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The Bonhoeffer dilemma: Sanctification as the increasing awareness of moral chaos
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 May 2020
Abstract
Dietrich Bonhoeffer's pursuit of a sanctified life took a significant detour from the way in which he thought it would proceed. In seeking ‘good’ moral choices in the crucible of Nazi Germany, Bonhoeffer experienced a profound sense of what we now would recognise as moral injury, which proves to be a powerful and reflexive lens with which to examine his understanding of sanctification. Initially embracing pacifism as a fundamental pillar of Christian life, Bonhoeffer eventually became convinced that there are no pure or ‘right’ moral choices, only competing ‘wrong’ ones. He later wrote from prison that to be like Christ, and to come closer to holiness, was not to seek to avoid guilt, but to take on guilt for the sake of others. This recontextualisation of the idea of sanctification through the lens of Christ's substitutionary guilt suggests that for the responsible actor moral injury may be inevitable.
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References
1 Bonhoeffer, Dietrich, Discipleship, vol. 4 of Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works, ed. Kelly, Geoffrey B. and Godsey, John, trans. Kuske, Martin, Todt, Ilse, Green, Barbara and Krauss, Reinhard (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2003), p. 260Google Scholar.
2 Ibid., p. 261.
3 See the third chapter of Discipleship, pp. 77–83.
4 Ibid., p. 107.
5 Ibid., p. 108.
6 Bonhoeffer, Dietrich, Ethics, vol. 6 of Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works, ed. Green, Clifford J., trans. Krauss, Reinhard, West, Charles C. and Stott, Douglas W. (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2009), p. 267Google Scholar.
7 Ibid., p. 284.
8 Ibid., pp. 284–5.
9 Ibid., p. 234.
10 This point is borne out in extended discussion in Bonhoeffer, Ethics, pp. 284–98.
11 See e.g. Ethics, p. 198.
12 Bonhoeffer, Dietrich, Letters and Papers from Prison, vol. 8 of Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works, ed. de Gruchy, John W., trans. Best, Isabel et al. (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2010), pp. 267Google Scholar, 486.
13 Bonhoeffer, Ethics, p. 284.
14 See e.g. Ethics, p. 232: ‘Human beings are not called to realise ethical ideals, but are called into a life that is lived in God's love, and that means lived in reality.’
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18 In privileging my own definition, it is certainly not my intention to devalue others. Indeed, a great benefit of the multi-disciplinary study of moral injury is that it produces definitions from different perspectives, all of which are of value in illuminating different facets of this phenomenon.
19 Eberhard Bethge, Dietrich Bonhoeffer: A Biography, revised edn, ed. Victoria J. Barnett, trans. Eric Mosbacher et al. (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2000), p. 637.
20 Quoted in Bethge, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, p. 637. Bonhoeffer's closest friend and confidant, Bethge lays out the struggle Bonhoeffer faced as his conscription date approached, pp. 633–80.
21 See Ferdinand Schlingensiepen, Dietrich Bonhoeffer 1906–1945: Martyr, Thinker, Man of Resistance, trans. Isabel Best (New York: T&T Clark, 2010), p. 208, where he writes: ‘The Protestant church had neither theological concepts, nor yet any examples, of conscientious objection to military service. That Luther had expressly forbidden the participation of any Christian in an unjust war had long been forgotten, and if Bonhoeffer, one of the best-known theologians in the Confessing Church, should declare Hitler's war to be an unjust war, there was no doubt that the whole Church would be endangered. The German secretary of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, Dr. Hermann Stohr, took this stance at the beginning of the Second World War and was executed.’
22 Bethge, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, p. 666.
23 Ibid.
24 See Schlingensiepen, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, pp. 246–52, for an excellent summation of Bonhoeffer's journey in this period. He notes that ‘Bonhoeffer was now walking a path that only those who were pursuing the same path were allowed to know about, but that did not mean he had burned all his bridges behind him. He had to lead two lives, but to him this was not a contradiction of his faith, nor did he consider his ministry as a pastor and teacher in the Confessing Church to be over. He had taken the step of joining the Resistance on the basis of an ethical decision’ (p. 246).
25 Ibid., p. 250.
26 Edmonds, Bill Russell, God is Not Here: A Soldier's Struggle with Torture, Trauma, and the Moral Injuries of War (New York: Pegasus Books, 2015), p. 41Google Scholar.
27 Ibid., p. 20.
28 Peters, David W., ‘Sin Eater’, in Meagher, Robert and Pryer, Douglas (eds), War and Moral Injury: A Reader (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2018), p. 215Google Scholar.
29 Powers, ‘Moral Injury and Original Sin’, p. 333.
30 Bonhoeffer, Ethics, p. 234.
31 Boudreau, Tyler, ‘The Morally Injured’, Massachusetts Review 52/3–4 (2011), p. 748Google Scholar.
32 With the addition of moral guilt and the implication that a Christian must renounce his or her own righteousness, Bonhoeffer significantly nuances the admonitions found in Discipleship (see e.g. p. 106).
33 Bonhoeffer, Ethics, p. 278.
34 Ibid., p. 301.
35 Ibid., pp. 320, 278.
36 Ibid., p. 279.
37 Ibid., p. 326.
38 Ibid., p. 322.
39 Ibid., p. 324.
40 Ibid., p. 326.
41 Ibid., p. 328.
42 Ibid., p. 335.
43 Ibid., p. 324.
44 See Nash, William P., ‘Combat/Operational Stress Adaptations and Injuries’, in Figley, Charles R. and Nash, William P. (eds), Combat Stress Injury: Theory, Research and Management (New York: Routledge, 2007)Google Scholar.
45 Combining here the language of both Bonhoeffer and Shay.
46 A dilemma American soldiers in Iraq would face regularly in the form of a vehicle that would not stop at a checkpoint when signalled. Insurgents would often use suicide bombers in cars as vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices (IED) to wreak significant damage to checkpoints, bases, troops and the civilian populace. The car refusing to stop could be a suicide attacker with a car laden with explosives, or a father driving his family back from a trip, distracted and unaware of the soldier waving for him to brake. It was not uncommon for soldiers to fire heavily upon such a vehicle only to discover the bodies of a young family inside. Either choice the soldier makes is fraught with moral dangers.
47 See Bonhoeffer, Discipleship, p. 106.
48 At least in the Markan and Matthean versions of the gospel.
49 Such as that which would be articulated by Bonhoeffer's countryman Jürgen Moltmann e.g. when he speaks of the promise of God's act of judgement and recreation in the following terms: ‘In that Judgment, all sins, every wickedness and every act of violence, the whole injustice of this murderous and suffering world, will be condemned and annihilated, because God's verdict effects what it pronounces. In the divine Judgment all sinners, the wicked and the violent, the murderers and the children of Satan, the Devil and all the fallen angels will be liberated and saved from their deadly perdition through transformation into their true, created being because God remains true to himself, and does not give up what he has once created and affirmed, or allow it to be lost.’ Jürgen Moltmann, The Coming of God: Christian Eschatology, trans. Margaret Kohl (London: SCM Press, 1996), p. 255.
50 Bonhoeffer, Ethics, p. 279.
51 Schlingensiepen, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, p. 378. Schlingensiepen does note that a popular account of these words, from SS doctor H. Fischer-Hullstrung, ‘is unfortunately a lie’ (p. 406). He argues that Bonhoeffer delivered these words, not upon the gallows, but to Payne Best as he was summoned to his execution. Best later delivered them, along with a short message to the Bishop of Chichester, George K. Bell, in 1953.