By Angus Harley

It is typical fare in Evangelical circles to read of Bonhoeffer as being anti-Liberal and an advocate for a new form of biblical orthodoxy. I’ve read it said, for example, that Bonhoeffer might have admired Adolf Harnack’s scholarship, but walked in a different theological path to that Liberal theologian. This is the type of positive spin that is put on Bonhoeffer’s theology by Evangelicals.

I will concede from the beginning that there is no doubt that Bonhoeffer did not fully go down the path of Liberal theology. That is why he opted for what was called ‘Neo-orthodoxy’. Yet, it is disturbingly, and fundamentally, a misreading of Bonhoeffer’s theological presuppositions to say that he was not a Liberal scholar at heart, for he was highly dependent upon the presuppositions of historical criticism that were at the core of the Liberal theology of his day. I have already spent time describing his commitment to historical criticism. Nonetheless, there is the permanent, abiding, attitude in Evangelicals that, irrespective of any Liberal ‘slip ups’ by Bonhoeffer, he was more Evangelical than Liberal. This article hopes to disabuse readers of this dreadfully mistaken reading of Bonhoeffer by demonstrating his strong, ongoing, commitment to Liberal presuppositions.

We are going to look at two scholars from the Liberal system: Gotthold Lessing (1729-1781) and Adolf von Harnack (1851-1930). These two are chosen because one is at the beginning of the development of Liberal theology and the other at the end of the Enlightenment form of theological Liberalism. This article is about Lessing, the next concerns Harnack.

Gotthold Lessing (1729-1781)

Lessing said history was not a sufficient basis for constructing faith. He wrote that if he were a believer at the time of Jesus, he would have believed what he saw with his own eyes. Eye-witness truth was the key. However, the Gospel’s events were now confined to history, and were, therefore, incapable of being witnessed. It followed, then, that the historical events recorded in the bible could not serve as the evidential basis for faith, for no one today could witness them. Added to this, it was apparent that history itself was flawed, having been written by men who committed errors. Faith could find no irrefutable proof or support in history, therefore, and it simply had to take hold of God’s Gospel by believing in it.

There was a third factor in addition to these two points concerning history: the Enlightenment focus on reason. To Lessing, theology, like other universal ‘facts’, belonged to the category of ‘reason’. Theology is based on logic, and one can build one’s thought-system on this logic derived from reason. Yet, both history and reason are unbridgeable, so that the events of the bible and the theology of tradition are two sides of an ‘ugly ditch’, and one cannot make the leap from the history side to the reason side, from historical research to theological systems.

Let’s look at an example of Lessing’s theology in action:

History side: the resurrection of Jesus as a historical event

Reason side: the theology that this risen Jesus is the Son of God

One cannot leap from one side (history) to the other (reason), from the resurrection of Jesus’ body (historical event) to the theology that Jesus was the Son of God (reason). (The reader should note that it was commonplace even during the Enlightenment for theology to be called a ‘science’.) Consequently, ‘faith’ becomes an act of despair in Lessing’s system, for it gives up hope of jumping from one side of the ‘ugly ditch’ to the other, of reconciling history with reason, the historical resurrection of Jesus’ body with the theology of the eternal Son of God. So that even if one was, personally, of the opinion that Jesus was raised physically from the dead, this could not be proved scientifically or historically and was therefore completely insufficient as a rational basis for faith.

Bonhoeffer’s reliance on Lessing

Strong influence. Although Lessing had only really an indirect influence on Bonhoeffer, it was nevertheless profound. As a student, he had studied Lessing. Rather than Bonhoeffer casting off Lessing entirely, he himself openly confesses a strong reliance on Lessing. Bonhoeffer writes:

“Emancipated reason rose to unsuspected heights. The free exercise of reason created an atmosphere of truthfulness, light and clarity. Prejudices, social conceits, hollow forms and insensitive sentimentality were swept clean by the fresh wind of intellectual clarity. Intellectual honesty in all things, including questions of belief, was the great achievement of emancipated reason and it has ever since been one of the indispensable moral requirements of western man. Contempt for the age of rationalism is a suspicious sign of failure to feel the need for truthfulness. If intellectual honesty is not the last word that is to be said about things, and if intellectual clarity is often achieved at the expense of insight into reality, this can still never again exempt us from the inner obligation to make clean and honest use of reason. We cannot now go back to the days before Lessing and Lichtenberg.” [Ethics, 98.]

This statement by Bonhoeffer, in typical sweeping language, refers to the Age of Rationalism as the age of truth and reason, and that honesty and ethics were built upon the intellectual rigor of this system of reason. And, more pointedly, Bonhoeffer firmly sets himself down on Lessing as the beginning of this Age of Reason and its ethical and intellectual honesty. Lessing is ‘the man’, the Alpha of it all.

Of course, it follows that history before the Age of Reason was dishonest, irrational, unreasonable, and lacking in good ethics and truth.

In previous articles, we have noted Bonhoeffer’s complete dedication to historical criticism, of the kind started by Lessing. For just as Lessing, Bonhoeffer divides between history and rational research of history. Secondly, only by faith, according to both Lessing and Bonhoeffer, does the believer accept that Jesus died and rose in history. One cannot base this confession on historical research itself, or even on the bible’s own (fallible, myth-riddled) testimony of redemptive history. Added to these aspects of agreement between Lessing and Bonhoeffer is a third: discarding as ‘factual’ any dogma of history (pre-Enlightenment) that relies on the ‘old view’ of accepting the bible’s content as historically accurate.

The young Bonhoeffer?

Objection. There is the commonly cited argument that it was the early Bonhoeffer who was unduly influenced by Liberal theology, but the mature Bonhoeffer was against Liberalism.

Flying in the face. This view is patently wrong. His quote is taken from his ‘greatest book’, his magnum opus, Ethics, a posthumously published book written between 1940-1943 (Bonhoeffer died in 1945). Where Bonhoeffer differs from Liberalism is that he did not settle for Liberalism’s particular view that Jesus was known only through the results of historical criticism. Historical criticism was foundational to Bonhoeffer, a prerequisite, the necessary first-step that irrefutably proved biblical history’s fallibility, failure, and mythology.

Not appreciating Bonhoeffer’s bigger argument?

Objection. It is typical to read in regard to Bonhoeffer that because he opposed Liberalism, and focused so heavily on a Christology that was not derived from historical criticism, then he really did reject the sheer rationalism of Liberalism and its destructive theology.

Context matters. This objection is, of course, a distorted reading of Bonhoeffer, regardless of its popularity. The proof is in the pudding. Let’s see the next thing Bonhoeffer says, in Ethics, after the quote above. Does it posit a Christological foundation to theology?

“Yet it was not so much in the question of belief and life that emancipated reason displayed its immense power, but rather in the discovery of that mysterious correspondence between the laws of thought and the laws of nature. Reason became a working hypothesis, a heuristic principle, and so led on to the unparalleled rise of technology. This is something essentially new in the history of the world. From the Egyptian pyramids and the Greek temples to the medieval cathedrals and the eighteenth century, technology had always been a matter of artisanship. It stood in the service of religion, of kings, of art, and of the daily needs of men. The technical science of the modern western world has emancipated itself from any kind of subservience. It is in essence not service but mastery, mastery over nature. It was an entirely new spirit that evoked it, and it will continue only so long as this spirit continues. This is the spirit of the forcible subjugation of nature beneath the rule of the thinking and experimenting man. Technology became an end in itself. It has a soul of its own. Its symbol is the machine, the embodiment of the violation and exploitation of nature. It is therefore easy to understand that it is only this modern technology which elicits a protest from the naive believer. Naive faith sees signs here of a human arrogance which tries to set up an anti-world in the face of the world that was created by God. In the conquest of time and space by technical science it sees an undertaking which sets God’s will at defiance. The benefits of technology pale into insignificance beside its demoniacal properties.” [Ethics, 48-49.]

I hope that it is readily apparent to the reader that Bonhoeffer’s complaint does not remove the foundational role of reason. Did you read of a Christological foundation? Perhaps, then, a faith-foundation? Or maybe, then, a ‘doctrine of God’ one? No, no, and no! In fact, in a manner typical to Liberalism, Bonhoeffer argues that reason was set free by the laws of nature and of thought. Subsequent events in history saw the hijacking of reason in the form of creating the demonic, other-worldly, monstrosity of technology. Undoubtedly, Bonhoeffer is reacting to Modernism’s (the Liberalism of his day) attempt to transform society using technology. The two world wars destroyed Liberalism’s/Modernism’s dreams of an ever-evolving society. This is to say that, Bonhoeffer thought of himself as a ‘reason-purist’, and he believed that later Liberalism (Modernity) had ruined the true commission of liberated reason.

Thomistic. In a typically Thomistic fashion, Bonhoeffer in the quotes above is giving to what is ‘natural’ a foundational place in the knowledge of God. It is the starting point. Bonhoeffer thoroughly believed in a form of natural reasoning or theology as essential to the Christian faith. Not in the limited sense of depending on it alone, as if to create a ‘mere’ natural theology without any Christological purpose (see ahead). For, natural reason’s ultimate purpose was to glorify the Creator and to take refuge in him in his Son, the risen and revealed One.

Bonhoeffer was a Barthian?

Objection. It is argued that, Barth dispelled natural theology and natural law as useless. Bonhoeffer agrees with Barth’s critique of natural religion and natural law, and could never have been Thomistic, therefore. Bonhoeffer held essentially the same view as Barth, with a tweak here and there. Bonhoeffer was ‘Barthian’ and not Liberal.

Yes and no. All Neo-orthodox scholars saw that this world and its order could only properly be understood via ‘the Christ-revelation’ that happened through faith. None of them believed, with Liberalism, that mere natural theology by itself produced anything positive or good in regard to religion. Religion was, after all, Christological. Barth said that natural law and natural religion were therefore an utter waste of time, fit only for the theological dung heap. Barth was correct to argue that even the theory of natural law led to Roman Catholicism, eventually. Brunner (Barth’s Neo-orthodox enemy), by contrast, said that a true Christology helps us to recover God’s proper, pre-fall, order, which in itself was surely Christotelic (pointing to God’s Word, the Son). To Brunner, this meant that one job of the theologian was to identify what natural theology was in order to determine its Christological purpose. Bonhoeffer fell in-between Barth and Brunner. For Bonhoeffer, unlike Barth, did not discard natural law or natural theology. Yet, even though Brunner did say all truly natural theology was Christotelic (leading to Jesus), he taught that natural theology could be garnered independently of the knowledge of Christ. Bonhoeffer disagreed.

These things demonstrate that although Bonhoeffer was a ‘Barthian’ in a very general sense equating to saying ‘Neo-orthodox’, he was not an out-and-out follower of Barth. Barth is noted for his striking reliance on a doctrine of God and of his Word (the Son) that has zero attachment to the ‘natural’. Bonhoeffer did not follow Barth on this.

Irrelevant, for Bonhoeffer jumped the ugly ditch?

Objection. I would have a fair amount of money right now if I had a dollar for every time I read that Bonhoeffer discarded natural theology, and also for each time I heard that he managed to find a way to leap over Lessing’s ‘ugly ditch’. It is commonly asserted that, influenced by the theology of paradox in Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1855), Bonhoeffer and the other Neo-orthodox scholars said that faith made a leap to understand that the Son was risen from the dead. Faith did not have to rely on the process of scientific investigation and historical criticism. It was not shackled by it. This all demonstrates that Bonhoeffer was not Liberal-minded, for he opposed Lessing’s ugly ditch.

Then why…? If Bonhoeffer was certain that he had found a way to jump Lessing’s ugly ditch, why did he say that Lessing was the Alpha of truth and reason? Why does he demarcate time and history as pre-Lessing and post-Lessing? More to the point, why does Bonhoeffer never, ever, say he jumped Lessing’s ugly ditch? Moreover, Lessing said the ditch was not ‘leapable’. Then why do many refer to it being leapt over? Didn’t Lessing, too, believe that faith takes hold of the Jesus of history? Why, then, in that case, does Lessing himself not say that he himself found the solution to his own problem, and that faith was the way to jump over the ugly ditch? Of course, to Lessing, faith simply had to rely on Jesus. Period! There was no leaping of the evidential, scientific, rational, ditch. Equally period!

No friend! Certainly, as repeatedly stated in this article, Bonhoeffer was no friend of sheer Liberalism, of the view that Jesus is created merely through the findings of historical criticism. In that regard, Bonhoeffer was no friend of Lessing’s ditch, for it was not an end in and of itself. Bonhoeffer relied on the irrefutable findings of historical criticism and on the permanent reality of Lessing’s ugly ditch, but crucially added (in contrast to Liberalism) we must move on from them to discover the living Word of God who meets with us in the present by faith.

Dialectic. Bonhoeffer’s solution to the paradox posed by the tension of the Christ of faith and Lessing’s ugly ditch was, in typical Neo-orthodox fashion, to hold them both in tension, and then find a resolution.

Thesis: historical criticism renders the Christ of history invalid, ambiguous, fallacious, mythological, etc..

Antithesis: Christ, the risen Son, the ‘live’ Word of God, meets with us in the event of faith, through his written word.

Resolution: the weakness of the Christ of history, of the Christ recorded in the bible’s fallible, mythological history, becomes the vehicle for knowing and experiencing Christ in live-time, and in that meeting the bible’s history (say of his resurrection) becomes living history. The historical becomes the present. The weakness of the Christ of history veils the Word who is above, but who is revealed to us via that weakness, at the moment of faith, within the bible.

Paradox. The concept of paradox in Bonhoeffer, as we just saw, is too simplistically stated to be that faith leaps over the findings of historical criticism. Not so! Another view says that the paradox lies in faith using historical criticism as a kind of springboard to gain a proper understanding of the living Word of God. This is true for Bonhoeffer as to a theological procedure, but it is not really capturing his idea of a paradox. To him, the paradox is that one must embrace, positively bind to, all the myth, all the error, of the fleshliness, and earthiness, of the bible’s history and account of Jesus, for the Word of God comes to us through that earthly, fleshly, document, to reveal himself to us. This fleshly, earthly, fallible-human, mythological, testimony to the live Word is absolutely critical and crucial to seeing live Christ, so that it functions as a kind of veil for his face, so to speak, and we see beyond that veil only by faith. Therein lies the paradox.

Relevance. With this in mind, we must take a different view of Lessing’s role than often thought. He was foundational, crucial, to Bonhoeffer, for his form of Liberal scholarship provided that veil that the live Christ revealed himself through. If you take away Lessing and the Liberals, you ignore the fallibility and fleshliness of the world and its human life, even Jesus the Man’s fallible and sinful actions, and then you are not able to see by faith what all of this weakness veiled and pointed toward- the sinless, risen, Word of God.