132

The Christology of Dietrich

Bonhoeffer
by Russell W. Palmer
Any Christian theologian must expect to have his theology tested by
its account of the person of Christ. Amid varying evaluations of
Dietrich Bonhoeffer's theology it is helpful to have this study of his
Christology from the Professor of Religious Studies in the University
of Nebraska at Omaha.
M
ENTION of the Christology of Dietrich Bonhoeffer immediately
raises two questions: what is Christology? and who was
Dietrich Bonhoeffer? It may be best therefore to begin with a word
about these preliminary questions.
In terms of Biblical categories, Oscar Cullmann tells us, Christo-
logy is the attempt to explain the uniqueness of Jesus
1
More specific-
ally, in the words of John Hick, "The central task of Christology is
to give meaning to the dogma that Jesus of Nazareth was both God
and Man."2 As different as these definitions are, they unite in suggest-
ing that Christology is a theological attempt to interpret the unique-
ness and significance of Jesus who is called Christ. Beginning from
the basic Christian confession of faith, that Jesus Christ is Lord,
Christology seeks to understand and give an account of the meaning
of this confession.
This question-the question of the meaning of Christ-was a
constant concern of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the brilliant young German
theologian who was executed by the Nazis for his part in the con-
spiracy to assassinate Hitler. Bonhoeffer is probably best known to
the public for a series of letters written from prison to his friend
Eberhard Bethge.3 In these letters, whose posthumous publication
created a theological sensation, Bonhoeffer explored new possi-
bilities for Christian faith in a "religionless" world.
Though it may come as a surprise to those who know only the
"radical" Bonhoeffer of the prison letters, it is my claim that Christ-
ology is at the heart of Bonhoeffer's theology from beginning to end,
and that we do not understand him rightly unless we pay attention
to the Christological centre of his thought. Indeed, even in the
1 O. Cullmann, The Christology of the New Testament (Philadelphia: West-
minster, 1959), p. 5.
2 J. H. Hick, "The Christology of D. M. BailIie," Scottish Journal of Theology,
xi (1958), pp. 1-12.
3 Dietrich Bonhoeifer, Letters and Papers from Prison. Edited by Eberhard
Betbge. Third Edition (New York: Macmillan, 1967).
The Christology of Dietrich Bonhoeffer 133
prison letters, the question with which Bonhoeffer is wrestling is
precisely "who Christ really is, for us today" as he puts it in the
letter of 30 April 1944-the letter which inaugurates his reflections
on "non-religious interpretation."
Furthermore, it is my conviction that the best way to get at
Bonhoeffer's Christology is to examine his systematic statement of
it in a course of lectures on the subject given at the University of
Berlin in 1933.
4
It will be the purpose of this paper, therefore, to
give an account of the shape of Bonhoeffer's Christology as set
forth in these lectures (followed by some concluding reflections on
the relevance of Bonhoeffer's insights for current theological dis-
cussion).
Logos and Anti-Logos: the Limits of Understanding
Bonhoeffer begins his lectures by calling attention to the unique-
ness of Christology as an academic enterprise. Generally speaking,
he points out, scholars ask either of two basic questions:
a. What is the cause of x? b. What is the meaning of x? The first question
embraces the sphere of the natural sciences, the second that of the arts
(Geisteswissenscha/ten) . . The subject x is comprehended by the natural
sciences once it has been understood in its causal connection with other
subjects. The subject x is comprehended by the arts once an understanding
has been reached of its significance in relation to other known subjects.
In both instances it is a matter of classification (28-29).
But what if there appears a reality which refuses to submit to
such classification-which resists the effort to "explain" it by finding
a place for it in the intellectual scheme of things 1 Then the human
logos, man's reason, would be confronted by an
which defies man's attempt to master it. In this way we are alerted
to the fact that Christology, though as an "-ology" it is an attempt
of the human logos to grasp its subject matter, finds itself in a unique
position vis-a-vis all other "-ologies" because it is an attempt to
grasp the divine Logos. Furthermore, since the divine Logos is not
merely an idea but a person-the person of the incarnate one, reason
is unable to pursue the possibility of classification but can only ask,
"Who are you 1" This, Bonhoeffer insists, is the only appropriate
Christological question (30). But this question is not only the question
of "deposed, distraught reason"; it is also the question of faith.
When faith puts this question to Jesus Christ, he reveals himself.
4 Unfortunately, the manuscript of these lectures has not survived, but
the lectures have been reconstructed by BonhoetTer's pupil and friend,
Eberhard Bethge, on the basis of several sets of student notes and published
in BonhoetTer's Gesammelte Schriften, Ill, 166-242 (MUnchen: Chr. Kaiser,
1966). An English translation by John Bowden has appeared as Christology
(London: Collins, 1966; American edition entitled Christ the Center).
Page numbers in parentheses in the body of this paper will be references to
the English edition, although I have sometimes altered the translation to
improve its accuracy.
134 The Evangelical Quarterly
And in the church, the community of faith, this answer is pondered
and reflected upon.
On Asking the Right Question: How? vs. Who?
The recognition of the question "Who are you?" as the proper
question of Christology has the effect of ruling out two other ques-
tions. On the one hand, because Jesus Christ asserts himself in
answer to the church's question, his self-testimony is self-authenti-
cating. Christian thought therefore cannot seek to prove that this
revelation is real. "The fact (' Dass') of the revelation of God in
Christ cannot be either established or disputed scientifically" (32-33).
On the other hand, the question as to how this revelation is "think-
able," i.e. the demand for an explanation of how it is possible, is
equally illegitimate. "This question is tantamount to going behind
Christ's claim and providing independent vindication of it," which
amounts to a claim that the human logos is superior to the divine
Logos (33).
The exclusion of these two questions leaves Christology with what
Bonhoeffer calls "the who-question," i.e. the question of the identity
of Jesus, "the question of the being, the essence and the nature of
Christ" (33).
Point of Departure: Present Christ or Historical Jesus?
In clear contrast to the procedure insisted on by Pannenberg,5
Bonhoeffer begins his Christology with a consideration of Christ
as the one who is present. To be sure, Jesus is the present Christ
only as the crucified and risen one (43), and the Christ who is present
is the historic Christ, the historical Jesus of Nazareth (71). Neverthe-
less, it is important for Bonhoeffer to begin with the person of Christ
as a present reality because his presence is what makes Christology
possible. The presence of Christ is his being "here and now" in the
community of faith via word and sacrament, and this presence in
turn presupposes the resurrection, because only the risen one can
be present here and now (43-45). It is because we experience Christ's
presence in word and sacrament in the context of the church,
Bonhoeffer argues, that we can ask the Christological question.
In speaking of the presence of Christ in the church, however, it is
necessary to be on guard against misinterpretations. Some modern
theologians have understood the presence of Christ as a historical
influence, affecting us only indirectly as a power working in history;
others have spoken of the power of the personality of Jesus, the
direct impact of his inner life upon us. The trouble with these views,
says Bonhoeffer, is that they see Christ not as a person but as an
impersonal power. Moreover, they disregard the resurrection and
5 WoJfhart Pannenberg, Jesus: God and Man (Philadelphia: Westminster,
1968).
The Christology of Dietrich Bonhoeffer 135
view Jesus only as a historical figure of the past whose influence
somehow affects us. Over against this, Bonhoeffer insists that "only
the Risen One makes possible the presence of the living person" and
thus provides the necessary condition for Christology (45).
What then of the so-called historical Jesus? As noted above,
Bonhoeffer affirms the identity of the Christ who is present now with
the historical Jesus of Nazareth. Without this identity, "we would
have to say with Paul that our faith is vain and an illusion" (71).
That is not to say, however, that faith is dependent on the results
of the historian's research. Speaking of "the self-testimony of
the Risen One," Bonhoeffer declares:
By the miracle of his presence in the church he bears witness to himself
here and now as the one who was historical then .... The Risen One himself
creates faith and so points the way to himself as the Historical One. . . .
Before the self-attestation of Christ in the present, the confirmation of
historical research is irrelevant (75).
The Present Christ: Form and Place
Before turning to the traditional questions of the doctrine of
Christ's person, Bonhoeffer sketches two of his own characteristic
Christological ideas: the form of Christ and the place of Christ.
In what form is Christ present? The answer is threefold. First,
Christ as word: "Christ is not only present in the word of the church
but also as the word of the church, i.e. as the spoken word of
preaching" (52). Second, Christ as sacrament: "The word of preach-
ing is the form in which the Logos reaches the human logos; the
sacrament is the form in which the Logos reaches man in his nature"
(54). Third, Christ as community: "Just as Christ is present as the
word and in the word, as the sacrament and in the sacrament, so
too he is also present as community and in the community" (59).
Where is Christ present? The place of Christ, says Bonhoeffer,
is in the centre of things. "The one who is present in word, sacrament,
and community is in the centre of human existence, history and
nature. It is part of the structure of his person that he stands in the
centre" (62). There follow three sections: Christ as the centre of
human existence, Christ as the centre of history, and Christ as the
centre (or mediator) between God and nature. Readers of the
Ethics and the prison letters will recognize here themes that shape
Bonhoeffer's later thinking.
The Main Christological Heresies
When Bonhoeffer turns his attention to what he calls "critical"
or "negative" Christology, he discusses a series of developments in
the history of Christian thought which were judged by the church
136 The Evangelical Quarterly
at large as deviations from the authentic doctrine of the person of
Christ. These distortions or "heresies" tend to be defective in one
of four main ways (this is my classification, not Bonhoeffer's):
1. Affirm deity in such a way as to deny humanity. If we stress too
onesidedly the divine nature of Christ, portraying him primarily as
God, then the genuineness of his manhood is called in question.
This tendency to deny that Christ is really human like us is known as
Docetism (Greek dokein, "seem"): Christ only seemed to be human,
but he is really divine.
2. Affirm humanity in such a way as to deny deity. On the other
hand, if we give exclusive emphasis to the manhood of Christ, so
that Jesus is seen as a man who was "adopted" by God, then it
becomes questionable whether we can speak of an incarnation of
God in him. Such a view makes it easy to see how Jesus is human,
but cannot show how he is divine. Ebionitism or Adoptionism are
designations for this approach.
3. Affirm distinction of natures, denying that he is one person. If
we seek to preserve both Christ's deity and his humanity by stressing
the coexistence of two complete natures in him, then it becomes
difficult to preserve the unity of his person. This view has become
known as Nestorianism.
4. Affirm unity of person, denying distinction between natures. If
we stress the oneness of his being as a single person, then the dis-
tinctiveness of his two natures tends to blur, resulting in a fusion of
divine and human into a third something. This tendency is found in
Monophysitism.
Bonhoeffer's review of these heretical alternatives is fairly standard
-i.e. there are no real surprises or innovations in this section of his
lectures-with one striking exception, and that is his characterization
of modem liberal theology as Docetic.
Docetism, as Bonhoeffer interprets it, rests on the Greek antithesis
of idea and appearance. Beginning with an idea of God, Christ is
then understood as the appearance or manifestation of this idea.
This means that Docetism is indifferent to the concrete reality of the
man Jesus: "he is the chance phenomenon; it is the idea, and its
display, which must be grasped. Whether it was Jesus in whom the
idea was displayed, and who Jesus was, does not matter at all" (82).
It may seem odd to charge modem religious liberalism with Doce-
tism, in view of its emphasis on the historical Jesus. But beneath
this emphasis Bonhoeffer detects an interest in Jesus only as a means
The Christ%gy of Dietrich Bonhoeffer 137
to an end, in which "a particular religious idea is first held and then
applied to the historical Jesus." Liberal theology
understands Jesus as the support for or the embodiment of particular ideas,
values and doctrines. As a result, the manhood of Jesus Christ is in the
last resort not taken seriously, although it is this very theology which
speaks so often of the man .... It confuses the real man with an ideal man and
makes him a symbol (83-84).
The Contribution of Negative Christology
The lesson of the Christological controversies in the ancient
church is clear:
The concept of the incarnation must be defined negatively in such a way
as to expose any attempt which interprets either the full manhood or the
full Godhead of Jesus at the cost of qualifying either one or the other.
In christology, the humanity of God and the divinity of the man are to be
held together at the risk of destroying the rationality of the exposition (88).
In other words, any proposed "solution" which cuts the Gordian
knot is ipso facto suspect. It is better to leave certain questions
unanswered than to destroy the mystery in a misguided attempt to
explain it.
The inconceivable cannot be changed into something conceivable; it is rather
a matter of rejecting any attempts at such a transformation. Critical christo-
logy aims at delimiting the sphere within which this element of incon-
ceivability must be allowed to remain (77).
The fact that the Council of Chalcedon does this in its declaration
that Christ is two natures in one person is both its greatness and its
limitation. In spite of liberal theology's criticism ofthe Chalcedonian
definition, Bonhoeffer is basically positive about it. Not only does it
repudiate the false theological content of the heretical Christologies,
but it also entails the rejection of inappropriate thought forms.
What did the formula of Chalcedon say? It stated the a priori impossibility
and impermissibility of taking the divinity and humanity in Jesus Christ side
by side or together as a relationship of objectifiable entities (liinglicher
Gegebenheiten). Simple negations remain. No positive pattern of thought
is left to explain what happens in the God-man Jesus Christ. Thus the mys-
tery is left as a mystery and must be understood as such (91).
The remarkable thing about the Chalcedonian definition is "the
way in which it cancels itself out (aufheben)."
In other words, it shows the limitations of the concepts it employs simply
by using them. It speaks of 'natures', but it expresses the facts in a way
which demonstrates the concept of 'natures' to be an inappropriate one.
It works with concepts which it declares to be heretical formulas unless
they are used paradoxically and in contradiction. It brings the concept
of substance which underlies the relationship of the natures to a climax
and does away with it. From now on it will no longer be permissible to say
any thing about the substance of Jesus Christ. Speculation about 'natures'
is at an end; the notion of substance is superseded (91-92).
The great danger in Christological thought is the tendency to seek
an answer to the question "How?" But Christology can have notingh
138 The Evangelical Quarterly
to do with the "how" question; it must give its exclusive attention
to the "who" question. It is true that Chalcedon itself sought to
answer the "how" question, "but in its answer it was already clear
that the question 'How?' had been superseded" (101).
In the Chalcedonian Definition an unequivocally positive, direct statement
about Jesus Christ is superseded and split into two expressions which stand
over against each other in contradiction .... Objectifying thought succeeds
in negating itself because it comes up against its own limitations. It comes
to its end where its contradictory opposite must necessarily be recognized
at the same time as itself (106).
Hence, "after Chalcedon, the question can no longer be 'How can
the natures be thought of as different and the person as one?' but
strictly, 'Who is this man of whom it is testified that he is God?' "
(102).
In Bonhoeffer's view, the subsequent history of Christological
thought vindicates the wisdom of the Chalcedonian definition with
its insistence that we cannot answer the question of how the union
of God and man is achieved in the incarnation. Whenever theolo-
gians have strayed beyond these boundaries, they have failed because
they have sought to "objectify (dinglich zu reden) the divinity and the
manhood in Christ and to distinguish them from each other as
entities (Dinge)" (91). But such thinking leads only to an impasse.
The basic methodological error in all such attempts is the habit of
beginning with a concept of deity and a concept of humanity and then
worrying about how to combine them. Instead, Bonhoeffer insists
that Christology begin with the concrete person of the God-man
himself. It was the failure of Protestant orthodoxy to do this that
led to the fruitless debates between Lutheran and Reformed theo-
logians. Bonhoeffer grants that orthodox Lutheranism, for example,
wanted to preserve the integrity of both natures in Christ, but
criticizes the way the divine and the human were pictured: "Before
their integral unity in the one person . . . they were first conceived
of in isolation from one another. So the procedure which the Chalce-
doni an Definition had prohibited was still being followed" (93).
The same weakness is present in nineteenth-century kenotic theo-
logies:
A comparison with the Chalcedonian Definition reveals that once again an
attempt had been made to soften and balance contradictory and exclusive
contrasts. It had been thought that one could define the divine and human
natures in abstracto so that they fitted together. But this was only to fall
victim to a simplification of the problem; the recognition of the real Jesus
Christ had been made the recognition of a God-man construction. The
prohibition against applying objectifying (dingliche) categories to the solu-
tion of the question of the God-man relationship had been violated (101).
The Structure of Positive Christology
Within the limits set by critical or negative Christology, what is
the scope of positive Christology? Bonhoeffer here develops two
The Christology of Dietrich Bonhoeffer 139
themes: Christ as the one who became man, and Christ as the
humiliated and exalted one.
1. Incarnation. No theologian has affirmed the reality of the
incarnation more strongly than Bonhoeffer-although, he says,
"strictly speaking, we should really talk not about the Incarnation
but about the Incarnate One," because thinking about the act or
process of incarnation involves us in the "how" question (109). In
lines that remind the reader of the emphasis of the prison letters,
Bonhoeffer declares:
If Jesus Christ is to be described as God, then we may not speak of this
divine essence, of his omnipotence and his omniscience, but we must speak
of this weak man among sinners, of his cradle and his cross. When we
consider the Godhead of Jesus, then above all we must speak of his weakness.
In Christology one looks at the whole historical man Jesus and says of him,
'He is God.' One does not first look at a human nature and then beyond it
to a divine nature; one meets the one man Jesus Christ, who is fully God
(l08).
2. Humiliation and Exaltation. In describing Christ as the humili-
ated and exalted one, Bonhoeffer does not intend to consider divine
and human natures, but "the way in which the one who has been
made man exists (die Existenzweise des Mensch-Gewordenen)."
Thus 'humiliation' does not mean a state where the Incarnate One is more
man and less God, in other words a stage in the limitation of God. Neither
does exaltation mean a state where he is more God and less man. In humilia-
tion and exaltation, Jesus remains fully man and fully God. The statement
'This is God' must be made of the Humiliated One in just the same way
as it is made of the Exalted One () 10).
In the light of the reality of his humiliation, "the harshest and most
scandalous expressions about this humiliated God-man must be
ventured and tolerated" (112). To be sure, "the Humiliated One is
present to us only as the Risen and Exalted One," so that "as belie-
vers, we always have the incognito as an already penetrated in-
cognito .... " But the opposite is also true: "We have the Exalted
One only as the Crucified ... the Risen One only as the Humiliated
One" (116). There is no overcoming of this paradox prior to the
return of the Lord in glory.
The Problem of Continuity
At this point it becomes necessary to consider the problem of the
relation between the earlier and later stages of Bonhoeffer's thought.
To what extent does Bonhoeffer's early attempt at a systematic
statement in his Christology lectures of 1933 retain any validity for
the theology of the later Bonhoeffer? We have only to read the great
Christological passages in the Ethics to see that Bonhoeffer's basic
Christological position did not undergo any fundamental change.
The emphasis on incarnation on the one hand and humiliation/exalta-
tion on the other is replaced in the Ethics by the threefold pattern
of incarnation, cross, and resurrection. But the way he draws lines
140 The Evangelical Quarterly
from the incarnate one, the crucified one, and the risen one to the
corresponding aspects of the Christian life shows that there is no
sharp break in Bonhoeffer's Christological thought. In the Ethics
he can say:
In Jesus Christ the reality of God entered into the reality of this world.
The place where the answer is given, both to the question concerning the
reality of God and to the question concerning the reality of the world,
is designated solely and alone by the name Jesus Christ .... Henceforward
one can speak neither of God nor of the world without speaking of Jesus
Christ .... In Christ we are offered the possibility of partaking in the reality
of God and in the reality of the world, but not in the one without the other
(Ethics, 194,195).
Even the prison letters show no diminution in Bonhoeffer's lifelong
preoccupation with the Christological question. Even the most
radical statements about the suffering of Christ in these letters simply
echo the affirmation of the humiliation of Christ in the 1933 Christo-
logy lectures. In spite of varying emphases, Bonhoeffer's thought
shows a remarkable Christological continuity.
Evaluation
When all is said and done, what are we to make of Bonhoeffer's
Christology? The lectures themselves, had he ever published them,
would certainly have required further development and clarification.
Nevertheless, in spite of some annoyingly vague rhetoric, his basic
criticisms are still cogent-especially his critique of the way in
which traditional Christology "postulates and constructs the God-
man from the prior knowledge of two isolated substances instead of
taking as its presupposition the prior fact of the God-man" (105).
Bonhoeffer's emphasis that the Christ who is interpreted in Christo-
logy is the Christ of the incarnation, the cross, and the resurrection,
is a welcome antidote both to the humanistic reductionism of liberal
theology and to the abstract theorizing of orthodoxy as to how a
divine principle and a human principle can be united. I appreciate
this insistence on the necessity of beginning our Christological
thinking with the concrete person of Jesus Christ. Further, it seems
to me that Bonhoeffer's interpretation of the role of critical or
negative Christology is fundamentally correct and needs to be stressed
again in current theological discussion. Finally, the Christian
community needs to hear and take to heart Bonhoeffer's admonition
that "the more exclusively we acknowledge and confess Christ as our
Lord, the more fully the wide range of his dominion will be dis-
closed to us" (Ethics, 58).
University of Nebraska at Omaha