The Christocentrig Ethics of Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Extract

Bonhoeffer's Ethics demonstrates the depth of his christolJcentric theology. Every theme has at its very heart the action of God in the incarnation, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. His work of substitutionary atonement and reconciliation becomes the basis for man's ethical responsibility. From this basic observation, we can see that Bonhoeffer will have nothing to do with a theology or ethics in which man is seeking the answer to the nature of his own being or the foundation of his own action within himself. ‘It is necessary to free oneself from the way of thinking which sets out from human problems and which asks for solutions on this basis. Such thinking is unbiblical. The way of Jesus Christ, and therefore the way of all Christian thinking leads not from the world to God but from God to the world’ (E 356).¹ It is the seriousness with which he takes revelation and the inversion of the priorities of ‘liberal’ and ‘existential’ theology which is rigorously applied throughout his Ethics. Even in his Christology the question of ‘who’ Christ is is given priority over ‘what’ Christ did, though the person and work can never be separated.