Bonhoeffer's Theological Formation Berlin, Barth, and Protestant Theology

by DeJonge, Michael P.

• ISBN13: 9780199639786
• ISBN10: 0199639787
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2012-05-16
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

Dietrich Bonhoeffer's dramatic biography, a son of privilege who suffered imprisonment and execution after involving himself in a conspiracy to kill Hitler and overthrow the Third Reich, has helped make him one of the most influential Christian figures of the twentieth century. But before he was known as a martyr or a hero, he was a student and teacher of theology. This book examines the academic formation of Dietrich Bonhoeffer's theology, arguing that the young Bonhoeffer reinterpreted for a modern intellectual context the Lutheran understanding of the 'person' of Jesus Christ. In the process, Bonhoeffer not only distinguished himself from both Karl Barth and Karl Holl, whose dialectical theology and Luther interpretation respectively were two of the most important post-World War I theological movements, but also established the basic character of his own 'person-theology.' Barth convinces Bonhoeffer that theology must understand revelation as originating outside the human self in God's freedom. But whereas Barth understands revelation as the act of an eternal divine subject, Bonhoeffer treats revelation as the act and being of the historical person of Jesus Christ. On the basis of this person-concept of revelation, Bonhoeffer rejects Barth's dialectical thought, designed to respect the distinction between God and world, for a hermeneutical way of thinking that begins with the reconciliation of God and world in the person of Christ. Here Bonhoeffer mines a Lutheran understanding of the incarnation as God's unreserved entry into history, and the person of Christ as the resulting historical reconciliation of opposites. This also distinguishes Bonhoeffer's Lutheranism from that of Karl Holl, one of Bonhoeffer's teachers in Berlin, whose location of justification in the conscience renders the presence of Christ superfluous. Against this, Bonhoeffer emphasizes the present person of Christ as the precondition of justification. Through these critical conversations, Bonhoeffer develops the features of his person-theology --- a person-concept of revelation and a hermeneutical way of thinking --- which remain constant despite the sometimes radical changes in his thought.

Author Biography

Michael P. DeJonge is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at the University of South Florida, where he teaches on the history of Christian theology and topics in modern religious thought. His publications include Bonhoeffer on Resistance: The Word Against the Wheel (2018), Bonhoeffer's Reception of Luther (2017), and The Bonhoeffer Reader (co-edited with Clifford J. Green; 2014).

Table of Contents

Foreword	p. xi
Abbreviations	p. xv
Between Berlin and Barth	p. 1
A theological impasse	p. 1
Its technical expression	p. 6
Bonhoeffer's person-theology	p. 7
The Problem of Act and Being	p. 15
'Act' and 'being'	p. 16
The problem and its philosophical background	p. 19
The problem's significance	p. 32
The Challenge of Barth's Theology	p. 36
Barth's act-theology	p. 37
Barth's Reformed act-theology	p. 41
Confessional polemics	p. 48
God is Not Subject but Person: Bonhoeffer's Alternative to Barth	p. 56
Bonhoeffer's critique of Barth	p. 56
Bonhoeffer's alternative to Barth	p. 68
The Lutheran Provenance of Bonhoeffer's Alternative	p. 83
Toward the person of Christ	p. 85
The structure of the person of Christ	p. 92
Thinking hermeneutically	p. 97
Evaluating Bonhoeffer's Alternative	p. 101
Claiming the Lutheran Tradition	p. 115
Being-theology	p. 115
Against Holl's theology of conscience	p. 118
The Academic Roots of Bonhoeffer's Ethical Theology	p. 129
Discipleship	p. 130
Ethics	p. 136
Conclusion	p. 142
References	p. 147
Index	p. 155
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