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| Open Theism Discussion Board > Public Forums > Ethics, etc. > Bonhoeffer's ETHICS | Forum Quick Jump
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GregBoyd
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 1818
| Posted 3/30/2002 3:15 AM (GMT -6) |   | I’d like this thread to be a critical reflection on Bonhoeffer’s book Ethics. The perspective Bonhoeffer offers in this work is so radically different from the way we ordinarily think about ethical issues that it takes a good deal of work just to understand, let alone critically interact with, what he is advocating. I have no definite structure to propose for this discussion, but I personally plan on posing questions as I read through the work. Those who want to join in the discussion might consider doing the same.
Brief Summary of Chapter I
Chapter 1 lays out Bonhoeffer’s radically new (though, if he’s right, the primordial ) starting point for reflection on ethics. Of utmost significance is the fact that the forbidden tree was "the tree of the knowledge of good and evil." Non-Christian ethical reflection (and all inauthentic Christian ethical reflection) is reflection premised on the VALIDITY of the "knowledge of good and evil." It concerns itself with the principles of good and evil, how competing claims are to be weighted in given situations, how the supposed universality of these principles intersect with concrete situations, etc… The Pharisees epitomize this sort of reflection. These were not evil, phoney, people, as many assume. They were good, decent, well-intentioned people who lived "by the knowledge of good and evil." They evaluated themselves and (especially) others on the basis of their knowledge of what is good and what is evil. They were the up-right, conservative, Church-goers of the day.
According to Bonhoeffer, all such ethical reflection simply perpetuates our separation from God. It is because we have fallen that we even possess "the knowledge of good and evil." B. writes, "Man at his origin knows only one thing: God. It is only in the unity of his knowledge of God that he knows of other men, of things, and of himself. He knows all things only in God, and God in all things. The knowledge of good and evil shows that he is no longer at one with his origin." (Ethics: p21, First Touchstone edition, 1995). By rebelling against God, humans set themselves up as autonomous creators and judgers. As the serpent promised, we have "become like God," though this becoming is DEATH. (Interesting, but we already were in "the image of God." Sin is trying to become in an illegitimate way what you already ARE by grace!). Conscience, which usually is given the authority of "the voice of God" in most ethical systems, is for B "the voice o f apostate life". "Conscience pretends to be the voice of God and tgeh standard for the relation to other men" (28). With conscience, we bear within ourselves "the knowledge of good and evil" and thus have "become judge over God and men, jst as [we] are judge over [ourselves]" (29).
Christian ethics, for B, isn’t a matter of tweaking the "game" of "the knowledge of good and evil" and of fine tuning and hieghtening the awareness of conscience. It is a matter of exposing its fallenness and illegitimacy. This is what Jesus consistently did with the Pharisees (30-41). Jesus operates out of a unity with God – the primordial unity people had with God. He does not enter into the "either-or" of logical and ethical alternatives which the Pharisees present to him. His interactions are "wise" and "simple" and "sure" and "free." Doing isn’t a conclusion at the end of an ethical argument, for Jesus. It is a matter of knowing God’s will. And to "know" in union with God is to "do." There is no disunity between "knowing" and "doing."
Christians are called to do the same. IN Christ our union with God has been restored. We are to be freed from the impossible tyranny of the "knowledge of good and evil," hence free to receive God’s love without judgement and extend God’s love without judgement. (This is why the commands not to judge in Scripture have such a central role for B.).
[centerHow Does One Know the Will of God?[/center]
Okay, enough for now. NOW, here’s the first question I’d like to raise. B. wants to make sure the "new life" of union with God he’s talking about isn’t understood in psychological categories. We misunderstand knowing, doing and "proving" the will of God if we think it to be "an intuition which excludes any sort of reflexion and that it must be the naïve graspoing of the first thought or felling tro force itself upon the mind." (41). "The will of God may lie very deeply concealed beneath a great number of available possibilities. The will of God is not a system of rules which is established from the outself: it is something new and different in each situation in life, and for this reason a man must ever anew examine what the will of God may be. The heart, the understanding, observation and experience must all collaborate in this task." (41). B. is very concerned that "the voice of the heart is not to be confused with the will of God, nor is any kind of inspiration or any general principle, for the will of God discloses itself ever anew only to him who proves it ever anew." (41-42). At the same time, B insists that discerning the will of God "is no longer a matter of a man’s own knowledge of good and evil, but soley of the living will of God…" (41).
My question: HOW do we know and prove the will of God in a concrete situation? B. rules out relying on intuition. But he also rules out deducing it from reason or from a preestablished set of ethical principles. We have to bring our heart, mind, and experience to bear in discerning it, yet it is to be radically different from coming to a conclusion on the basis of our "knowledge of good and evil." Well then what? Any insights?
Looking forward to the interactions.
Doc
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