Bonhoeffer’s Christology: rejecting all history, promoting experience

By Angus Harley

In the introduction to Bonhoeffer’s supposed Christological masterpiece, Christ at the Center, he writes the following:

“The situation in christology can thus be understood by analogy with this experience in the Church. Only if I know who does the work can I have access to the work of Christ. Here everything depends upon knowing the person in order to recognize the work. If he was an idealistic founder of a religion, I can be elevated by his work and stimulated to follow his example. But my sin is not forgiven, God remains angry and I am still in the power of death. Then the work of Jesus drives me to despair about myself, because I cannot follow his example. But if Jesus is the Christ, the Word of God, then I am not primarily called to-do the things that he does; I am met in his work as one who cannot possibly do the work he does. It is through his work that I recognize the gracious God. My sin is forgiven, I am no longer in death, but in life. All this depends upon the person of Christ, whether its work perishes in the world of death or abides in a new world of life. But how can the person of Christ be comprehended other than by his work, i.e. otherwise than through history? This objection contains a most profound error. For even Christ’s work is not unequivocal. It remains open to various interpretations. His work can also be interpreted to show that he is a hero, and his cross can be interpreted as the consummate act of a brave man, true to his convictions. There is no point in the life of Jesus of which one could say with unambiguous conviction that here we see the Son of God, proved to be such by one of his works. He does his work rather in the incognito of history, in the flesh. The incognito of the Incarnation makes it doubly impossible to recognize the Person by his Works: I. Jesus is man and the argument back from works to person is ambiguous. 2. Jesus is God and the argument back from history to God is impossible. If this way of understanding is closed there remains just one more chance to gain access to Jesus Christ. This is the attempt to be in the place where the Person reveals himself in his own being, without any compulsion. That is the place of prayer to Christ. Only by the Word freely revealing himself is the Person of Christ available and with that also his work.” (pp.38-39)

In the above quote, Bonhoeffer is responding to, and critiquing, Liberal theology by way of his own Neo-orthodox model. Liberal theology argued that Jesus was known only through his work: Jesus did idealistic types of work, so Jesus was, ultimately, an idealistic person. His person is swallowed up in his works, Christology in soteriology. In opposition to this Liberal method, Bonhoeffer posits his own Neo-orthodox solution. He starts with Jesus the person, not as any old person, but as the Word of God. As such, Jesus is incomparable and we cannot possibly do his works. Nonetheless, via his work, we recognize Jesus as the Word, through the work of forgiveness. Now, Bonhoeffer is very particular in his language here: by saying that we know Jesus by his work of forgiveness, Bonhoeffer is referring exclusively to God’s act of coming to us in his Word, Jesus, to bring forgiveness, “I am met in his work as one who cannot possibly do the work he does. It is through his work that I recognize the gracious God.” We come to know the Word ‘in the moment’ of forgiveness, we can say, which is his work in us. This is a purely existential, in the moment, knowledge of Christ revealing himself to us.

Bonhoeffer then shifts the discussion along the lines of history, “But how can the person of Christ be comprehended other than by his work, i.e. otherwise than through history?” This question (actually it is an “objection” to his own view he is anticipating) is raised by Bonhoeffer to set up his coup de grace against any knowledge of Christ that comes through history. Both Liberal and traditional theologies of Christ focused upon history. Liberalism destroyed biblical history to get at the ‘real’ Christ of history. Whereas, traditional theology relied on the history in Scripture, which itself was supported by history in time. Bonhoeffer, being the new-breed, rejected the entire premise of the foundational nature of history to get to the person of Christ, “This objection contains a most profound error.” History, that is, the acts of Jesus in time, in history, are open to multiple interpretations; Christ’s work is equivocal, open to various readings. Bonhoeffer is so adamant on his dismissal of history (the work of Christ in time and its interpretation) that he asserts, “There is no point in the life of Jesus of which one could say with unambiguous conviction that here we see the Son of God, proved to be such by one of his works.” I feel like repeating this quote by Bonhoeffer for the sake of conservative Evangelicals who love his writings. For here is Bonhoeffer explicitly kicking out any attempt whatever to argue that Jesus’ life and work demonstrated his deity. History is a dead-end, to Bonhoeffer. Nor does it matter whether it is history of mere men who recorded about Jesus, or biblical history, for to Bonhoeffer is was all the same thing.

For Bonhoeffer, it is imperative, to proceed to a proper Christology, to concede that Christ’s salvific work was done “in the incognito of history, in the flesh.” See how, to Bonhoeffer, Christ’s flesh, his person in time, is equated with history itself. Because Jesus came in time as a man of history, doing his works in the flesh, we have to accept that this status renders his salvific works as hidden to us in terms of their proper interpretation. Bonhoeffer doubles-down on his model:

“I. Jesus is man and the argument back from works to person

is ambiguous.

2. Jesus is God and the argument back from history to God is

impossible.”

How, then, do we get to know Christ? Bonhoeffer comes back to his earlier point of view: it is to meet with him on the personal level of prayer:

“This is the attempt to be in the place where the Person reveals himself in his own being,  without any compulsion. That is the place of prayer to Christ. Only by the Word freely revealing himself is the Person of Christ available and with that also his work.”

It is not Jesus historical death on the cross, nor Scripture’s record of salvation-history and Christ, nor of man’s record of Jesus Christ, that convey Christ and his salvation. It is exclusively the divine Word, the Christ, meets with us in his Person in-person, in the moment, bringing his salvific work with him, through spiritual devotion and prayer.

That is the Christ that many Evangelicals lift up at the feast of Saint Bonhoeffer. May God open your blind eyes!