Did Bonhoeffer Believe in the Resurrection? Part 1

Recently there was a debate between “Evangelical Dark Web” (EDW) and “Hitler Hated Christ” (HHC). I recommend the debate to you, not because I recommend the channel it was hosted on (I don’t), but for HHC’s performance. It’s solid, good-faith, evangelical debating.

Find that debate here.

After this debate, a lot of discussion was circulating around the issue of whether Bonhoeffer believed in the resurrection. In this series of an uncertain number of posts, we will explore whether or not Bonhoeffer believed in the resurrection, to what extent he did if he did, and explore his detractors’ arguments.

One central passage from Bonhoeffer cited to prove that he did not believe in the resurrection (or any historical event recorded in the Bible) is from his book The Cost of Discipleship, chapter 28, titled “Baptism.” An account by the tag “Defiant Baptist” linked to an essay/article/paper that is frequently used as a foundation stone for those who oppose Bonhoeffer, and claim he was heretical. That article is titled Scripture and Myth in Dietrich Bonhoeffer, by Richard Weikart.

Weikart’s Critique

Weikart argues from a long footnote from that chapter that Bonhoeffer did not believe in historical events like the resurrection. His critique is copied in full here, and you can find the full article here.

Only two passages in The cost of Discipleship clearly reveal Bonhoeffer’s view on the unhistorical character of the Bible. One is only part of a sentence: “We cannot and may not go behind the word of scripture to the real events…. ” The other is a footnote that is couched in philosophical language, and, while comprehensible to those having studied theology or philosophy, it is probably unintelligible to the average non-philosophically inclined evangelical reader. The footnote is enlightening, because it occurs in a passage in which Bonhoeffer affirmed the truth, reliability and unity of the scriptures in the strongest possible way. To avoid misunderstanding he added a clarifying note denying the literal resurrection of Jesus in the past. He wrote:

The confusion of ontological statements with proclaiming testimony is the essence of all fanaticism. The sentence: Christ is risen and present, is the dissolution of the unity of the scripture if it is ontologically understood…. The sentence: Christ is risen and present, strictly understood only as testimony of scripture, is true only as the word of scripture.

According to Bonhoeffer, the resurrection and other events in the Bible are thus not true as empirical facts of history.[1]

The first citation (“We cannot and may not go behind the word of scripture to the real events”) is from chapter 3 in the edition I have, titled Single-Minded Obedience. We will address that citation in the next post. Here, we are interested in the second citation. As is our usual method, we will cite Bonhoeffer in full, giving a charitable interpretation in light of his historical context.

Bonhoeffer in Context

Bonhoeffer begins this chapter by confronting the liberal theology of his day. This theology said that the Jesus of Paul was more real than the Jesus of the four Gospels. Bonhoeffer engages the theology head on at the start of the chapter.

In the Synoptic Gospels the relationship between the disciples and their Lord is expressed almost entirely in terms of following him. In the Pauline Epistles this conception recedes into the background. In the first place St Paul has far less to say about the earthly life of our Lord, and far more about the presence of the risen and glorified Christ and his work in us. He therefore needs a new set of terms peculiar to himself. It is born out of his particular subject and aims to stress the unity of the gospel of one Lord who lived, died and rose again. The terms St Paul uses confirm those of the Synoptists, and vice versa. Neither set of terms is intrinsically preferable to the other. After all, we are not “of Paul, or of Apollos, or of Cephas, or of Christ.” Our faith rests upon the unity of the scriptural testimony.

Whatever you think of his exegesis of Paul in 1 Corinthians 1, his point is strong and clear: though there are differences in terms between Paul’s writings and the writings of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, those terms agree and affirm one another. Bonhoeffer insists on the unity of the Bible as a whole, contrary to the liberalism of his day.

Bonhoeffer goes on in the same paragraph,

It is destructive of the unity of the Scriptures to say that the Pauline Christ is more alive for us than the Christ of the Synoptists.

Obviously, Bonhoeffer is explicitly defending the unity of Scripture, and in so doing is defending the true Christ revealed therein. To Bonhoeffer, you simply cannot have a Christ that is divorced from one portion of Scripture. You must have the whole Christ as revealed in the whole of Scripture. In his own day, he was facing theologians who were trying to do this.

Of course such language is commonly regarded as genuine Reformation and historico-critical doctrine, but it is in fact the precise opposite of that, and in deed it is the most perilous kind of enthusiasm.

Bonhoeffer lays the error of separating the Gospels from the Letters of Paul, and in so doing making two separate Christs, at the feet of the liberal enthusiasm of his day. You cannot create one Christ from the events of one portion of Scripture, and disregard “another” Christ from the events of another portion of Scripture.

In the next few sentences, Bonhoeffer goes on to point out the fatal flaw of trying to find a more present Christ apart from Scripture. That flaw is, namely, that the only way we ever came to know that Christ is living and present is from the Scriptures itself.

Who tells us that the Pauline Christ is as alive for us to-day as he was for St Paul? We got this assurance only from the scriptures. Or are we talking about a presence of Christ which is free and unbound by the Word? No, the scriptures are the only witness we have of Christ’s presence, and that witness is a unity, which also means that the presence they speak of includes the presence of Jesus Christ as he is presented in the Synoptic Gospels.

Bonhoeffer has made his central case. The only Jesus we are to know is from the witness of the whole of Scripture as a unified revelation. He continues, still in the same paragraph, pressing his point home to his readers:

The Jesus of the Synoptists is neither nearer nor further from us than the Christ of St Paul. The Christ who is present is the Christ of the whole scripture. He is the incarnate, crucified, risen and glorified Christ, and he meets us in his word. The difference between the terminology of the Synoptists and the witness of St Paul does not involve any break in the unity of the scriptural testimony.

At this point, we are clear that Bonhoeffer holds tightly to the unity of the biblical witness about Jesus. And here is where Bonhoeffer adds his oft cited footnote. To this point, we have no argument with Weikart, who wrote as already cited, that Bonhoeffer in this “passage… affirmed the truth, reliability and unity of the scriptures in the strongest possible way.” For Weikart, the question now turns to one of the historicity of the events about which the Bible gives a unified, reliable testimony. However, that is not exactly why Bonhoeffer adds this footnote. Bonhoeffer does not pivot from the issue of the unity of Scripture. The whole footnote is formulated to re-buttress his claim in the unity of Scripture and of Christ.

Bonhoeffer’s Footnote

Bonhoeffer begins by connecting his critique of “perlilous… enthusiasm” with what he now calls “fanaticism in all its forms.”

The direct testimony of the scriptures is frequently confounded with ontological propositions. This error is the essence of fanaticism in all its forms.

It is very important that we do not misread Bonhoeffer at this point. He does not say “ontological realities” as in historical truths or real events. He says “ontological propositions,” which is different. He is not denying historical veracity. His point is that you cannot say that you except the Jesus of Paul, but deny the Jesus of the Gospels based on the idea that you like the Jesus Paul talks about better.

Bonhoeffer, here, is identifying and calling out the central error of the theologians of his day. They, he says, detached the true revelation of Jesus in Scripture from Scripture. They treated the “real and living” Jesus as something abstracted from Scripture, a metaphysical realty that they could use to stand above and judge Scripture itself. This was there hermeneutic: abstract a truth from Scripture, treat it as a free-standing metaphysical reality apart from Scripture, use it to evaluate other abstracted truths from Scripture. This is what Bonhoeffer is writings against in this footnote, as shown in the next sentences (what Weikart cites is emboldened):

For example, if we take the statement that Christ is risen and present as an ontological proposition, it inevitably dissolves the unity of the scriptures, for it leads us to speak of a mode of Christ’s presence which is different e.g. from that of the synoptic Jesus. The truth that Jesus Christ is risen and present to us is then taken as an independent statement with an ontological significance which can be applied critically to other ontological statements, and it is thus exalted into a theological principle.

The mistake of the liberals is that they take truths revealed in Scripture, exercise them from the Scripture itself, make some into theological principles which can then be used to dismiss or remove other independent truths. Bonhoeffer goes on with an analogy for this to explain the error further.

This procedure is analogous to the fanatical doctrine of perfectionism, which arises from a similar ontological misunderstanding of the scriptural utterances on the subject of sanctification. In this instance the assertion that he who is in God does not sin is made a starting-point for further speculation. But this is to tear it from its scriptural context and raise it to the status of an independent truth which can be experienced.

That is as clear as he can make it. Their method of exegesis, their hermeneutic, is founded on speculative idealism about what they want to be the case, not based on what God has said to be the case. Their north star is their experience, or want thereof.

Contrary to this, Bonhoeffer presents his approach, a faithful approach to the proclamation of Scripture. Precisely what Weikart cites is, again, emboldened.

The proclamation of the scriptural testimony is of quite a different character. The assertion that Christ is risen and present, is, when taken strictly as a testimony given in the scriptures, true only as a word of the scriptures. This word is the object of our faith. There is no other conceivable way of approach to this truth except through this word. But this word testifies to the presence of both the Synoptic and the Pauline Christ. Our nearness to the one or to the other is defined solely by the Word, i.e. by the scriptural testimony.

To reiterate, Bonhoeffer is not even broaching the issue of the historicity of Jesus here, contrary to Weikart. Bonhoffer is still waring against the liberalism of his day that sought to make two separate Christs by dividing Scripture into opposing parts. The historicity, I would say, is taken as granted. For Bonhoeffer does not argue from conceptuality as the liberals did. That is to treat Jesus as a non-historical myth. Bonhoeffer is insistent that Jesus cannot be made out to be a free-floating concept. Rather, who He is and how we relate to Him “is defined solely by the Word.” This Bonhoeffer calls the scriptural testimony, and here I would simply ask, The testimony to what? It cannot be the testimony to vague experience – Bonhoeffer has denounced that. The testimony to free-floating ideals about the concept of Jesus – Bonhoeffer’s whole argument is a denunciation of that. It must be that Bonhoeffer is speaking of the unified testimony to the true Jesus, as revealed and defined only by the Scriptures.

Bonhoeffer continues to close out the first paragraph of this footnote:

Of course this is not to deny the obvious fact that the Pauline testimony and that of the Synoptists differ in respect both of their object and their terminology, but both have to be interpreted in the light of the scriptures as a whole.

While Weikart does not bring this forward in his argument, it deserves explanation. Bonhoeffer is not saying that there two different Christs when he says that Paul differs from the Gospels, not only as to their terminology but, to their object. That would be to confound everything he wrote to that point. No, by object he means what he wrote before: whereas the Gospels focused on the earthly life of Jesus as their object (and therefore had specific terms), Paul focused on “the presence of the risen and glorified Christ and his work in us” as his object (and therefore also had unique terms).

Bonhoeffer closes his footnote with this paragraph:

This conclusion is not merely a piece of a priori knowledge based on a rigid doctrine of the canon of scripture. The legitimacy of our view must be put to the test in every instance. Thus in the ensuing argument, our purpose is to show how St Paul takes up the Synoptic notion of following Christ and subjects it to further development.

Here, Bonhoeffer doubles down on his central argument. What he says, he derives from Scripture; not even from true doctrines about Scripture, or notions about the canon of Scripture. And he goes on in the rest of the chapter to show that Paul’s teaching about Baptism and the Gospel’s teaching about following Jesus are in perfect unity.

Conclusion

Weikart’s central claim, that “According to Bonhoeffer, the resurrection and other events in the Bible are thus not true as empirical facts of history,” falls flat. It is sad that, for all Weikart’s boasting that because of Bonhoeffer’s “philosophical language,” Bonhoeffer is “unintelligible to the average non-philosophically inclined evangelical reader,” but “comprehensible” to him because he “studied theology” and “philosophy,” a mere survey of Bonhoeffer in context shows his argument to be utterly ungrounded in reality.  

Bonhoeffer is not arguing against the historicity of Jesus or the events recorded in Scripture. He is defending the unity of Scripture and of Jesus against the liberalism of his day which denied the unity of Scripture and the Jesus of history revealed in Scripture. While this does not prove that Bonheoffer believed in the resurrection, it definitively shows that Weikart is fundamentally wrong in his interpretation of Bonhoeffer, and that this does not show that Bonhoeffer did not believe in the historicity of biblical events.

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[1] Scripture and Myth in Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Fides etffistoria 25,1 (1993): 12-25, by Richard Weikart, p. 19-20