Bonhoeffer on the Bible

‎’The Bible remains a book like other books. One must be ready to accept the concealment within history and therefore let historical criticism run its course. But it is through the Bible, with all its flaws, that the risen one encounters us. We must get into the troubled waters of historical criticism. Its importance is not absolute, but neither is it unimportant. Certainly it will not lead to a weakening, but rather to a strengthening of faith because the concealment within the historical belongs to the humiliation of Jesus Christ.’ (Dietrich Bonhoeffer, ‘Christ the Center’, p. 73-74)

It is interesting how such a astute theological mind had such a non-fundamentalist view of Scripture. So far as I can tell, this viewpoint did not prevent Bonhoeffer from being a thoroughly Christ-centered thinker, which I also find interesting. Perhaps a traditional view of Scripture (inerrancy being among the big pillars of such a view) is not as essential to Christianity as many have assumed.

Some Ramblings

Bonhoeffers theological method is a radical (though not totally unique) one: Christ is the center of all reality and history for him. Bonhoeffer starts from Christ – he does not deduce Christ from history or nature. This is a reversal of what Bonhoeffer considered to be the failing of liberal theology – liberal theology allowed God and Christ to be assigned their place in the world.

This ties into something I’ve been thinking about – I think one of the failings of Christianity in modern times is that it has been relegated to something that has it’s proper place, rather than something in which we find our identity and being.

It seems to me that the total, absolute, ontologically transforming nature of being in Christ has been forgotten – and I’m as much to blame as anyone. These are broad strokes to be sure, but I do feel that they are accurate. Christianity is a dangerous, powerful, disruptive, traumatizing thing. We should not try to tame or domesticate it. We should not find a place for Christ – we should find our place in Him.

 

A Bit More on Christ, Bonhoeffer and Reality

If human existence is grounded in participation in the reality, and reality is grounded in Christ, then what happens if one does not participate in Christ? Thinkers like C.S. Lewis and N.T. Wright seem to head towards a less literal interpretation of hell – hell being a total loss of all existence and human identity. Effectively it means simply continuing on living without participating in reality – this is the road that I see Bonhoeffer ideas going down. The question is, however, does this fit with the Biblical data of the afterlife?

Given the Jewish understanding of the afterlife, which is the view that Christ and the Apostles would have held, it doesn’t seem much of a stretch to say that it does indeed fit with the data. The Jewish view of the afterlife was that of a shadowy sort of non-existence – think of the Nazgul (Ringwraiths) from ‘The Lord of the Rings’. I think this is a fairly solid view of the negatiove afterlife given Bonhoeffers view. It’s not a literal fire-and-brimstone kind of idea, but to my mind it’s a much worse kind of existence.

Christ, Bonhoeffer and Reality

I’ve been thinking on some of the consequences of Bonhoeffers thought on Christ and reality – briefly speaking, Christ is the center of all reality for Bonhoeffer, and true human existence only comes through participation in reality, which means that true human existence comes only through participating in Christ. This is the foundation of all his thought – but what are some of the consequences of such thought? What does it mean for those who don’t participate in Christ?

Bonhoeffer doesn’t spend tons of time on the afterlife (at least in what I’ve read) – and I’ve not yet read the parts of his works that do deal with the afterlife. But, based on my understanding of his works (and I may be wrong in this) I see only two options: universalism, or a kind of annhilationism. However, I don’t see universalism as a big theme in Bonhoeffer, so I’ll look at the more negative option.

If true human existence is defined by participating in reality (Christ) then the refusal to participate in it would mean a complete erasing of human identity and existence. This is a theme that C.S. Lewis spent some time on – that hell, rather than being a fiery pit, is a total loss of all identity. Non-existence, but perhaps still in a way, having to live. This would tie in with Bonhoeffers thought on existence – apart from God, we have to live as a command which we are unable to fulfill. It seems that the logical conclusion would simply be continual lingering under His command to live. I’m somewhat reminded of the Nazgul (characters from J.R.R. Tolkien’s mythology who simply continue to exist, but without really living), honestly.

Here, at least, what we call “god” is needed pt. II

‘The fatal mistake of the Church was trying to ‘prove to a world come of age that it cannot live without the tutelage of “God” ‘ . The inability to maintain this in the face of the world’s autonomy leads to the ‘ultimate questions’, where God now takes refuge. Here at least he is needed.

At this comes Bonoheffers most quoted question, a rhetorical one: ‘But what if one day they [i.e. these ultimate questions] no longer exist as such, if they too can be answered without “God”?  (‘Christ the Center’, p. 12-13)

Where does this leave Christianity? The more I think about it, the less I can avoid the thought that this is the cold, hard truth – that the ‘ultimate questions’ are the last bastion that God has in the world.

This thought prompts this question: if this is in fact the case, what is Christianity supposed to be?  Another question: how did Christianity arrive at the state it did?

Briefly, a glance at the New Testament seems to show that the very early church wasn’t terribly interested in providing the answers to ultimate questions – it proclaims a very simple, but very powerful idea: that Jesus Christ is the son of God, the Messiah as foretold by the Prophets, who was crucified, buried and resurrected, and in doing so broke the powers of sin and death over creation and opened up the divine nature for us to partake of.

In a nutshell, that’s about it. There certainly are questions that are answered – but so far as I can tell the early church did not see it’s message as an answer to ultimate questions that the natural world was incapable of answering.

Where does this leave us, and me? I don’t know. I think, however, that Christianity as a whole needs to be re-thought if its going to survive in this world come of age.

Here, at least, what we call “god” is needed.

I was struck once again by the profundity of Bonhoeffer’s thought in his analysis of the state of the world and the Church. This small portion from the preface of ‘Christ the Center’ really stood out to me:

‘In a historical preamble he traces the impact of the Renaissance – giving the thirteenth century as his estimated date when this movement towards the autonomy of man had reached a measure of completeness. Since then, he claims, ‘Man has learnt to cope with all the questions of importance without recourse to God as a working hypothesis.’ And so, ‘what we call “God” is being more and more edged out of life.’ The world becomes sure of itself and the Church gets more and more frightened. Then it makes the mistake of trying to bring in God and Christ to counter this trend. That makes the movement towards autonomy anti-Christian. The fatal mistake of the Church was trying to ‘prove to a world come of age that it cannot live without the tutelage of “God” ‘ . The inability to maintain this in the face of the world’s autonomy leads to the ‘ultimate questions’, where God now takes refuge. Here at least he is needed.

At this comes Bonoheffers most quoted question, a rhetorical one: ‘But what if one day they [i.e. these ultimate questions] no longer exist as such, if they too can be answered without “God”?  Bonhoeffer shrewdly points out that secular equivalents to religion play the same game. These are the existentialist philosophers and the psychiatrists who ‘demonstrate to secure, contented, happy mankind that he is really unhappy and desperate and merely unwilling to realize that he is in severe straits he knows nothing at all about, from which they alone can rescue him’. This is held up to ridicule, in order to attack even more vehemently the Christian apologetics that take the same line.  The failure is ascribed by Bonhoeffer to a misunderstanding of Christ. The central question for him concerns the relation of Christ to the newly matured world. (‘Christ the Center’, p. 12-13)

Bonhoeffer sharply points out the problem with positing God as an answer to our ‘ultimate questions’, questions that have long been seen as answerable only by Christianity, or at least some kind of theism. A god-of-the-gaps theology, no matter how big and profound the gaps, is a weak one.

The title of the quoted work carries part of Bonhoeffer’s answer to the problem: he does not assign Christ a place in the world – Christ is the center of all reality and history and existence; this is the foundation of his ethical and theological thought. We find our place in Christ – Christ does not find His place in us. Christ is not assigned a place in our lives by us – our lives are assigned a place in Christ by Christ. This is where Christianity needs to go – instead of trying to diagnose content people as sick only unable to see it and claiming the only true antidote.

‘But what if one day they [i.e. these ultimate questions] no longer exist as such, if they too can be answered without “God”?

Silence

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;Teaching about Christ begins in silence. ‘Be still, for that is the absolute,’ writes Kierkegaard. That has nothing to do with the silence of the mystics, who in their dumbness chatter away secretly in their souls by themselves. The silence of the Church is silence before the Word. In so far as the church proclaims the Word, it falls down silently in truth before the inexpressible: ‘In silence I worship the inexpressible,’ (Cyril of Alexandria). The spoken Word is the inexpressible; this unutterable is the Word. ‘It must become spoken, it is a great battle cry,’ (Luther). Although it is cried out by the Church in the world, it remains the inexpressible. To speak of Christ means to keep silent; to keep silent about Christ means to speak. When the Church speaks rightly out of a proper silence, then Christ is proclaimed.’ (Dietrich Bonhoeffer, ‘Christ the Center,’ p. 27)

Ethical Judgement and Rights

What gives someone the right to make an ethical judgement? An ethical judgment is how one determines which action to take in any scenario, and on that definition is linked with the action itself. Broadly, ethical judgement can be defined so as to include the decision process as well as the action itself.

It seems to me that this question is somewhat wrongly framed, however – ethical judgments are not something that I have a right to in the same way that I have rights to other goods in my life. In a strict sense then, I don’t have a ‘right’ to make ethical judgement in that ethical judgments are a good to which I have a right. But let us examine some arguments in favor of ethical rights.

One could argue that I have a moral right to make ethical judgement - that an ethical judgement is something I ought to do – but it seems to me that just because I ought  to make an ethical judgement does not give me the right to make such judgements. This doesn’t mean I wouldn’t intervene – only that, strictly speaking, I would not have a right to – I would have an obligation to.

One could argue that I have a legal right to make an ethical judgement – and this seems to me to be a position more solid. If I see someone being mistreated in an illegal way, than I have a legal right to to make an ethical judgement. However, this is a bestowed right – suppose there are laws in other countries different from my own or no laws at all – if this were the case then I would not have such rights to make an ethical judgement, or at least have more limited rights. The bestowing of the rights to ethical judgement by various legal codes seems to be somewhat arbitrary – and as such is not concrete enough to ground a theory of the rights to ethical judgement.

It would seem then that the two strongest contentions of the rights to ethical judgements, the moral and the legal, do not provide sufficent justification for the idea of ethical judgement being a right. Ethical judgments, then, do not seem to be something to which I have a right to make, for two reasons: (a) ethical judgments are not a good to which I have a right, in the same way I have a right to be treated well, and (b) the moral and legal arguments for ethical rights do not seem to provide sufficient justification for such a position. On these two accounts, it appears that ethical judgements are not something I have a right to make.

However, all we have done so far is examine the negative side of the question of ethical rights. The issue it seems to me is that the above arguments are too abstract to provide any concrete ethics – ethical judgments are not things that take place in the abstract but in the concrete, in human existence. Let us then re-frame the question in a non-abstract way that can be directly applied to human existence.

My assertion, then, is that ethical judgement is not something to which I have a right  but something that I have a freedom for, and only insofar as I stand in relation to another person – ethical judgments are something I only have freedom for in relation to another person, because it is only in relation to another person that I have freedom.

‘No man is free “as such,” that is, in a vacuum, in the way that he may be musical, intelligent or blind as such. Freedom is not a quality of man, nor is it an ability, a capacity, a kind of being that somehow flares up in him. Anyone investigating man to discover freedom finds nothing of it. Why? Because freedom is not a quality which can be revealed–it is not a possession, a presence, an object, nor is it a form of existence–but a relationship and nothing else. In truth, freedom is a relationship between two persons. Being free means “being free for the other,” because the other has bound me to him. Only in relationship with the other am I free.’( Dietrich Bonhoeffer, ‘Creation and Fall / Temptation: Two Biblical Studies,’ p. 39-40)

Bonhoeffers ethical thought is grounded in the concrete reality of human existence and relationships as opposed to the abstract of what I ought to do or what I have a right  to do. For Bonhoeffer, ethics are meant to be real concrete and not abstract, because real human existence demands concrete ethics.

Bonhoeffer on Freedom

‎’In man God creates his image on earth. This means that man is like the Creator in that he is free. Actually he is free only by God’s creation, by means of the Word of God; he is free for the worship of the Creator. In the language of the Bible, freedom is not something man has for himself but something he has for others. No man is free “as such,” that is, in a vacuum, in the way that he may be musical, intelligent or blind as such. Freedom is not a quality of man, nor is it an ability, a capacity, a kind of being that somehow flares up in him. Anyone investigating man to discover freedom finds nothing of it. Why? because freedom is not a quality which can be revealed–it is not a possession, a presence, an object, nor is it a form of existence–but a relationship and nothing else. In truth, freedom is a relationship between two persons. Being free means “being free for the other,” because the other has bound me to him. Only in relationship with the other am I free.’
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, (‘Creation and Fall / Temptation: Two Biblical Studies,’ p. 39-40)

This is another example of how critical relationship is in Bonhoeffer’s thought – just as Christ exists for me, I exist for others.

Christology: ‘For me’

‘Christ is Christ, not just for himself, but in relation to me. His being in Christ is for me, pro me . This being pro me is not to be understood as an effect emanating from ihm, nor as an accident, but it is to be understood as the essence, the being of the person himself. The core of the ther person himself is pro me. That Christ is pro me is not an historical, nor an ontic statement, but an ontological one. Christ can never be thought of as being for himself, but only in relation to me.’ (Dietrich Bonhoeffer, ‘Christ the Center,’ p. 47)

Here we come to a very interesting part of Bonhoeffers christology: that Christ literally exists for me, and cannot be understood in any other way other than being in relation to me. This relational factor is what makes Bonhoeffers thought so brilliant – that Christ cannot be understood any other way than relationally. Christ in His essence is for me – and for humanity. He stands in humanity’s place before God – and here is what I believe to be the core of Bonhoeffers christology:

‘Jesus Christ is for his bretheren because he stands in their place. Christ stands for his new humanity before God. But if that is so, he is the new humanity. There where mankind should stand, he stands as a representative, enabled by his pro me structure. He is the Church. He not only acts for it, he is it, when he goes to the cross, carries the sins and dies. Therefore, in him, mankind is crucified, dead and judged.’ (Dietrich Bonhoeffer, ‘Christ the Center,’ p. 48)

It is the for me that justifies the world – this is a universal atonement brought on by the very essence of Christ. As stated above this is not an effect that comes from Christ but the very essence. The relational factor here is key and an underlying presupposition critical to Bonhoeffers thought – as it should be for all theology.