DIETRICH BONHOEFFER
Miles
J. Stanford
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER did
not die for his faith in Christ, but rather for his participation in one of the
plots to assassinate Adolph Hitler.
In his book, Creation and the
Fall, he held that both [biblical Creation and the Fall of mankind] were
myths and fairy tales.
In his book, No Rusty Swords,
he wrote:
The New Testament bears
witness in doctrine and history; it is nothing in itself, but bears witness of
something else.
Its words and statements
are not in themselves true and eternal and holy. The whole New Testament
in all its parts is meant to be expounded as witness, not as a book of wisdom,
a teaching book, a book of eternal truth. It is not a book which
contains norms, doctrines, or eternal truths (p. 318).
Bonhoeffer followed Karl Barth
in claiming that in the Incarnation God assumed not the flesh of man but the
human "form," that is, humanity collectively:
The Son of God takes to
himself the whole human race bodily, that race in its hatred of God and in the
pride of its flesh has rejected the incorporeal, invisible Word of God.
Now this humanity, in all its weakness, is, by the mercy of God, taken up in
the Body of Jesus in true bodily form (Cost of Discipleship, p. 213).
Humanity has been made new
in Jesus Christ, who became man, was crucified and rose again. What
befell Christ befell all men, for Christ was a man (Ethics, p. 78).
The result of this argument is
universal justification and reconciliation:
In Christ mankind is really
drawn into communion with God, just as in Adam all mankind fell (The
Communion of the Saints, p. 20).
All men are "with
Christ" as a consequence of the Incarnation, for in the Incarnation Jesus
bore our whole human nature (The Cost of Discipleship, p. 215).
To Bonhoeffer, the Virgin Birth
was at best a symbol of the Incarnation:
Both historically and
dogmatically the virgin birth can be questioned. The biblical witness is
ambiguous (Christ in the Center, p. 105).
Bonhoeffer wrote in a letter,
shortly before his death:
There is no longer any need
for God as a working hypothesis, whether in morals, politics, science,
philosophy, or religion. God is teaching us that we must learn to live
as men who can get along very well without him. The God who is with us
is the God who forsakes us. "My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken
me?" (Mark 15:34). God is weak and powerless in the world and that
is exactly the way, the only way, in which he can be with us and help us.
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