Wishing and hoping and
thinking and praying,
planning and dreaming
each night of his charms
that won’t get you into his arms…
Dusty Springfield
I continue to expose the falsity of neo-orthodox/Barthian theology by exposing the non-Christian writing on Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Bonhoeffer, like all of the neo-orthodox do theology by way of contradiction. They do so by the usage of the Hegelian dialectic where two opposite statements or thesis are posited (thesis vs. anti-thesis) only to be resolved by a third statement (the synthesis) allegedly reconciling the two statements into a new thesis statement.
Because chaps like Barth, Bonhoeffer, Pannenberg, and Moltmann excelled at this neo-orthodox methodology they can be easily misunderstood. Because they write purposefully with the confusing dialectical theology method their writings more often than not become a bit of a Rorschach test that ends up telling us more about the reader than it does about the theology of the writer. The reader, because of the ubiquitous contradictions will end up interpreting the particular neo-orthodox theologian in light of their own presuppositions. This usually means that the interpretation is completely botched. Those who are orthodox, who do not understand the Hegelian dialectic will tend to be mesmerized by the “profundity” of the neo-orthodox writers when in point of fact those chaps are writing gibberish.
Bonhoeffer serves as a prime example. Consider this quote on the incarnation;
“Mighty God” (Isa. 9:6) is the name of this child. The child in the manger is none other than God himself. Nothing greater can be said: God became a child. In the Jesus child of Mary lives the almighty God. Wait a minute! Don’t speak; stop thinking! Stand still before this statement! God became a child!
“No priest, no theologian stood at the manger of Bethlehem. And yet all Christian theology has its origin in the wonder of all wonders: that God became human. Holy theology arises from knees bent before the mystery of the divine child in the stable. Without the holy night, there is no theology. “God is revealed in flesh,” the God-human Jesus Christ — that is the holy mystery that theology came into being to protect and preserve.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
God Is in the Manger: Reflection on Advent and Christmas
This sounds wonderfully orthodox until one keeps reading Bonhoeffer. Here Bonhoffer has only given one half of his dialectic. Elsewhere he can write,
“The question, ‘How?’, for example, underlies the hypothesis of the virgin birth. Both historically and dogmatically it can be questioned. The biblical witness is ambiguous. If the biblical witness gave clear evidence of the fact, then the dogmatic obscurity might not have been so important. The doctrine of the virgin birth is meant to express the incarnation of God, not only the fact of the incarnate one. But does it not fail at the decisive point of the incarnation, namely that in it Jesus has not become man just like us? The question remains open, as and because it is already open in the Bible.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Christ the Center – p. 105
Here the virgin birth is only a “hypothesis.’ Here the virgin birth is both historically and dogmatically questioned. Here the biblical witness is ambiguous. Here the incarnation fails at the decisive point that Jesus had become a man just like us. Finally, the question of Jesus incarnation remains open as and because it is already an open question in the Bible. It is not God’s revelation that authorizes the incarnation. It is, as we shall see, some kind of mystical encounter with the idea of an incarnation that scripture does not have a final word on the validity of said incarnation.
Here we have the other side of the Hegelian dialectic – the other side of the purposeful contradiction. This is classic “theology by contradiction.” This is classic Hegelianism. This is not orthodox historic Christian theology. This is anti-Christ theology because the Scriptures are set aside as questionable and because the miracle is explained in neo-orthodox theology as myth and myth by definition strips the historical supernatural events of the scripture of both their historicity and their supernatural reality.
Neo-orthodoxy does not believe that the supernatural is possible in the sense of an event demonstrably happening in space and time. However, Neo-orthodoxy saves the impact of the miraculous by insisting that even though the miraculous didn’t occur in space and time history, it did occur in the sense of being part of the belief paradigm of the disciples and the early church. The event, be it incarnation, resurrection, or ascension are not events that actually occurred but were necessary myths that carried the church forward.
With that in mind we understand that Bonhoeffer, like all neo-orthodox theologians are talking out of both sides of their Hegelian mouths. These men believe in a closed universe where the supernatural can’t literally transpire. However, they also understand that an outside word is needed in a fallen world and so they take that which is subjective (the beliefs of the early church that the miracles really happened) and objectify the subjective beliefs of the disciples and the early church so that the result is a subjective objective. The miracles didn’t really occur but the subjective (non-true) beliefs of the disciples regarding the miracles and supernatural, which are recorded in a non-supernatural scripture, end up serving in the stead of the miraculous and the supernatural. Further, the subjective of the early church which has become the objective outside word for the continuing church cannot be really objective until any future convert encounters these same subjective objectives in their own lives, in some kind of mystical personal and private encounter, thus turning the early church’s subjective objectives into their own subjective objective.
What needs to be seen is that there is no objective objective in all this. All there is subjectivity pretending to provide an objective outside word. What happens here is that personal experience is blown up like a helium balloon and that helium balloon subjective experience replaces any notion of an objective Word that genuinely comes from outside of us that is the inspired Word of God.
So, while Bonhoeffer can talk in flowery tones about the incarnation the fact of the matter is that the man does not believe that it actually happened in space and time history. Nor does he believe that Holy Scripture gives a objectively true word regarding the incarnation. However, Bonhoeffer does believe in the incarnation in the sense that it is true for him and for all those who have had a personal and experiential encounter which serves to give the objectively true status of the incarnation.
However, where the neophyte reads Bonhoeffer they can come away being overawed by his piety and feigned humility.
So, having noted all this where is the hegelian dialectic in Bonhoeffer’s writing on the incarnation?
Thesis: The incarnation of Jesus is dubious and scripture certainly does not warrant belief in the fact that Jesus became a man just like us. The biblical witness does not give clear evidence of the incarnation.
Anti-thesis — God became a child. In the Jesus child of Mary lives the almighty God. God is revealed in the flesh.
Synthesis – Christian theology finds its origin not in the revelation of Scripture but in the subjective “wonder of all wonders.” Theology finds its origins not in the revelation of God but in the subjective “holy mystery.” Note the incarnation is acknowledged but it is acknowledged as unwitnessed by theologians and this despite the presence of the theologians Mary & Joseph who the inspired historian Luke gives record. The emphasis in Bonhoeffer’s wonder lies not in the revelation of Scripture but in the Holy Mystery of it all.
In giving us this dialectic the emphasis falls on the personal encounter and experience of the sovereign individual resting on that same experience and not on the objective inspired Word of God. The incarnation is a myth that becomes true only when someone has a mystical encounter that amounts to putting faith in faith and not faith in God’s revelation.
In this Hegelian dialectic the objective reality of the incarnation (and all miracles) as recorded in Holy Writ fades into the non-reality and is replaced with faith in an event (myth) that we have no objective certainty actually transpired in real space and time.
Neo-orthodoxy is heretical and Bonhoeffer was no Christian.