the church."³² Movements on this order lead to factions and peril.

His treatment shows deep respect for the church, and he argues that it has authority because it rests upon the Word.³³ This may produce a threat to the freedom of the conscience, but obedience is due to the church, and it occasionally may need to demand the sacrifice of the intellect. Rebellion against the church by the individual member is a serious matter for God alone to decide; "the only valid motive . . . would be a perfect obedience rooted in the closest attachment to the church and to the Word in it.³⁴

Toward the end of this work, Bonhoeffer discusses the church as an independent sociological type. It is not an association which can be banded and disbanded by agreement. It is not an institution, in the sense held by Max Weber and Ernst Troeltsch, where grace and gifts are dispensed to the dues-paying members. Even the term community is not fully adequate, for although it has affinities to the community, the church is one of a kind.³⁵ The uniqueness of the community is found in its divine institution rather than in pure doctrine.³⁶

Growing, out of his rejection of "the purity" of doctrine as a norm for the church, Bonhoeffer admits that the state or "national" church and the "gathered" church belong together. The national church stands in peril if it is not reaching out. In a brief section on the church and the proletariat, he discusses the inwardness of the national church. The’ church cannot be satisfied with a middle-class norm but must reach the working man in his language and culture. The future church will change from its bourgeois form to what? Bonhoeffer did not profess to know, but he was sure it would change.³⁷

The last word on the church is an eschatological³⁸ one. The church will be redeemed collectively and individually. On how the collective feature will take place Bonhoeffer admits ignorance, but yet affirms its truth. The future community of God will involve the resurrection of the body, "a new corporality for the godless as well."³⁹ Intrigued by the possibility of universal salvation for all mankind, he yet rejects it as a part of his system. The end of the story of the church is its incorporation into "the kingdom of God in all the world."⁴⁰

By way of a brief assessment, the following may be offered. First, sociologists will fail to see an empirical treatment of the church, but instead will find a highly abstract theological approach to it. Second, to the "free" church tradition it will appear that Bonhoeffer saw the church more from the Lutheran national-church pattern rather than taking seriously the New Testament forms. The national-church form seeks to justify some practices that seem contrary to certain concepts of Christian faith. For instance, faith appears incompatible with infant baptism, and the national church appears contrary to personal commitment and choice. Bonhoeffer follows the attitude of Luther concerning the so-called "radicals" who advocated a gathered church, and adult or believers’ baptism based upon personal commitment in faith.

At the same time, it must be said that this work is a significant study in the nature of the church because the position is maintained that the church is not just another organization, it is the Body of Christ. Bonhoeffer’s treatment of this question is relevant today, since the church is puzzling over its own nature, its role, its renewal. Does the church have political, economic, and other social responsibilities? For Bonhoeffer, the church is unique. If it will not be the church, the Body of Christ, its existence cannot be defended. This truth must be maintained as well as regained where it has been lost.

NOTES:

1. The Communion of Saints, trans. Ronald Gregor Smith, et al. (New York: Harper & Row, 1963).

2. Following the example of Martin E. Marty, ed., in The Place of Bonhoeffer (New York: Association Press, 1962).

3. Peter Berger is quick to point out that Bonhoeffer’s definition declares itself for an empirical approach, but the argument is carried forth on an abstract, not an empirical approach to sociology. Cf. The Place of Bonhoeffer, p. 59.

4. The Communion of Saints, p. 23.

5. Ibid., p. 24.

6. Ibid., p. 31.

7. Ibid.

8. Ibid.

9. Ibid., p. 36.

10. Ibid., p. 49.

11. Sociologically, the problem of an empirical collective being is untenable.

12. Communion of Saints, p. 59.

13. Ibid., p. 57.

14. Ibid., p. 78.

15. Ibid., p. 79.

16. Ibid., p. 81.

17. Ibid., p. 83.

18. Ibid., p. 85.19. Ibid., p. 97. 20. The view of Max Scheler in Wertethik.

21. Communion of Saints, p. 100.

22. Ibid. Bonhoeffer’s theory that two different concepts of the church exist in the New Testament, a Jerusalem version which is the basis of Roman Catholicism, and a Gentile, Pauline view serving as foundation for Lutheranism, will undoubtedly disturb those of the free church tradition who would not acknowledge this to be true.

23. The Communion of Saints, p. 101.

24. Ibid., p. 103.

25. Ibid., p. 115.

26. Ibid., p. 130.

27. Ibid., p. 137.

28. Ibid., p. 139.

29. Ibid., p. 151.

30. Ibid., p. 154. The "gathered-church" is one stressing voluntary commitment, while the Volkskirche is one that involves membership by infant baptism.

31. The Communion of Saints, p. 156.

32. Ibid., p. 169.

33. Ibid., p. 173.

34. Ibid., p. 175.

35. Ibid., p. 185,

36. Bonhoeffer says that "pure" doctrine is not a condition for the existence of the congregation of the saints (Isa. 55:11 says nothing of this), p. 187. This verse is often quoted by Bonhoeffer, and it strange that in this context an Old Testament verse should be used to delineate what the church should or should not be, especially since he emphasizes the kingdom of Christ as opposed to the kingdom of God.

37. The Communion of Saints, p. 193.

38. Eschatology is the doctrine of the end of the age, or the consummation of all things. It has a broad meaning describing the beginning of life in Christ now, but here it concerns the church’s future at. Christ’s return.

39. The Communion of Saints, p. 200.

40. Ibid., p. 204.

BONHOEFFER THE MAN

Dietrich Bonhoeffer has become a man with mystique. His life commands intense interest because of his opposition to the Nazi state and its infiltration of the German church. His theological works remain a source of inspiration not only for his vivid exposition of profound issues, but also for the well-turned phrases such as "cheap grace" or "world come of age." His involvement in the ecumenical movement as a young theologian brought immense respect from older and better known men. Whether Bonhoeffer has been interpreted rightly is still debated, but no one doubts that he has had a remarkable influence in contemporary Protestant theology.

Dietrich and his twin sister Sabine were born on February 4, 1906, in Breslau, Germany (which is now part of Poland). His mother was descended from the famous nineteenth-century church historian, Karl von Hase, and his father, Karl Ludwig Bonhoeffer, was a noted physician and soon to be professor of psychiatry at the University of Berlin. The fact that his father distrusted Freudian psychoanalysis may be the explanation for his own barbs at psychotherapists and existentialists.¹

The names of neighbors and friends coming into the home of young Dietrich have the aura of greatness. Adolf von Harnack, the eminent historian of the church and of dogma, was both a neighbor and teacher. Ernst Troeltsch, the theologian and philosopher, was a frequent guest in the Bonhoeffer home. Other eminent people included Ferdinand Tonnies, and Max and Alfred Weber.

By age sixteen, Dietrich had decided to enter the ministry of the church. The decision gained little comment from his parents, but his brothers opposed it. His brother Klaus attempted to impress him with the purely provincial nature of the Protestant church in Germany and regretted that his brother should give his life to a superfluous cause. With resolution Dietrich replied, "If the Church is feeble, I shall reform it."² However facetious his reply might have been, it was portentous of the future way Bonhoeffer felt about the church’s needs.

Karl Friedrich, another brother, talked with Dietrich about science and the universe it held up to behold, but at this point Dietrich would have nothing to do with science. When he could not argue against Karl Friedrich he simply commented, "You may knock my block off, but I shall still believe in God."³ It was not until the years of his imprisonment that he seriously began to come to terms with science. This is one reason the Letters and Papers often sound so revolutionary.

Bonhoeffer began his study at Tubingen, but after a year moved to the University of Berlin in 1924. At Berlin, Bonhoeffer encountered a galaxy of erudite but often liberal scholars. Here Adolf Deissmann had made his contribution to New Testament studies. Hans Lietzmann was teaching the history of the early church, and Adolf von Harnack, Karl Holl, and Reinhold Seeberg were in one way or another connected with theology. Seeberg was the man under whom Bonhoeffer worked for the licentiate of theology, a degree comparable to the doctor of theology.

As a student, Bonhoeffer was precocious and independent. He did not simply absorb the liberalism of Berlin, nor did he become a true follower of the theologian Karl Barth, with whom he had many sympathies. Bonhoeffer did his homework well, and one of his fellow students described his performance:

What really impressed me was not just the fact that he surpassed almost all of us in theological knowledge and capacity; but what passionately attracted me to Bonhoeffer was the perception that here was a man who did not only learn and gather in the verba and scripta of some master, but one who thought independently and already knew what he wanted and wanted what he knew. I had the experience (for me it was something alarming and magnificently new!) of hearing a young fair-haired student contradict the revered historian, his Excellency von Harnack, contradict him politely but clearly on positive theological grounds. Harnack answered, but the student contradicted again and again. I don’t remember the content of the discussion — the talk was of Karl Barth — but I remember the secret enthusiasm that I felt for this free, critical and independent judgement in theology.⁴

In 1927, Bonhoeffer submitted his dissertation, Sanctorum Cornmunio: A Dogmatic Investigation of the Sociology of the Church, to the faculty of the University of Berlin. This work was praised as a "theological miracle" by Karl Barth and was published three years later.

After his formal theological training at the university, Dietrich went to Barcelona, Spain, where he served in a position comparable to an assistant minister on an intern basis with a German-speaking congregation. His ability to relate to people of diverse conditions became apparent here in this congregation of small businessmen whose religious and cultural advancements had been small. As he worked with the elderly pastor and shared his life with the congregation, the church was resurrected in spirit and doubled in size. He started a service for children and a study group for boys in the sixth form (the last year) of their education. He gave pastoral care to the people and preached every two weeks. He became very attached to the people, and they returned the affection.

Upon his return to Berlin in 1929 Dietrich worked on his inaugural dissertation, a requisite for being permitted a faculty position in theology. In 1930, after completing Act and Being: Transcendental Philosophy and Ontology in Systematic Theology, he was given a position teaching systematic theology.

Before getting to the serious work of teaching, Bonhoeffer came to America for a year of study at Union Theological Seminary in New York City. His descriptions of religious life in America are revealing. He saw the students as less interested in real theology than in the practical element in Christianity. Their lack of interest in serious theology was partially expressed in their laughing out loud when a passage from Luther was quoted on sin and forgiveness. Yet Bonhoeffer noted the students’ concern for the poor and needy, and he entered into their attempts to help relieve some of these problems. At Union also, he became aware of the growing problem of the Negro in America. He visited with Negroes in Harlem and attended a large Negro Baptist church for about six months.

Greatly unimpressed with American theology, he was more susceptible to its piety and social concern. Although Bonhoeffer impressed many American theologians with his own ability, he did not think too highly of the trend that theology was taking in America. A young Frenchman probably had more long-range influence on him than the American theologians. Jean Lasserre was an advocate of and a participant in the ecumenical movement. Moreover, he was a pacifist. Before meeting him, Bonhoeffer followed a traditional line of supporting a nationalistic attitude toward war and a critical attitude toward the ecumenical movement. In conversation Lasserre countered with: "Do we believe in the Holy Catholic Church, the Communion of the Saints, or do we believe in the eternal mission of France? One can’t be a Christian and a nationalist at the same time."⁵ Bonhoeffer later changed both his attitude toward pacifism — first accepting it and then modifying his view again — and his critical feelings toward the ecumenical movement.

By 1931, although he had enjoyed his stay in America, he was ready to return home and begin his period of lecturing at the University of Berlin. As a beginning lecturer, he had to depend upon his ability to attract students. They came out of curiosity at first. One student recalled, "He looked like a student himself when he went to the desk. But then our attention was so much riveted by what he had to say, that we no longer came for the sake of the very young man, but for the sake of his subject."⁶ Except for the enjoyment of the students, Bonhoeffer led a rather lonely life in the unbending liberalism of the university. His independence of mind plus his affinity for Barth’s theology made him suspect among the old-line theological liberals.

The year of his return to Germany brought momentous events in his life. In the summer of 1931 he journeyed to Bonn and met Karl Barth. His only regret was that he had not come sooner. A mutually respectful relationship grew through the years as indicated from the extant correspondence⁷ and Barth’s references in Church Dogmatics to Bonhoeffer’s published works.⁸ Barth’s extremely critical letter about Bonhoeffer’s later move to London could only have been written by a real friend.⁹

Also in this year, Bonhoeffer began an important relationship with the ecumenical movement. His flair for languages, theological precocity, and friendliness won him respect in the movement, and he was elected International Youth Secretary for Germany and Central Europe for the World Alliance of Churches. His involvement in the ecumenical work enabled him to convey to the free world the real status of Hitler’s oppression of the church.

Meanwhile, in addition to his duties at the university which involved him in lecturing on systematic theology and leading a seminar on "The Idea of Philosophy and Protestant Theology," he became further involved in the ministry. He became student pastor at the Technical College in Berlin, and the same time was requested to take over a confirmation class of fifty rowdy boys who lived in one of the roughest areas Berlin. As the elderly pastor and young Dietrich ascended the stairs of the multi-storied building where the boys were, the children dropped rubbish on the two men below. At the top the stairs the pastor tried to gain attention by shouting an introduction of Bonhoeffer. Some of the children only heard the word "Bon" and began to chant it, until the bewildered, frustrated old pastor left.

At first Dietrich stood in silence against the wall while the boys chanted. Then he began to speak softly to those near him. Out of curiosity the others began to be quiet. When the noise had subsided, he told them a story about Harlem and promised more next time if they behaved.¹⁰ Not only did he win their attention for class instruction, but he moved into the neighborhood for two months to live among them. This most "hopeless" class was carried to its completion, and many the boys remained long-time friends.

While busily engaged in the work of the university, Bonhoeffer continued to broaden his ecumenical contacts that would prove immensely helpful as the church situation became more crucial in the short years ahead. In 1932 he was very busy in his role as International Youth Secretary for Germany and Central Europe. He delivered an address, "The Church Is Dead," to the International Youth Conference meeting in Switzerland.¹¹ In the fall of 1932, he began a series lectures which were later published as Creation and Fall.

The elections in Germany in 1932 brought about the Nazi rise to power, and the stage was set for the German church struggle. Bonhoeffer aligned himself with the evangelical opposition to Hitler. This alignment ultimately cost him his life.

In 1933 he gave a series of lectures on Christology which were never completed, nor published, except as they were reconstructed from the notes of students and published under the title Christ the Center. Following the summer session, Bonhoeffer took a leave of absence from the university and went to London to be minister of two German-speaking congregations. Although this move was opposed strenuously by Karl Barth, who looked upon Bonhoeffer’s role in the church struggle as vital, the period served to strengthen his ties with the ecumenical movement, particularly with George Bell, Bishop of Chichester. During this interim period in London, Bonhoeffer attended the World Alliance of Churches meeting in Fano, Denmark. Germany was represented only by the "German Christians," the pro-Hitler group. The council, due in part to Bonhoeffer’s influence, denounced the "German Christians" and aligned its sympathies with the Confessing Church.

Through his growing world-wide friendships, Bonhoeffer received a letter of introduction to Gandhi and hoped to travel to India to study the methods of pacifism. These plans were interrupted by a call from the Confessing Church to come home and assume the leadership of an "illegal" seminary for training ministers. The call of duty won out over the desire to go to India, and he returned to a most dangerous task in Germany.

The seminary was eventually located, at Finkenwalde, a tiny village south of Stettin on the Oder River in what was then Pomerania and is now Poland. There Bonhoeffer instituted a new type of theological education. He organized the students into a community with a "proper balance between work and worship, the academic and the practical, discipline and freedom."¹² The curriculum of the seminary provided for lectures by Bonhoeffer, reading of books, pastoral duties such as visitation, times of worship and confession of sin. Extracurricular community involvement included just plain fun, singing, doing dishes, and cleaning house. The experiences of the "brother-house" were recorded in Gemeinsames Leben (Life Together), published in 1939.

As his work at the seminary progressed, Bonhoeffer attempted to retain his teaching post at the University of Berlin and did so until August 5, 1936, when it was withdrawn because of his opposition to Hitler’s innovations in the church. His imperturbability was expressed in his comment, "I have long ceased to believe in the University."¹³

At Finkenwalde romance entered his life. Maria von Wedemeyer was seventeen years younger than he. Their first meeting was without meaning. She was only one among several grandchildren of Ruth von Kleist-Retzow, a well-to-do, spiritually minded widow who attended church at the seminary. Maria was to be included in the confirmation classes. Much later, after her graduation from high school she saw him again, and the rapport was spontaneous and immediate between them. Shortly after their engagement he was imprisoned. She saw him at least once a month in prison, and letters were exchanged as permission was allowed. Their engagement was a source of delight to him. Her visits formed a feeling of anticipation he treasured. He always wanted to know of her coming in advance, for without knowing he was cheated "out of the joy of anticipation and that is a very necessary part of your visit."¹⁴

During the troubled days of the late thirties, Bonhoeffer spoke a number of times on the subject of the "Visible and Invisible Church." The theme is one that had held his interest from his student days. He was very much concerned with the inner life, the question of communion, and the confession of the church. Bonhoeffer’s ecumenical interest was not the kind that could overlook false doctrine as manifested in the German church. One of the weaknesses of the ecumenical movement, he wrote, was its lack of theology.¹⁵

Bonhoeffer’s first popular work was published in 1937. As a study of the Sermon on the Mount, Nachfolge (The Cost of Discipleship) harshly criticizes "cheap grace," which churches had been preaching, and calls for "costly" discipleship to Jesus Christ. In this same year the seminary was officially disbanded by the government, but it nevertheless maintained an underground existence until 1940.

Life was becoming more difficult for Bonhoeffer. He was faced with military service — a difficult thing for one who held pacifist views — but was needed by the Confessing Church for his leadership. Friends like Reinhold Niebuhr and Paul Lehmann tried to persuade him to come to America and were successful for a short time. Bonhoeffer was appointed to the faculty of the Union Theological Seminary for an indefinite period of time, and arrived in the United States on June 12, 1939. But the safety of America was too much for him, and he was back in Germany on July 25.

Bonhoeffer’s diary records two different episodes during this brief period: "I do not understand why I am here. . .The short prayer in which we thought of our German brothers almost overwhelmed me. . . If things become more uncertain, I shall not stay in America. . ." Later, after his decision to return home, he wrote, "Since I came on board ship, my mental turmoil about the future has gone."¹⁶

Back in Germany restrictions were placed on his movements. Berlin had been off-limits since 1938, although occasional visits were permitted. Now he was denied the right to speak anywhere in the Reich.

Bonhoeffer escaped military service by serving as a courier in the Intelligence Service, and thus was able to enjoy certain freedoms from the interference of the Gestapo. Certain members of the German Military Intelligence Service opposed Hitler, and eventually planned to assassinate him. Bonhoeffer came to accept the full implications of the resistance movement, justifying his position as follows: "It is not only my task to look after the victims of madmen who drive a motor-car in a crowded street, but to do all in my power to stop their driving at all."¹⁷

With an official pass, Bonhoeffer was able to travel outside Germany on behalf of the resistance movement without the Gestapo’s awareness. In Geneva he talked with Visser’t Hooft, General Secretary of the World Council of Churches, who asked him, "What do you pray for in these days?" Bonhoeffer replied, "If you want to know the truth, I pray for the defeat of my nation, for I believe that is the only way to pay for all the suffering which my country has caused in the world."¹⁸

Bonhoeffer was a liaison between the resistance movement and the free world, particularly Britain. He hoped that the Allied mandate of unconditional surrender might be changed if Hitler were overthrown and a new government formed, but the Allied forces proved adamant. Nevertheless, those in the Abwehr, the German Military Intelligence Service, went forward in their plans to eliminate Hitler. Bonhoeffer, forsaking his pacifist’s views, agreed to cooperate but requested advance knowledge to enable him to sever ties with the Confessing Church. Not only would the Confessing Church not approve of the act, but it would mean the end of his career as a pastor.

Details of the plot against Hitler were worked out minutely for each person to have alibis for his actions. However, the rival spying arm of the Gestapo had been hoping to discredit leaders of the Abwehr on trumped up charges of bribery for helping Jews to escape Germany or, in the case of Bonhoeffer, of evading the draft. It was presumably on this charge that he was arrested on April 5, 1943. Two men arrived at his father’s house in Berlin requesting to see Dietrich in his room. Without a search warrant or notice of arrest, Bonhoeffer was ordered to accompany them. He was taken to Tegel Military Prison in Berlin. At first conditions were extremely bad — the blankets, for instance, were too smelly to use. But after it was known who he was, his position improved.

Six months were to drag by before he was given a warrant for his arrest. The alibis of the plotters were all in order, and each played his part well. Bonhoeffer was able to have communication with the outside by means of coded messages passed in books and food parcels. Good-hearted guards made it possible for members of the family to visit and keep him informed.

Bonhoeffer spent eighteen months in Tegel Prison. Here he wrote the letters later incorporated into the intriguing work Letters and Papers from Prison (or as some editions title it, Prisoner for God.) In passing the long hours of imprisonment, Bonhoeffer read the Bible and works ranging over such diverse subjects as literature, science, philosophy, theology, and history. Much of his reading related to the nineteenth-century cultural heritage of Germany.

In July 1944, another attempt on Hitler’s life failed. Several had been made from various sources. The Gestapo’s desire to incriminate the Abwehr was fulfilled in a dramatic way with the finding of the Abwehr’s secret file in Zossen just two months later. The news spread quickly through the secret grapevine of the Abwehr, and Bonhoeffer heard it. Escape was the reaction to the news, and a plan had been made for some time. Arrangements were made with a friendly guard, and Bonhoeffer was to live "underground" until the destruction of Hitler came. Details were set in operation but halted when Dietrich’s brother Klaus was arrested. The plan was jettisoned for fear that his family would be the scapegoats for his escape.

After the finding of the Zossen documents, Bonhoeffer was transferred to the Gestapo prison on Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse. Now along with others he was tortured to squeeze out information on collaborators. The evidence already on hand was enough to have them shot, but Hitler desired to ferret out all conspirators, and this desire prolonged their lives. Bonhoeffer remained on Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse until February 1945, when he was removed secretly to Buchenwald. On February 7, the guards assembled twenty of the most important prisoners and ordered them into two vehicles. Bonhoeffer was among them.

Payne Best, one of the survivors of Buchenwald, described Bonhoeffer during this time: "Bonhoeffer was different; just quite calm and normal, seemingly perfectly at his ease. . . his soul really shone in the dark desperation of our prison."¹⁹ Bonhoeffer served as unofficial chaplain to many of the men of various nationalities. His spirit was gentle, and he became "the man for others" during the crucial days of Buchenwald. Best affirms, "He was one of the very few men I have ever met to whom God was real, and ever close to him."²⁰

Hope and fear arose alternately in the hearts of the prisoners when Allied guns were heard on April 1, 1945. With the breakdown of the Nazi military system, hatred and vengeance yet ground on to the bitter end. On April 3, a lumbering enclosed vehicle pulled up to load sixteen prisoners including Bonhoeffer. Destination: Flossenburg, an extermination camp in the Bavarian forest. The vehicle was turned away because the prison was full, and this raised the men’s hopes temporarily. For a short time they were imprisoned in Schonberg, until two men appeared before the open door of Bonhoeffer’s cell and called out: "Prisoner Bonhoeffer, get ready to come with us."

He moved quickly to place certain mementos in the hands of friends with instructions concerning them. He wrote his name in the beginning, middle, and end of a work by Plutarch — a book eventually returned to the Bonhoeffer family. He sent special greetings by Payne Best to his old friend, the Bishop of Chichester: "This is the end — for me the beginning of life.

At Flossenburg, on April 8, a court martial met in full session. Dietrich was "tried" and sentenced to death — all in one night! The camp doctor of Flossenburg recorded this impression of the events:

On the morning of that day [April 9] between five and six o’clock the prisoners, among them Admiral Canaris, General Oster, General Thomas and Reichgerichtsrat Sack were taken from their cells, and the verdicts of the court martial read out to them. Through the half-open door in one room of the huts I saw Pastor Bonhoeffer, before taking off his prison garb, kneeling on the floor praying fervently to his God. I was most deeply moved by the way this lovable man prayed, so devout and so certain that God heard his prayer. At the place of execution, he again said a short prayer and then climbed the steps to the gallows, brave and composed. His death ensued after a few seconds. In the almost fifty years that I worked as a doctor, I have hardly ever seen a man die so entirely submissive to the will of God.²¹

Of these events, the family of Bonhoeffer knew nothing. A month later, Nazi Germany fell. Communication was difficult, and search was made for news of him. Geneva was the first to hear the news which was passed on to Bishop Bell. The elder Bonhoeffers were listening to the radio from London on July 27 when an English voice spoke: "We are gathered here in the presence of God to make thankful remembrance of the life and work of His servant Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who gave his life in faith and obedience to His holy word. . ."²²

With Bonhoeffer’s death the church — and the world — was deprived both of a powerful intellect and of a creative Christian.

THE INTERPRETERS OF BONHOEFFER

How should one approach Bonhoeffer? This question must be raised because Bonhoeffer has become many things to many people as his influence continues to grow. He has been interpreted along thematic lines; i.e., his total work is viewed from the motif of Christology, ecclesiology, hermeneutics,²³ or some other theme. On the other hand, some interpreters use his later writings, particularly the Letters and Papers from Prison, as standard and ignore the earlier works to a large extent.

Our purpose in this work is to survey Bonhoeffer’s work and thought. We are not defending any interpretation, but if this be forced upon us we would have to lean toward the "whole Bonhoeffer." Before embarking upon our survey, the reader can bear in mind that Bonhoeffer is viewed along several different lines. We offer the following sketch which is by no means exhaustive.

1. One of the early popularizers of Bonhoeffer was John A. T. Robinson, Bishop of Woolwich, who wrote Honest to God.²⁴ Bonhoeffer is an acknowledged mentor of Robinson, who draws freely on the Letters and Papers from Prison. Having read extracts of Bonhoeffer as early as 1952, he obtained the phrases, "God of the gaps," "world come of age," "man for others," and similar terms. But Robinson did not attempt an exposition of these phrases as other interpreters came to do. He attempted a method of correlation between Bonhoeffer and other writers, most often with Paul Tillich, the German-American theologian.

Robinson uses Bonhoeffer to raise what he terms pertinent questions, but with answers coming along Tillich’s line of thought. This is unusual and a little strange, because Bonhoeffer’s judgment was that the world passed Tillich by because he "sought to understand the world better than it understood itself."²⁵ In addition to Tillich, Robinson appeals to such diverse ideas as Rudolf Bultmann’s demythologizing,²⁶ Julian Huxley’s religion without revelation, and Albert Camus’s understanding of man without God. These and other writers appear linked to Bonhoeffer either as saying the same thing he said in different words, or as providing answers to questions he raised.

One cannot help being suspicious of the link between Bonhoeffer and many of the writers that Robinson associates with him. The proposals they offered, particularly those of Tillich and Bultmann, were seriously questioned by Bonhoeffer. If this were not enough, one ought to be hesitant in using Bonhoeffer’s incomplete, undeveloped, and enigmatic utterances.

2. Bonhoeffer is acclaimed as a major stimulus of the radical death-of-God movement. Paul M. Van Buren, often associated with this movement, uses Bonhoeffer as a springboard for setting forth his own brand of theology. He quotes the July 16, 1944, letter from prison for his platform, calling for a new theology without the God-hypothesis. Van Buren uses the services of linguistic analysis to repudiate any content-meaning for the word "God." In its place he builds his religious system upon the historical Jesus who, after the crucifixion, exercised a contagious influence on the disciples who perceived anew his unique brand of freedom.²⁷

William Hamilton, another acknowledged leader of the movement, affirms Bonhoeffer’s influence on his thought. While admitting that Bonhoeffer’s meaning of "religionless Christianity" will probably remain unknown, Hamilton uses the term as a stimulus to set forth his own ideas. God as a problem-solver must be rejected, as well as the idea that man has a "God-shaped blank" within him.²⁸ Hamilton’s brief sketch of Bonhoeffer on the twentieth anniversary of his death builds primarily on the Letters, showing that Bonhoeffer is important for the concepts of the "world coming of age" and "religionless Christianity."²⁹ The emphasis of Hamilton and others in the related Honest to God Debate has caused some critics to misread Bonhoeffer and accuse him of practical atheism.⁸⁰

The implication of atheism is not the usual story of the interpreters of Bonhoeffer, however. David Jenkins, in his Guide to the Debate About God, cautions, "Whatever Bonhoeffer meant by his call to Christians to be ‘without religion’ it is clear that it was no call to be ‘without God’."³¹ Bonhoeffer criticizes religion but "presupposes the existence of the Christian fellowship and the givenness of the Bible."³²

3. The literature on Bonhoeffer in Germany is divided into two schools. The position of Gerhard Ebeling centers on the hermeneutical implications of the Letters and Papers from Prison. The other group considers the "whole Bonhoeffer" and uses a motif study generally along Christological lines. This is the view of Eberhard Bethge,³³ the close friend of Bonhoeffer. Jurgen Moltmann follows this position in his essay, "The Lordship of Christ and Human Society,"³⁴ in which he analyzes the Letters in light of the "complete" Bonhoeffer. Along a similar line is Jurgen Weissbach’s essay, "Christology and Ethics."³⁵

4. In America one of the early important works was that of John Godsey, The Theology of Dietrich Bonhoeffer.³⁶ Godsey treats Bonhoeffer’s theology from the standpoint of Christ existing as the church, that is, using ecclesiology³⁷ as the clue to his thought. Questions have been raised about Godsey’s method of fitting the later works into this framework when they do not seem to deal with ecclesiology per se. Yet in spite of criticism of this motif by some writers,³⁸ a noteworthy work by a Roman Catholic follows this ecclesiological motif. William Kuhns, who is the first Roman Catholic to write a book on Bonhoeffer, stands in substantial agreement with the view of Godsey.³⁹

John A. Phillips criticizes Godsey and himself writes of Bonhoeffer from the standpoint of Christology, asserting that Jesus Christ is "the best clue to his thinking."⁴⁰ Although Bonhoeffer’s Christology developed, Phillips maintained that it is a constant motif throughout his writings. Even in the light of Phillips’s criticism of Godsey, it may be questioned whether a real distinction can be made between ecclesiology and the doctrine of Christ in Bonhoeffer.

One other work may be noted in this brief survey. William B. Gould uses discipleship as the basic organizing theme in his work, The Worldly Christian.⁴¹ While it is an interesting organizational device, it is doubtful if discipleship means anything without the Christological perspective. There are other interesting and useful works, but we now turn to Bonhoeffer himself.

NOTES:

1. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison, trans. Reginald Fuller, rev. ed. (New York: The Macmillan Co., 1967), p. 179.

2. Mary Bosanquet, The Life and Death of Dietrich Bonhoeffer (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1968), p. 45.

3. Ibid.

4. Ibid., p. 60.

5. Ibid., p. 89.

6. Ibid., p. 101.

7. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, No Rusty Swords (New York: Harper & Row, 1965).

8. Cf. Karl Barth, Die christliche Dogmatik im Entwurf (Munich: Chr. Kaiser Verlag, 1927), Vol. IV/1, III/4, III/1, IV/2.

9. No Rusty Swords, pp. 237-40.

10. Bosanquet, op. cit., p. 103.

11. No Rusty Swords, pp. 182-89.

12. John D. Godsey, The Theology of Dietrich Bonhoeffer (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1960), p. 88.

13. Bosanquet, op. cit., p. 174.

14. Maria Von Wedemeyer-Weller in Bonhoeffer in a World Come of Age, ed. Peter Vorkink (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1968), p. 109.

15. No Rusty Swords, pp. 157-73.

16. Letters and Papers from Prison, p. xix.

17. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship, trans. R. H. Fuller, rev. ed. (New York: The Macmillan Co., 1960), p. 22.

18. Bosanquet, op. cit., p. 229.

19. Ibid., p. 271.

20. Ibid., p. 272.

21. I Knew Dietrich Bonhoeffer, ed. Wolf-Dieter Zimmermann and Ronald Gregor Smith, trans. by Kathe Gregor Smith (New York: Harper & Row, 1966), p. 232.

22. Bosanquet, op. cit., p. 16.

23. Hermeneutics is often defined as the art of interpreting Scripture and therefore deals with principles of interpretation. However, modern usage of the word means the unfolding of the Scripture message in terms of the modern setting.

24. John A. T. Robinson, Honest to God (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1963).

25. Letters and Papers from Prison, p. 170.

26. Bultmann argues that the world view of the Bible is out of date. It is written in mythical terms, and demythologizing it means that the myth is stripped away to get at the truth embodied in the myth. Cf. Bultmann’s essay, "New Testament and Mythology," in Kerygma and Myth, ed. Hans Bartsch (New York: Harper & Row, 1961), p. 3.

27. Paul M. Van Buren, The Secular Meaning of the Gospel (New York: The Macmillan Co., 1963), p. 133.

28. Thomas J. 1. Altizer and William Hamilton, Radical Theology and the Death of God (New York: The Bobbs-Merrill Co., 1966), p. 40.

29. Ibid., pp. 116-18.

30. Cf. Alasdair Macintyre, "God and the Theologians," in The Honest to God Debate, ed. David L. Edwards (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1963), p. 222.

31. David Jenkins, Guide to the Debate About God (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1966), p. 100.

32. Ibid., p. 104.

33. Eberhard Bethge, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, trans. Eric Mosbacher, et al. (New York: Harper & Row, 1970). Cf. also E. Bethge, "The Challenge of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Life and Theology," World Come of Age, ed. Ronald Gregor Smith (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1967).

34. Jurgen Moltmann and Jurgen Weissbach, Two Studies in the Theology of Bonhoeffer, trans. Reginald H. Fuller and Ilse Fuller (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1967).

35. Ibid.

36. See note 12.

37. Ecclesiology, or the doctrine of the church and the nature of its existence as the body of Christ.

38. John A. Phillips, Christ for Us in the Theology of Dietrich Bonhoeffer (New York: Harper & Row, 1967).

39. William Kuhns, In Pursuit of Dietrich Bonhoeffer (Garden City: Doubleday, Image Books, 1969).

40. Phillips, op. cit., p. 27.

41. William B. Gould, The Worldly Christian (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1967).

An invitation to do a short work on Bonhoeffer was an opportunity for me to dig deeper into this brilliant theologian. This work will not command the attention of the devotee of Bonhoeffer. It is designed to give the reader a quick snapshot view of the man, his life and thought. If I have succeeded in doing this, I will have more than passed my hopeful expectations.

There are always numerous people that help in making a book possible. First on the list is Dr. Bob Patterson of Baylor University, who serves as the General Editor of this series. His kindness in asking me places me in debt to him. A special word of gratitude goes to various library resources: The library of the College of Emporia, the library of the United Christian Fellowship, and the William Allen White Library. These libraries have been patient with me although I had several of their books over a period of some months.

As usual, an author owes gratitude to his wife and children while he removes his presence from their activities, and this one is no exception. Thus I must dedicate this work to my wife, Elaine, and my two loving children, Lyman and Dalaine.

Dallas M. Roark

Who are the thinkers that have shaped Christian theology in our time? This series tries to answer that question by providing a reliable guide to the ideas of the men who have significantly charted the theological seas of our century. In the current revival of theology, these books will give a new generation the opportunity to be exposed to significant minds. They are not meant, however, to be a substitute for a careful study of the original works of these makers of the modern theological mind.

This series is not for the lazy. Each major theologian is examined carefully and critically — his life, his theological method, his most germinal ideas, his weaknesses as a thinker, his place in the theological spectrum, and his chief contribution to the climate of theology today. The books are written with the assumption that laymen will read them and enter into the theological dialogue that is so necessary to the church as a whole. At the same time they are carefully enough designed to give assurance to a Ph.D. student in theology preparing for his preliminary exams.

Each author in the series is a professional scholar and theologian in his own right. All are specialists on, and in some cases have studied with, the theologians about whom they write. Welcome to the series.

BOB E. PATTERSON, Editor

Baylor University