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gjones19's review against another edition
5.0
A truly wonderful collection of ethical reflections from Bonhoeffer! This book reveals so much about Bonhoeffer’s life and thought.
katiehixson's review against another edition
5.0
I could never adequately express how much I love Dietrich Bonhoeffer. He and C.S. Lewis are my two favorite theologians, and for a lot of the same reasons: very good at seeing the big picture but not at the expense of specifics and details. Excellent at dealing with caveats and grey areas. Excellent at explaining complex things in a very clear way. Their writing styles are always engaging and never dry.
This work on ethics was unfinished due to his execution, which is tragic for many reasons. One of them is that works like this, while sublime in their current form, would have been even more wonderful if he had been able to complete them.
Regardless of it being unfinished, it was the best work on ethics I’ve read. He pointed to Jesus with every sentence. Thankful to God for Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
This work on ethics was unfinished due to his execution, which is tragic for many reasons. One of them is that works like this, while sublime in their current form, would have been even more wonderful if he had been able to complete them.
Regardless of it being unfinished, it was the best work on ethics I’ve read. He pointed to Jesus with every sentence. Thankful to God for Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
grifen87's review against another edition
3.0
I have mixed feelings about this book. He made a lot of good and interesting points, but much of the work seemed very vague and abstract such that it was difficult to discern his actual meaning. I had a similar experience with The Cost of Discipleship. I also expected more of a comprehensive work whereas this is more a collection of essays.
timhoiland's review against another edition
5.0
"When evil becomes powerful in the world, it infects the Christian, too, with the poison of radicalism. It is Christ’s gift to the Christian that he should be reconciled with the world as it is, but now this reconciliation is accounted a betrayal and denial of Christ. It is replaced by bitterness, suspicion and contempt for men and the world. In the place of the love that believes all, bears all and hopes all, in the place of the love which loves the world in its very wickedness with the love of God, there is now the pharisaical denial of love to evil, and the restriction of love to the closed circle of the devout. Instead of the open Church of Jesus Christ, which serves the world till the end, there is now some allegedly primitive Christian ideal of a Church, which in its turn confuses the reality of the living Jesus Christ with the realization of a Christian idea. Thus a world which has become evil succeeds in making the Christians become evil too."
- See more at: http://tjhoiland.com/wordpress/2011/04/bonhoeffer
- See more at: http://tjhoiland.com/wordpress/2011/04/bonhoeffer
pwomack12's review against another edition
4.0
This book was a TOUGH read for me. I’ve read Bonhoeffer before, but this was very dense. That being said, I really enjoyed a lot of it. I love how unapologetic he is! I’d recommend this to anyone interested in the topic of Ethics or Theology.
bkmorales's review against another edition
5.0
This is really not a book to love or hate. Instead, it is a book to think about and reread. More than once, I had to go back to fully comprehend what he was saying. There are sections that I have marked to read again, because the truth of Bonhoeffer's writing still rings today. He had a great deal of insight into people and their actions. All authors are influenced by the times they live in, it is obvious in this book that Bonhoeffer was not in favor of the Nazis and their programs. That would be clear even without knowing that he was hanged as a traitor and spy. Read this and think.
tdwightdavis's review against another edition
5.0
Fantastic work of theology. The last few essays were weak, but they are also unfinished and obviously bare bone outlines. This particular translation is really fantastic, and the introduction and afterword are incredible helpful.
nate_s's review against another edition
5.0
"The knowledge of good and evil appears to be the goal of all ethical reflection. The first task of Christian ethics is to supersede that knowledge. This attack on the presuppositions of all other ethics is so unique that it is questionable whether it even makes sense to speak of Christian ethics at all."
"The kind of thinking that starts out with human problems, and then looks for solutions from that vantage point, has to be overcome-- it is unbiblical. The way of Jesus Christ, and thus the way of all Christian thought, is not the way from the world to God but from God to the world."
I haven't read much in the field of ethics, but Bonhoeffer's Ethics is an absolutely formidable work, especially considering that it's unfinished. I was actually hoping to be able to rate this less than 5 stars, because I'm such a DB fanboy at this point, I feel like I need to prove I have some objectivity about him. But, well... looks like I'm just obsessed with everything he wrote.
I'll just try and give a sense of one of my favorite chapters in the book, History and Good (2). The ideas here turn on the notion of "responsible" action rather than conceiving of action in terms of good or bad. 'Responsibility' accounts for the other- the person, persons, or group with whom one has to do. It is not so concerned with 'good' for we cannot possibly know what brings about the greatest good. The quest for an absolute idea of "the good," dutifully carried out, yields:
"...individuals pulling back from the living responsibility of their historical existence into a private realization of ethical ideals by which they see their own personal goodness guaranteed... This understanding of ethics... fails due to the historicity of human existence."
The chooser is not an isolated individual reaching for a standard, but an agent in a social, historical context. There is therefore no fixed principle one could have ultimate allegiance to. Any such principle would have you violate your responsibility to another, given the right historical particulars. Instead, Christian ethics is "God's reality revealed in Christ becoming real among God's creatures."
He goes on to undermine one of the most popular forms of abstracted goodness: ideology. Ideology seems to be a malignant force in Bonhoeffer's reckoning. To tip my own hand a bit, not only do I agree with him, but I find that most people when speaking of politics are not actually aware that there is any possible commitment or approach other than ideology. The task in figuring out 'my politics' is a task of choosing a system that I think is the most effective or just, and then conforming all thought and action to that system. This includes Christians who will often make a run at devoting themselves to politics in a way they perceive as simultaneously effective "for the real world," and still in some way faithful to Jesus. More often than not in these cases, faith in Jesus is rationalized or relativized away in favor of being 'effective for the real world,' or faithful to the ideology. In this way, actions that would be considered unethical in any other circumstance are easily justifiable. This makes Jesus a means to an end, and declares him ineffective for the real world. But as Bonhoeffer says below, Christ is reality. He IS the real world.
"Whereas all action based on ideology is already justified by its own principle, responsible action renounces any knowledge about its ultimate justification...Those who act on the basis of ideology consider themselves justified by their idea. Those who act responsibly place their action into the hands of God and live by God's grace and judgment."
This is "Do not let your left hand know what the right hand is doing" stuff. Later he illuminates that very verse as a principle undermining the knowledge of good and evil.
You see in his rejection of ideology, and even of principle, not an arbitrariness, but a homing mechanism for reconciliation through Christ. Ethics is not a problem of finding the best action according to principle, reason, law, duty, ideology, virtue, or even conscience, but of discerning the God who has loved, judged, and reconciled the world with himself in Jesus Christ. God has become human, and from this all ethical thought must proceed. All conscious thought of ethical decision must comprehend the God who became human.
He goes on to warn against certain pseudo-Christian attempts at ethics. There is a "use" of Jesus that turns him into a principle or a moral standard. In this, Jesus is not conceived as a free actor, but ends up being constrained by something else:
"...such an "ethic of Jesus" does not lead to concrete historical responsibility. Hence the platitudes that currently prevail throughout Christendom, such as declaring the Sermon on the Mount useless for politics and similar slogans. What dominates this perspective is the notion of a self-sufficient, "autonomous" historical reality, upon which a Christian ethic, which in its origin and nature is foreign to reality, is then to be forcefully imposed. However, what is overlooked here is the decisive fact from which along the structure of what is real can be understood, namely, God's becoming human, God's entering history, taking on historical reality in the reality of Jesus Christ. What is overlooked here is the fact that the Sermon on the Mount is the word of the one who did not relate to reality as a foreigner, a reformer, a fanatic, the founder of a religion but as the one who bore and experienced the nature of reality in his own body, who spoke out of the depth of reality as no other human being on earth ever before. The Sermon on the Mount is the word of the very one who is the lord and law of reality. The Sermon on the Mount is to be understood and interpreted as the word of the God who became human. That is the issue at stake when the question of historical action is raised, and there it must prove true that action in accord with Christ is action in accord with reality." (italics mine)
And this brings me to one of the most fascinating elements of the book: the notion of assuming guilt, as a consequence of responsible action, on behalf of the one toward whom you bear ethical responsibility. This may sound like situational ethics, but it's not:
"Because Jesus took the guilt of all human beings upon himself, everyone who acts responsibly becomes guilty. Those who, in acting responsibly, seek to avoid becoming guilty divorce themselves from the ultimate reality of human existence; but in so doing they also divorce themselves from the redeeming mystery of the sinless bearing of guilt by Jesus Christ, and have no part in the divine justification that attends this event. They place their personal innocence above their responsibility for other human beings and are blind to the fact that precisely in so doing they become even more egregiously guilty. They are also blind to the fact that genuine guiltlessness is demonstrated precisely by entering into community with the guilt of other human beings for their sake. Because of Jesus Christ, the essence of responsible action intrinsically involves the sinless, those who act out of selfless love, becoming guilty..."
To better illustrate this, he goes after Kant. (I love when Bonhoeffer goes after Kant):
"Treating truthfulness as a principle leads Kant to the grotesque conclusion that if asked by a murderer whether my friend, whom he was pursuing, had sought refuge in my house, I would have to answer honestly in the affirmative. Here the self-righteousness of conscience has escalated into blasphemous recklessness and become an impediment to responsible action. Since responsibility is the entire response, in accord with reality, to the claim of God and my neighbor, then this scenario glaringly illuminates the merely partial response of a conscience bound by principles. I come into conflict with my responsibility that is grounded in reality when I refuse to become guilty of violating the principle of truthfulness of the sake of my friend, refusing in this case to lie energetically for the sake of my friend--
(*Ahem*... this just keeps getting better):
"--and any attempt to deny that we are indeed dealing with lying here is once again the work of a legalistic and self-righteous conscience-- refusing, in others words, to take on and bear guilt out of love for my neighbor. Here as well, a conscience bound to Christ alone will most clearly exhibit its innocence precisely in responsibly accepting culpability." (italics mine)
Remarkable. Breathtaking.
And that does it for all of us- we will all become guilty, either by doing wrong, or by doing right. It is to God alone we turn for justification. To my mind, this is a brilliant elaboration on classic Lutheran thought. It also sheds much light on the thinking that led him, even a pacifist, to participate in a plot against Hitler's life.
Implicit throughout Bonhoeffer's Ethics is this pretty basic assumption, which we all should have realized, but few of us really do:
"Responsible action must decide not simply between right and wrong, good and evil, but between right and right, wrong and wrong."
Too many of our choices are a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" scenario, undermining any project about 'being good.' We are shown something better than good: God through Christ reconciling the world to himself.
"The kind of thinking that starts out with human problems, and then looks for solutions from that vantage point, has to be overcome-- it is unbiblical. The way of Jesus Christ, and thus the way of all Christian thought, is not the way from the world to God but from God to the world."
I haven't read much in the field of ethics, but Bonhoeffer's Ethics is an absolutely formidable work, especially considering that it's unfinished. I was actually hoping to be able to rate this less than 5 stars, because I'm such a DB fanboy at this point, I feel like I need to prove I have some objectivity about him. But, well... looks like I'm just obsessed with everything he wrote.
I'll just try and give a sense of one of my favorite chapters in the book, History and Good (2). The ideas here turn on the notion of "responsible" action rather than conceiving of action in terms of good or bad. 'Responsibility' accounts for the other- the person, persons, or group with whom one has to do. It is not so concerned with 'good' for we cannot possibly know what brings about the greatest good. The quest for an absolute idea of "the good," dutifully carried out, yields:
"...individuals pulling back from the living responsibility of their historical existence into a private realization of ethical ideals by which they see their own personal goodness guaranteed... This understanding of ethics... fails due to the historicity of human existence."
The chooser is not an isolated individual reaching for a standard, but an agent in a social, historical context. There is therefore no fixed principle one could have ultimate allegiance to. Any such principle would have you violate your responsibility to another, given the right historical particulars. Instead, Christian ethics is "God's reality revealed in Christ becoming real among God's creatures."
He goes on to undermine one of the most popular forms of abstracted goodness: ideology. Ideology seems to be a malignant force in Bonhoeffer's reckoning. To tip my own hand a bit, not only do I agree with him, but I find that most people when speaking of politics are not actually aware that there is any possible commitment or approach other than ideology. The task in figuring out 'my politics' is a task of choosing a system that I think is the most effective or just, and then conforming all thought and action to that system. This includes Christians who will often make a run at devoting themselves to politics in a way they perceive as simultaneously effective "for the real world," and still in some way faithful to Jesus. More often than not in these cases, faith in Jesus is rationalized or relativized away in favor of being 'effective for the real world,' or faithful to the ideology. In this way, actions that would be considered unethical in any other circumstance are easily justifiable. This makes Jesus a means to an end, and declares him ineffective for the real world. But as Bonhoeffer says below, Christ is reality. He IS the real world.
"Whereas all action based on ideology is already justified by its own principle, responsible action renounces any knowledge about its ultimate justification...Those who act on the basis of ideology consider themselves justified by their idea. Those who act responsibly place their action into the hands of God and live by God's grace and judgment."
This is "Do not let your left hand know what the right hand is doing" stuff. Later he illuminates that very verse as a principle undermining the knowledge of good and evil.
You see in his rejection of ideology, and even of principle, not an arbitrariness, but a homing mechanism for reconciliation through Christ. Ethics is not a problem of finding the best action according to principle, reason, law, duty, ideology, virtue, or even conscience, but of discerning the God who has loved, judged, and reconciled the world with himself in Jesus Christ. God has become human, and from this all ethical thought must proceed. All conscious thought of ethical decision must comprehend the God who became human.
He goes on to warn against certain pseudo-Christian attempts at ethics. There is a "use" of Jesus that turns him into a principle or a moral standard. In this, Jesus is not conceived as a free actor, but ends up being constrained by something else:
"...such an "ethic of Jesus" does not lead to concrete historical responsibility. Hence the platitudes that currently prevail throughout Christendom, such as declaring the Sermon on the Mount useless for politics and similar slogans. What dominates this perspective is the notion of a self-sufficient, "autonomous" historical reality, upon which a Christian ethic, which in its origin and nature is foreign to reality, is then to be forcefully imposed. However, what is overlooked here is the decisive fact from which along the structure of what is real can be understood, namely, God's becoming human, God's entering history, taking on historical reality in the reality of Jesus Christ. What is overlooked here is the fact that the Sermon on the Mount is the word of the one who did not relate to reality as a foreigner, a reformer, a fanatic, the founder of a religion but as the one who bore and experienced the nature of reality in his own body, who spoke out of the depth of reality as no other human being on earth ever before. The Sermon on the Mount is the word of the very one who is the lord and law of reality. The Sermon on the Mount is to be understood and interpreted as the word of the God who became human. That is the issue at stake when the question of historical action is raised, and there it must prove true that action in accord with Christ is action in accord with reality." (italics mine)
And this brings me to one of the most fascinating elements of the book: the notion of assuming guilt, as a consequence of responsible action, on behalf of the one toward whom you bear ethical responsibility. This may sound like situational ethics, but it's not:
"Because Jesus took the guilt of all human beings upon himself, everyone who acts responsibly becomes guilty. Those who, in acting responsibly, seek to avoid becoming guilty divorce themselves from the ultimate reality of human existence; but in so doing they also divorce themselves from the redeeming mystery of the sinless bearing of guilt by Jesus Christ, and have no part in the divine justification that attends this event. They place their personal innocence above their responsibility for other human beings and are blind to the fact that precisely in so doing they become even more egregiously guilty. They are also blind to the fact that genuine guiltlessness is demonstrated precisely by entering into community with the guilt of other human beings for their sake. Because of Jesus Christ, the essence of responsible action intrinsically involves the sinless, those who act out of selfless love, becoming guilty..."
To better illustrate this, he goes after Kant. (I love when Bonhoeffer goes after Kant):
"Treating truthfulness as a principle leads Kant to the grotesque conclusion that if asked by a murderer whether my friend, whom he was pursuing, had sought refuge in my house, I would have to answer honestly in the affirmative. Here the self-righteousness of conscience has escalated into blasphemous recklessness and become an impediment to responsible action. Since responsibility is the entire response, in accord with reality, to the claim of God and my neighbor, then this scenario glaringly illuminates the merely partial response of a conscience bound by principles. I come into conflict with my responsibility that is grounded in reality when I refuse to become guilty of violating the principle of truthfulness of the sake of my friend, refusing in this case to lie energetically for the sake of my friend--
(*Ahem*... this just keeps getting better):
"--and any attempt to deny that we are indeed dealing with lying here is once again the work of a legalistic and self-righteous conscience-- refusing, in others words, to take on and bear guilt out of love for my neighbor. Here as well, a conscience bound to Christ alone will most clearly exhibit its innocence precisely in responsibly accepting culpability." (italics mine)
Remarkable. Breathtaking.
And that does it for all of us- we will all become guilty, either by doing wrong, or by doing right. It is to God alone we turn for justification. To my mind, this is a brilliant elaboration on classic Lutheran thought. It also sheds much light on the thinking that led him, even a pacifist, to participate in a plot against Hitler's life.
Implicit throughout Bonhoeffer's Ethics is this pretty basic assumption, which we all should have realized, but few of us really do:
"Responsible action must decide not simply between right and wrong, good and evil, but between right and right, wrong and wrong."
Too many of our choices are a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" scenario, undermining any project about 'being good.' We are shown something better than good: God through Christ reconciling the world to himself.
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