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Dietrich Bonhoefer in the Theology of Karl Barth Matthew Puffer Valparaiso University

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Dietrich Bonhoefer in the Theology of Karl Barth Matthew Puffer Valparaiso University Valparaiso University ValpoScholar Christ College Faculty Publications Christ College (Honors College) 2-18-2014 Dietrich Bonhoefer in the Theology of Karl Barth Matthew Puffer Valparaiso University Follow this and additional works at: https://scholar.valpo.edu/cc_fac_pub Recommended Citation Puffer, Matthew, "Dietrich Bonhoefer in the Theology of Karl Barth" (2014). Christ College Faculty Publications. 52. https://scholar.valpo.edu/cc_fac_pub/52 This Book chapter/entry is brought to you for free and open access by the Christ College (Honors College) at ValpoScholar. It has been accepted for inclusion in Christ College Faculty Publications by an authorized administrator of ValpoScholar. For more information, please contact a ValpoScholar staff member at [email protected]. 3 Dietrich Bonhoeffer in the Theology of Karl Barth By Matthew Puffer Little speculation is required to discern what “Karl Barth in conversa- tion with Dietrich Bonhoefer” might look like. Teir numerous interac- tions during the tumultuous years from 1931 to 1942 are both preserved in personal correspondence and noted extensively, particularly in Bonhoefer scholarship. Te signifcant indebtedness of Bonhoefer’s theology to Barth’s is widely recognized. It is apparent during his student years in Tübingen and Berlin, in the fnal extant chapters for his Ethics foreshortened by his arrest, as well as in Bonhoefer’s prison theology where dependence and divergence are simultaneously evident. Comparisons of Eberhard Bethge’s and Eberhard Busch’s respective biographies of Bonhoefer and Barth—or of almost any work on Barth’s theology and nearly any on Bonhoefer’s— bears out that Barth was of tremendous import to Bonhoefer’s theology.1 A signifcant void remains, however, in that little consideration has been given to the opposite trajectory—that is, to the infuence of the younger theologian upon his esteemed mentor. Te suggestion that Bonhoefer infuenced Barth will strike some as implausible. Certainly Barth appreciated Bonhoefer’s ecumenism and op- position to National Socialism, but it is widely recognized that Barth was unimpressed by the “fragmentary” prison writings, confounded by the suggestions of a “positivism of revelation,” and found the discussion of 1. Pangritz’s work ofers the most detailed examination of Barth’s infuence upon Bonhoefer to date. He assesses their relationship in response to interpretations of Bon- hoefer’s charge that Barth’s theology exhibits a “positivism of revelation”: cf. Pangritz, Karl Barth, and Pangritz, “Dietrich Bonhoefer.” 46 Pufer Dietrich Bonhoefer in the Teology of Karl Barth 47 “mandates” in Ethics as “arbitrary,” “inadequate,” and suggestive of “a North German patriarchalism.”2 In a letter to Bethge—not only Bonhoefer’s bi- ographer, but editor of his posthumous publications, closest friend, and nephew—Barth ofers a seemingly devastating assessment of Bonhoefer’s theology: “very sofly I venture to doubt whether theological systematics (I include his Ethics) was his real strength.” Given such critical evaluations from Barth’s own pen, skepticism toward claims regarding substantive con- tributions from Bonhoefer is surely appropriate. Of course Barth can be as generous in praise as adamant in opposition. His engagement with interlocutors ofen becomes more critical, rather than less, when he holds them in high regard. Tus, it is not entirely inexplicable that Barth appraises Bonhoefer’s Sanctorum Communio as a “theological miracle,” his Discipleship as “the best that has been written” on imitatio Christi, and Ethics as “brilliant.”3 Understood within the context of their relationship and respective theologies Barth’s critical assessments, negative and positive, illumine rather than discredit a reciprocal indebtedness be- tween Barth and Bonhoefer. Still, Barth’s critical assessment of Bonhoefer presents a challenge to understanding his importance to Barth’s theology. And numerous compli- cating factors contribute to a dearth of attention given to the young theo- logian’s contributions. For one, their writings have ofen been appropriated for apparently distinct and sometimes divergent purposes in academic, theological, and popular discourses—the Death of God theology, universal- ism, pietism, liberalism, socialism, conservatism, dogmatics, social ethics, pacifsm, justifcation of assassination, etc.4 Not only can secondary dis- course lead to diverse reductive oppositions, a textual study attentive solely to Barth and Bonhoefer’s publications tells an equally distortive and dis- tinctly counterintuitive story about their mutual infuence. For in Bonhoef- fer’s publications, one fnds only highly critical explicit engagement with Barth in Sanctorum Communio and Act and Being, and the elder theologian goes unmentioned in Bonhoefer’s last four books—Creation and Fall, Life Together, Discipleship, and Ethics. In Church Dogmatics 3 and 4 alone, on the 2. CD 3.4:22. 3. Godsey, Teology, 21n6; Barth, CD 4.2:533, and 3.4:4. 4. Jüngel ofers another explanation shared by numerous scholars when he observes that Bonhoefer’s compelling biography has inhibited criticism of his thought. Jüngel recalls, “Heinrich Vogel was the only teacher in the course of my studies whom I heard express critical words and reservations with respect to Bonhoefer. It does not say much for the state of Protestant theology that he was the only one. Probably because of Bon- hoefer’s life and its violent end, an aura of theological unassailability has come to rest around his work, which has done a great disservice to this work itself. For Bonhoefer’s sake, the aura needs to be destroyed” (Jüngel, “Mystery of Substitution,” 153). 48 Section 1: Past Conversations other hand, Barth makes explicit reference to four of Bonhoefer’s books, ofering extensive positive critical assessments, even where he disagrees, quoting from Bonhoefer at length in numerous instances. Appreciating Bonhoefer’s contributions to Barth’s theological project, then, requires that one attend to Barth’s appraisals and appropriations both in his correspondence and in his dogmatics. A reconsideration of Bonhoef- fer’s importance to Barth’s theology not only holds promise for a greater appreciation of Bonhoefer and better understanding of Barth, but more importantly, it discloses places where constructive conversations might ad- vance the theological and ethical insights to which Barth and Bonhoefer gave considerable attention. 1. Barth and Bonhoeffer: Life Together Bonhoefer imbibed Barth’s early writings during his student years in Tübingen and Berlin (1924–27). Studying under Barth’s former professor and recent sparring partner, Adolf von Harnack, Bonhoefer experienced Barth as a “liberation” through the lecture notes he collected from family members and friends who were Barth’s students in Göttingen and Münster. Still, Bonhoefer’s dissertations, Sanctorum Communio and Act and Being, voice critical assessments of the seemingly exclusive emphasis upon God’s transcendence in Barth’s early theology.5 In 1931, as a young Berlin Uni- versity theology lecturer, Bonhoefer spent three weeks in Bonn where the two theologians became acquainted. Barth was “delighted” when his visitor quoted one of Luther’s witticisms in a seminar, launching a friendship that would last until Bonhoefer’s death.6 Bonhoefer wrote of these weeks in Bonn, “I don’t think I have ever regretted anything I have failed to do in my theological past so much as the fact that I did not come here earlier . I have 5. Cf. Bonhoefer, Sanctorum Communio, 169–70n28; Bonhoefer, Act and Being, 83–87, 98–100, 124–26. 6. Bonhoefer is said to have interjected, “Te curses of the godless sometimes sound better to God’s ear than the hallelujahs of the pious” (Bethge, Dietrich Bonhoef- fer: A Biography, 176). Luther’s text reads “cum tales blasphemie, quia sunt violenter a diabolo hominibus invitis extorte, aliquando gratiores sonent in aure dei quam ipsum Alleluja vel quecunque laudis iubilatio” (Luther, Vorlesung über den Römerbrief, 2:227, quoted in Bonhoefer, Act and Being, 160n31). According to Bethge, the lectures by Barth that Bonhoefer attended in July of 1931 were on ethics: cf. Bethge, Dietrich Bon- hoefer: A Biography, 181. However, Barth’s ethics seminars were held the previous two semesters. Barth’s 1931 summer seminar read Schleiermacher’s Glaubenslehre and his lectures were on “Prolegomena to Dogmatics,” i.e., CD 1.1. Barth also gave a seminar on natural theology in the winter semester for which Erich Przywara was a guest lecturer. Cf. CRDT, 415 –16. Pufer Dietrich Bonhoefer in the Teology of Karl Barth 49 been even more impressed by my discussions with him than by his writings and his lectures. For he is really all there. I have never seen anything like it before and wouldn’t have believed it possible.”7 Te two discussed ethics and natural theology, and—in all likelihood—their assessments of Przywara’s analogia entis, about which both had previously written.8 In the years of the Kirchenkampf Barth and Bonhoefer labored togeth- er and exchanged notes about developments, until Bonhoefer—exasper- ated with the Confessional Church’s cautiousness, the watered-down Bethel Confession, and Barth’s reticence to proclaim a status confessionis—took up a pastorate in London. Barth responded to a letter of explanation from Bonhoefer with words neither would soon forget: Get back to your post in Berlin straightaway! . you need to be here with all guns blazing! . standing up to these brethren along with me . Why weren’t you there pulling on the rope that I, virtually alone, could hardly budge? Why aren’t you here all the time? . Just be glad I do not have you here in front of me, because then I would fnd an entirely diferent way of put- ting it to you . that you are a German, that your church’s house is on fre, that you know enough, and know well enough how to say what you know, to be able to help, and in fact you ought to return to your post by the next ship! . If you did not matter so much to me, I would not have taken you by the collar in this fashion.9 When Bonhoefer returned to direct a non-sanctioned seminary in the spring of 1935, Barth had already been forced to resign both his professor- ship and his leadership role in the Confessing Church.
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