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Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the necessity of kenosis for scriptural hermeneutics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 December 2018

Nadine Hamilton
Nadine Hamilton*
Affiliation:
Friedrich-Alexander Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, 91054 Erlangennadine.hamilton@fau.de
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Abstract

It is the argument of this article that Dietrich Bonhoeffer's hermeneutical approach understands creaturely existence to be truly held by the Word made flesh as the risen Christ, who is still wholly human and therefore truly present in creation. Therefore, this article argues with Dietrich Bonhoeffer that, for a viable theological hermeneutics, it is critically necessary to consider the kenotic movement of the risen Christ, not only for a proper understanding of holy scripture in its genuine humanness, but also for an understanding of the new creation as taking place in reconciled creatures through the Word.

Keywords

agencyBibleDietrich BonhoefferChristus praesenshermeneuticskenosis
Type
Research Article
Information
Scottish Journal of Theology , Volume 71 , Issue 4 , November 2018 , pp. 441 - 459
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2018 

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References

1 Cf. Bonhoeffer, Dietrich, Letters and Papers from Prison, Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works English (hereafter DBWE) 8 (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2010), p. 362Google Scholar.

2 ‘Rule and norm’. See Formula of Concord, 1.1, in The Book of Concord: The Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, ed. Robert Kolb and Timothy J. Wengert (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2000).

3 For a similar but slightly different approach, which will be periodically referenced in this article, see Webster, John, The Domain of the Word (London: Bloomsbury, 2012)Google Scholar.

4 Cf. Hamilton, Nadine, Dietrich Bonhoeffers Hermeneutik der Responsivität: Ein Kapitel Schriftlehre im Anschluss an ‘Schöpfung und Fall ’ (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2016)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 Bonhoeffer, Dietrich, Creation and Fall, DBWE 3 (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1996), pp. 151Google Scholar, 153; see also p. 83.

6 Cf. ibid., p. 22.

7 Bonhoeffer, Dietrich, Ethics, DBWE 6 (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1996), p. 399Google Scholar.

8 Bonhoeffer, Dietrich, Berlin 1932–1933, DBWE 12 (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2009), p. 312Google Scholar.

9 Cf. DBWE 3, p. 22.

10 Ibid., p. 22.

11 Cf. Bonhoeffer, Dietrich, The Young Bonhoeffer 1918–1927, DBWE 9 (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2003), p. 286Google Scholar. Interestingly, even the German OT scholars sensed that their approach was not appropriate to their subject. Hermann Gunkel states regarding this that they have to find their way back to ‘the actual theological problem’. Gunkel, Hermann, ‘Ziele und Methoden der Erklärung des Alten Testaments’, in Gunkel, Hermann (ed.), Reden und Aufsätze (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1913), p. 24Google Scholar.

12 Cf. DBWE 3, pp. 36, 88. See more in Hamilton, Dietrich Bonhoeffers Hermeneutik der Responsivität, pp. 32–69.

13 Bonhoeffer, Dietrich, Life Together. Prayerbook of Bible, DBWE 5 (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2004), p. 64Google Scholar.

14 Cf. DBWE 3, p. 124.

15 Ibid., p. 22.

16 DBWE 9, p. 437. Cf. Barth, Karl, Die Christliche Dogmatik im Entwurf: Die Lehre vom Worte Gottes, Prolegomena zur christlichen Dogmatik (Munich: Chr. Kaiser Verlag, 1927), p. 451Google Scholar.

17 Cf. DBWE 9, pp. 359–60.

18 This is why Bonhoeffer criticises Barth's understanding of the canon as a formal unity, as he is afraid that in so doing even Barth puts the formal principle over the material principle. Cf. DBWE 9, p. 321, n. 8. See also Slot, Edward van't, ‘The Freedom of Scripture: Bonhoeffer's Changing View of Biblical Canonicity’, in Wüstenberg, Ralf and Zimmermann, Jens (eds), God Speaks to Us: Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Biblical Hermeneutics (New York: Peter Lang, 2013), p. 105Google Scholar.

19 Webster, ‘Domain’, p. 8.

20 Bonhoeffer, Dietrich, Act and Being: Transcendental Philosophy and Ontology in Systematic Theology, DBWE 2 (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2009), p. 82Google Scholar.

21 DBWE 3, p. 97.

22 Ibid., p. 98.

23 Ibid., p. 64. Already in Sanctorum Communio Bonhoeffer understood being a person as becoming ‘a person ever and again through the other, in the “moment”’. Bonhoeffer, Dietrich, Sanctorum Communio: A Theological Study of the Sociology of the Church, DBWE 1 (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2009), pp. 55–6CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

24 Cf. DBWE 3, p. 65.

25 Cf. ibid., pp. 66–7.

26 We can find this reading in his interpretation of Gen 3:6, DBWE 3, pp. 115–16.

27 Cf. ibid., p. 106.

28 Cf. ibid.

29 Ibid., p. 111.

30 Cf. ibid., pp. 128–30.

31 Cf. DBWE 3, pp. 80–2.

32 Ibid., p. 75.

33 Cf. ibid., pp. 26–9.

34 Cf. Bonhoeffer, Dietrich, Discipleship, DBWE 4 (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2004), p. 286Google Scholar. Cf. Bonhoeffer, Ethics, p. 93.

35 Cf. DBWE 12, p. 330.

36 Cf. DBWE 5, p. 62. See also Bonhoeffer, Dietrich, Theological Education at Finkenwalde: 1935–1937, DBWE 14 (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2013), p. 486Google Scholar.

37 Cf. DBWE 3, p. 82.

38 Cf. Ebeling, Gerhard, Hermeneutik zwischen der Macht des Gotteswortes und seiner Entmachtung in der Moderne, in Ebeling, Gerhard (ed.), Theologie in den Gegensätzen des Lebens, vol. 4 of Wort und Glaube (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1995), p. 217Google Scholar.

39 Cf. Dabrock, Peter, ‘Responding to “Wirklichkeit”: Reclaiming Bonhoeffer's Approach to Theological Ethics between Mystery and the Formation of the World’, in Nielsen, Kirsten Busch, Nissen, Ulrik and Tietz, Christiane (eds), Mysteries in the Theology of Dietrich Bonhoeffer: A Copenhagen Bonhoeffer Symposium (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2007), p. 77Google Scholar.

40 DBWE 6, p. 96.

41 DBWE 3, p. 22.

42 Cf. DBWE 6, pp. 96–7.

43 Cf. DBWE 1, pp. 192–208.

44 Cf. DBWE 12, p. 323.

45 DBWE 3, p. 22.

46 Cf. ibid., pp. 21–3.

47 DBWE 1, p. 232.

48 Ibid., p. 121.

49 It would be interesting to analyse Bonhoeffer's understanding of the kenotic moment of the Word in comparison to Calvin's concept of the presence of the Logos in the elements of the Lord's Supper and in the creation itself. For more on this, see the discussion of the so-called extra Calvinisticum.

50 Cf. DBWE 3, p. 51.

51 Cf. ibid., p. 30.

52 Ibid., pp. 22–3.

53 Cf. ibid., pp. 40–1.

54 DBWE 12, p. 317. Cf. Metzke, Erwin, ‘Sakrament und Metaphysik: Eine Lutherstudie über das Verhältnis des christlichen Denkens zum Leiblich-Materiellen’, in Metzke, E. (ed.), Coincidentia Oppositorum: Gesammelte Schriften zur Philosophiegeschichte (Witten: Luther-Verlag, 1961), pp. 158–204Google Scholar, esp. pp, 192–6.

55 DBWE 12, p. 315.

56 Ibid., p. 318.

57 Ibid.

58 Cf. DBWE 4, p. 216.

59 DBWE 12, p. 319.

60 Ibid.

61 Cf. ibid.

62 Cf. ibid., p. 322.

63 Ibid.

64 Ibid., pp. 322–3.

65 Ibid., p. 323.

66 Cf. Metzke, ‘Sakrament und Metaphysik’, pp. 166–71.

67 Cf. Bonhoeffer, Dietrich, Theological Education Underground: 1937–1940, DBWE 15 (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2012), pp. 539–40Google Scholar.

68 Ibid., p. 541.

69 DBWE 12, p. 317. Cf. DBWE 8, p. 501.

70 DBWE 4, pp. 201–2.

71 Cf. Bayer, Oswald, Christus als Mitte: Bonhoeffers Ethik im Banne der Religionsphilosophie Hegels (Berlin: Wichern-Verlag, 1985), p. 265Google Scholar.

72 Cf. DBWE 12, p. 323.

73 Cf. DBWE 4, p. 285.

74 Cf. DBWE 15, pp. 539–40.

75 Cf. DBWE 4, pp. 213–4.

76 DBWE 12, p. 331.

77 Cf. ibid.

78 Cf. DBWE 3, p. 61.

79 DBWE 5, p. 62. Cf. Jens Zimmermann, ‘Finitum Capax Infiniti or the Presencing of Christ: A Response to Stephen Plant and Robert Steiner’, in God Speaks to Us, p. 92.

80 DBWE 5, p. 62.

81 Cf. Körtner, Ulrich, ‘Rezeption und Inspiration: Über die Schriftwerdung des Wortes und die Wortwerdung der Schrift im Akt des Lesens’, Neue Zeitschrift für Systematische Theologie und Religionsphilosophie 51/1 (2009), pp. 46–8CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

82 Cf. DBWE 6, p. 49.

83 Cf. Jenson, Robert, Visible Words: The Interpretation and Practice of Christian Sacraments (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1978), pp. 40–50Google Scholar.

84 Cf. DBWE 6, p. 83.

85 Cf. Zimmermann, ‘Finitum Capax Infiniti’, p. 90, n. 16: ‘Another way of expressing the same thing is to say that Bonhoeffer has a deeply sacramental hermeneutical framework.’

86 Cf. DBWE 4, pp. 286–7.

87 DBWE 6, p. 55.