Act and Being

Works #2

by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Wayne W. Floyd (Editor), H. Martin Rumscheidt (Translator)

Act and Being , written in 1929--1930 as Bonhoeffer's second dissertation, deals with the questions of consciousness and conscience in theology from the perspective of the Reformation insight about the origin of human sinfulness in the "heart turned in upon itself and thus open neither to the revelation of God nor to the encounter with the neighbor." Here, therefore, we find Bonhoeffer's thoughts about power, revelation, Otherness, theological method, and theological anthropology.

Genres: Theology, Philosophy, Religion, Christian

256 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1930

About the author

Works of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Protestant theologian of Germany, concern Christianity in the modern world; for his role in a plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler, people executed him.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer served as a Lutheran pastor. He, also a participant in the movement of Resistance against Nazism and a member, founded the confessing church. Members of the Abwehr, the military intelligence office planned his involvement, which resulted in his arrest in April 1943 and his subsequent hanging in April 1945 shortly before the end of the war. His secular view influenced very many people.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dietric...

Reviews

[Cody Bivins-Starr · Rating 3 out of 5]

Phew, this one is tough. A real crash course on Kant, Neo-Kantianism, Idealism/Hegel, phenomenology and ontology via Husserl and Heidegger, and their relevant theological parallels. Bonhoeffer is really attempting to find a unity for the reception and recognition of revelation (as a theological epistemology). I think the most helpful aspect is his situating revelation in the community of Christ, but the consequences of that I have yet to work out. Would love to dig deeper into the relationship of his critique of Barth to Barth’s later work, and perhaps dig into the implications for theological ethics as a whole.

[Corey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Definitely as dense as everyone else says. There are still bits in here that show flashes of the pastoral Bonhoeffer to come in his later writings that are really great. You can tell he's playing the game of academia, and playing it well in writing this. That being the case, I found it about half as enjoyable as other writings from Bonhoeffer. The good bits were really good, the rest seemed like a doctoral dissertation.......which is what it was. If you want the gist, I'd suggest "Bonhoeffer's Theological Formation" by DeJonge as it is much smaller and much clearer.

[Tim · Rating 5 out of 5]

Act and Being: Dasein and the eternal crisis of the human being

Bonhoeffer’s influence on the modern world cannot be overstated. His willful return to Germany to stand with the Confessing church in the resistance to National-Socialism and the protection of minorities was noble and heroic if anything every was; he practiced what he preached and gained the respect of even the secular world which put him to death. His participation in the Abwehr resistance circle leading to his execution by a thin metal wire at the Flossenburg concentration camp has made his words almost sacred. Act and Being, while not one of his most well-known works, is one of his most academic and theological, and thus has weight historically and morally.

Bonhoeffer is a philosopher's theologian. He had a deep knowledge of German philosophy, specifically Hegel, Kant and Heidegger in both the Transcendentalist, Idealist and Ontological schools. On top of this, he had a deep knowledge of his own Lutheran tradition through Kierkegaard, the dialectal teachings of Barth and other major Protestant thinkers. Much of Act and Being hinges upon a German word found in Continental Philosophy that is difficult to translated as it’s definition changes slightly depending on context: Dasein. "Dasein" means ‘consciously present’ or "existing in temporality" with a sense of mortality. It literally translates "To be there" but it is a purely philosophic concept of Being that it itself an antinomy of finitude-infinity. Hegel defines Dasein in his Encyclopedia as as a specific type of Being; “die Einheit des Seins und des Nichts, in der die Unmittelbarkeit dieser Bestimmungen und damit in ihrer Beziehung ihr Widerspruch verschwunden ist, – eine Einheit, in der sie nur noch Momente sind // the unity of being and nothing in which the immediacy of these determinations and thus their contradiction in their relationship has disappeared - a unity in which they are only moments".

Act and Being is very different than his much more "quotable" pastoral and devotional theology found in The Cost of Discipleship and Letters and Papers from Prison, his most widely read and first translated works. If you have not read Hegel, Heidegger, Kierkegaard, Barth and Kant then Act and Being will not make much sense. This was written as a dissertation, and provides a glimpse into the systematic, Ecumenical Lutheran Theology Bonhoeffer held. Act and Being seeks to answer epistemological and existentialist questions of consciousness in the life of a Christian.

Bonhoeffer knew English and studied at New York's Union Theological Seminary. In America, he encountered an extreme development of Continental Idealism that was destroying the church. He wrote of the Theological Liberalism that resulted from this blind continental Idealism: "in itself a closed circle that does violence to reality, pulling it into the circle of the Ego" accusing the de-evolution of Western Protestantism as an elaborate form of Solipsism. Western Theology has wadded neck-deep into the Continental Epistemology and adopted them to create categories of transcendence and Revelation.

Although this study is highly philosophic, he is trying to answer very relevant questions that impacts the individual Christian. How can one have a child-like faith but also be "wise as serpents"? How can one know that one knows God? How can one believe in anything with certainty?

Act and Being is segmented in three parts. Part A he describes the problem, his methodology and details the epistemological paradigm of the ontological subject-object distinction he is seeking to reconcile into a coherent theology of consciousness, part B he digs into the "Act-being" problem in relation to revelation (and with a broader aperture, transcendence), and third to frame Epistemology in terms of consistent Existential Theanthropology.

In part A he analyzes the Ontological Attempt and integrates Noetic theology into his criticism of Hegelian Ontology. He denies the self-reflexive certainty of faith and places the locus of eschatological certainty back in the processes of the Church, not existential consciousness. He writes against the Thomist view:

"But now, human existence is, once again, comprehensible through itself and also has access to God. This is the inevitable consequence of all systematic metaphysics. And so to open the concept of being to the transcendent also ends up with an illusory transcendence. The basic features of the ontological proof of God's existence come into view; if there is in the creature a tension between essentia and esse, then there must be, underlying that tension and making it possible, an identity of the two and beyond that, the dividing being as essentia and esse. Just as Anselm surely arrived a being but not God, and this remained in the closed world, the Thomist ontological concept of God cannot go beyond a metaphysical locked in a closed world…”

He does not completely discredit Continental Philosophy, but recognizes its utility in further defining the question humanity should be asking:

“Nevertheless, genuine transcendental philosophy and genuine ontology... are said to make a contribution to the understanding of the problem of act and being... they have thoroughly grasped and thought through the philosophical problem of act and being within the concept of revelation."

In his analysis of Kant, Bonhoeffer shows himself to be a proto-deconstructionist, doubting that the subject can genuinely break free of heteronomy and approach Other, calling Transcendentalism (via Neo-Kantianism) "idealistic thinking... a decision of practical reason" which replaces Relational Consciousness with Thinking as the foundation of Being. Transcendentalisms' attempted resolution to the epistemological subject-object antinomy is not conscious of its own internal contradictions and redundancies.

In part B he digs into the Ontology of Revelation, asserting his premise up front and then using a syncretic mix of Hegel and Barth to proof his position: that Revelation is outside of human self-understanding and this "Act" of revelation must be initiated by a truly transcendent entity. He argues, in true Lutheran form, that the finite can bear the infinite only by God first reaching across the divide:

"God's Being is only Act and therefore, is in human beings also only as act, in such a way that all reflection upon the accomplished act takes place at a distance from it, with the result that the act cannot be grasped in conceptual form or become part of systematic thought….”

He clearly takes aim at the German Humanism/ Atheism that was quickly becoming the norm of German society: “Godless thought- even when it remains ethical- remains self-disclosed. Even critical philosophy cannot place one into the truth, because its crisis emerges from within itself, and its apparent reality is still subservient to the claims of the cor curvum in se that have lost the power to claim anyone." Or as Bonhoeffers’ anti-podal contemporary would put it “There is no God but the German people.”

In part II he explores the epistemology of revelation, contrasting Transcendentalism to Idealism. Here he moves closer to Theology than Philosophy, using Revelation to judge Ontology:

“In a reflective theological form of thinking I have no more intimate reference to my existence than to God. On the contrary, one might say that God is closer to me than my existence, inasmuch as it is God who first discloses my existence to me.”

Part II he breaks down the various understanding of Catholic/ Protestant view on Revelations (which are all variations of Agere Sequir esse) under three umbrellas: Doctrine, experience, and institution. He writes about the inadequacy of all three conceptions: “The reason the three possible interpretations of the being of revelation that we have discussed fail to do justice to the Christian idea of revelation is that they understand the revealed God as something existing, whereas all existing things are transcended by act and being…Rather, it must be seen in a manner of being that includes both of these in itself and, at the same time, ‘suspends’ in itself the human process of thinking about it (faith).”

In part III he describes the consequences of this Ontic personhood through Revelation in relation to Sociology, namely, the church. He writes about the critical necessity of the Sacraments of the church to actualize the Grace of God on the human psyche: “Hence, the revelation is somehow held fast here. God’s freedom has woven itself into this person like community of faith, and it is precisely this which manifests what God’s freedom is: that God binds God’s self to human beings. The community of faith really does have the word of forgiveness at its disposal. In the community of faith the words ‘I am forgiven’ can be spoken not merely existentially; as the Christian church the congregation may declare in sermon and sacrament that ‘you are forgiven’…. Thus Revelation happens in the community of faith; it requires primarily a specific Christian sociology.”

Despite defining faith in corporate terms, he perpetuates Augustine’s Individualistic approach:

“The act of faith rests on the objectivity of the event of revelation in Word and sacrament. Clinging to Christ need not become self-conscious; rather, it is wholly taken up by completion of the act itself.”

He writes about the Imago Dei: "If God is to come to human beings, they essentially must already be like God. If theology is to grasp the relationship of God and humankind, it can do so only be presupposing a profound likeness of one to the other and finding precisely here the unity between God and human beings. One is like the very God one comprehends." Yet struggles to understand this in relation to Luther’s reliance on the Catholic teaching of Original Sin.

In part C he addresses directly Christian Anthropology in terms of Ontology and Existentialism. Here he provides interesting commentary on the Third Reich, describing their development in terms of theology, or rather, anti-theology: “Human beings have torn themselves lose from community with God, and therefore, also from that with other human beings, and not they stand alone, that is, in untruth… It is only to be expected that they should now being and end with themselves in their knowing, for they are only and utterly ‘with themselves’ in the falsehood of naked self-glory… The they shall arise and declare themselves their own final judges and proceed to their own indictment- couched in the language of conscience… But the cries of conscience only dull the mute loneliness of a desolate ‘with-itself’; they ring without echo in the world that the ‘self’ rules and explains.”

Bonhoeffer dabbles in Hamartiology and it’s relation to the Anthropology of Augustinian/ Catholic teaching of Original Sin. Luther defined sin equally as original sin [sin as pretemporal entity] and as one’s act and guilt (as non-being Act) and Bonhoeffer struggles to reconcile this Latin idea with the Biblical teaching of the “guilt-character of sin”. He explores Lutheran theology's ability to delineate historic transcendentalist philosophy's subject-object paradigm in terms of Ontology (anthropological and theological).

As inspiring and authoritative as Bonhoeffer is, I find Act and Being riddled with non-sequiturs and of little use to Continental Philosophy. It is a bit clumsy at the parts where he defends Luther’s own internal inconsistencies and admits that Protestantism is the ideological refinement of Catholicism, not the antithesis nor correction of it. To his credit, he does explicitly attack Luther’s Two-Kingdom theology which is popular in today’s Neo-Calvinist/ Reformed and some Lutheran circles. He wrote that the reality of Theopaschism in the Incarnation makes it impossible to speak of the world "in terms of two spheres". Bonhoeffer himself wrote that he grew to not like Act and Being, and while it was an interesting read, it is a bit to chaotic and pulled in multiple directions to be of much practical use. He bit off more than he could chew. One of the valuable pieces of Act and Being, however, is the theological/ philosophic detailing of how and why German Humanism paved the way to Auschwitz from someone deeply involved in German society, yet at the same time a detached critic. Bonhoeffer is a testimony of what happens when a society becomes it’s own source of consciousness and ethics.


Some notable quotes:

"it is never possible for a systematic metaphysics to know that once 'cannot give oneself truth" for such knowledge would already signify a placing oneself into truth...If 'it' were in the truth of the divine word it could not celebrate the triumph of the I, of the spirit, but would have to recognize in its eternal loneliness the curse of lost community with God [Gottesgemeinschaft]. Only a way of thinking that, bound in obedience to Christ, 'is' from the truth can place into the truth... we need to see that [revelation] as a step that must already have been taken so that we may be able to take it at all"

“Human beings have torn themselves lose from community with God, and therefore, also from that with other human beings, and now they stand alone, that is, in Untruth… It is only to be expected that they should now being an end within themselves in their knowing, for they are only and utterly ‘with themselves’ in the falsehood of naked self-glory… Then they shall arise and declare themselves their own final judges and proceed to their own indictment- couched in the language of conscience… But the cries of conscience only dulls the mute loneliness of a desolate ‘with-itself’; they ring without echo in the world that the ‘self’ rules and explains.”

"People have eyes to see; they bear within themselves the potential to arrive at the eternal essentials."

[Michael Boling · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was an important figure within the Confessing Church in Germany during the time of the Nazi regime of the 1930s. His better known works include titles such as The Cost of Discipleship and Ethics. Fortress Press has released a collection of the works of Dietrich Bonhoeffer to include Act and Being: Transcendental Philosophy and Ontology in Systematic Theology.

In this helpful book, Bonhoeffer tackles the issue of how to best understand the reality that “The dialectic of act and being is understood theologically as the dialectic of faith and the congregation of Christ. Neither is to be thought without the other; each is taken up or suspended in the other.” First one must address the issue of epistemology or what it means to know. In the process of coming to grips with what can be known, especially in the realm of philosophy, Bonhoeffer aptly comments “the great temptation for all genuine philosophy is for thinking to raise itself to the position of lord over what is nonobjective by taking the process of attainment, the I, into itself in the act of thinking.” This quite often leads some to the belief that self if God, something Bonhoeffer rejects as a possibility. He correctly states the a priori assumption of the Christian faith is rooted in the fact that “revelation and faith are bound to the concrete, preached word, and the word is the mediator of the contact between God and human beings, allowing no other immediateness.”

Furthermore, Bonhoeffer also declares that “only those who have been placed into the truth can understand themselves in truth. Having been placed into the truth, they may now come to understand themselves in that fashion – precisely as a foreshadowing of their re-creation, of their being known by God.” This re-creation is the movement from darkness to light, the rebirth that takes place through faith in the work of Christ on the cross. Outside that framework, truth cannot be known to the individual given that revelation and understanding exist in a place of spiritual darkness where the self is supreme. The movement from a place of darkness to a place where the untrue system is shattered happens according to Bonhoeffer “in faith through preaching.” Bonhoeffer also aptly declares “Faith is never directed towards itself but always towards Christ, toward that which comes from outside.” The self cannot by itself come to grips with truth. It takes an act of God that impacts the state of being to move the individual from the place of untruth/darkness to a place of truth/light.

The final issue Bonhoeffer tackles is the state of being “in Adam” and “in Christ.” To be in Adam is “to be in untruth, in culpable perversion of the will, that is, of human essence. It means to be turned inward into one’s self, cor curvum in se.” Those who remain in that state of untruth desire to find truth within themselves thus resulting in the inward focus noted by Bonhoeffer. The only solution to this crisis is found “when Christ has broken through the solitude of human beings.” As noted by Bonhoeffer so brilliantly, sin is an act against God and there is no way out of that bondage apart from Christ. Thus, to be “in Christ” is to be “turned outwards toward Christ.” When Christ breaks through, Bonhoeffer correctly declares “The person now lives in the contemplation of Christ. This is the gift of faith, that one no longer looks upon oneself, but solely upon the salvation that has come to one from without.” The act of sin is replaced by the act of looking to Christ thus impacting one’s state of being moving them from being “in Adam” to being “in Christ.” Once this transformation takes place, Bonhoeffer avers “The echoless cries from solitude of self, the protest against violation of any sort, have unexpectedly received a reply and gradually melt into the quiet, prayerful conversation of the child with the father into the Word of Jesus Christ.” The “I” of selfish gain is replaced with the focus on God. The act and being of life become focused on the truth found in God’s word and a life lived in obedience to God and denial of the self.

I highly recommend this book for all believers. While the concepts and terms presented by Bonhoeffer in this book are scholarly and many might not be completely familiar with the terminology used in this book, the copious footnotes help serve to explain the more difficult concepts and terms in a way that will help the reader grasp what Bonhoeffer is getting across. This is an excellent resource for understanding matters of ontology and epistemology as they relate to sin and the individual’s relationship to God and the necessity of the cross.

I received this book for free from Fortress Press for this review. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

[J.I.]

The young Bonhoeffer writing for an academic liberal audience: the profs at Berlin. It's an impossible read. Just too brilliant for a 21 year old (or whatever his age was at that time). And that's annoying. Great book. many of the themes that will later surface are already present (the eschatological dimension, conscience). A careful, historically grounded and philosophically impeccable theological reworking of concepts in Continental Philosophy. Superb book, but -once again- very hard to read.

[Jon Coutts · Rating 3 out of 5]

This reads like an overly-audacious post-doc, because it was. All at once it is complicated, intense, inspiring, difficult to read, illuminating, and oozing with potential profundity. The book may not stand alone very well, but as the stepping stone to Bonhoeffer's unpacking of that potential, it's a monumental piece of work.

[Frodo · Rating 3 out of 5]

This work by Bonhoeffer was very tedious for me. I'm not sure what I learned that I can explain. I do believe I have a better grasp of what Bonhoeffer means by the act and being of God as revealed in our lives. Tough reading.

[Gino · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bonhoeffer wrestles between finding Barth’s conception of revelation (act) as too Kantian, while also finding much of the concepts of “being” not correct either. He describes some third way akin to the philosophy of Heidegger. Since I am not well versed in the philosophers he mentions, this one took a little more work for me to follow along. (I’m thankful for some recommendations I received to help me along the way - checkout Michael DeJonge’s Bonhoeffer’s Theological Formation).

If that sounds like a lot, it was. I laughed as I read this thinking, who but a 20-something Bonhoeffer would have the moxie to synthesize these thoughts while refuting a portion of Barth’s theology. It’s that kind of intellectual vigor and boldness that I love about Bonhoeffer, even if it is often hard for me to follow. Nevertheless, time spent reading Bonhoeffer’s work is always profitable to me. The centrality of Jesus and community is so evident in these earlier writings. I can see how the theological and philosophical wrestling he did resulted in the incredible pastoral work he is well-known for writing.

This is dense and a short read page-wise. Give it a read if you are interested. I’d say it’s more like 3.5 ⭐️ for me.

[Justin · Rating 3 out of 5]

This one, esp the first 1/3 was a struggle for me. Much of it takes place within a very particular context, and I don't have the background in Heidegger, Barth, etc to really engage with these arguments at a decent level. It reads like a dissertation (which it was).

As the book progresses, it gets easier to follow and more relevant. Themes that he articulates less academically later come up here, and his insights into the necessity of the church and the seriousness of sin are useful. Using his Christocentrism to develop an epistemic humility should also be useful; there's a reorientation at work throughout most of the book that's valuable, if tricky to unpack.

It's hard to recommend this one to anyone not engaged with the philosophy of religion or particular strains of theology. For anyone deeply interested in Bonhoeffer, it's revealing (and at times edifying), but it's far from a good starting point, and you'll want not only his writings but work on ontology, idealism, and more in mind.

[Matthew Codd · Rating 5 out of 5]

My first read through of this text I had trouble connecting it with the Bonhoeffer of Discipleship or Ethics. But after having read Andre Root’s latest work Faith Formation in the Secular Age, and in conversation with my good friend Jon my second read through was much more enjoyable and fruitful. It is truly remarkable the depth of insight Bonhoeffer had at such a young age. His insights on the role of preaching as revelation have got me thinking anew!

[Tony Auxier · Rating 4 out of 5]

As with his work, Sanctorum Communio, this is an excellent work, but a difficult read. The technical language and precision of thought makes for hard work and study for the casual reader to grasp the meaning. That said, it is worth a lot of hard work. Bonhoeffer's insights are fascinating. He synthesis of apparently conflicting ideas are incredible.

[Daniel Crouch · Rating 3 out of 5]

Act and Being pushed me back into academic reading and plunged me into the discourse of continental philosophy. My appreciation for the work was stunted, however, as I learned that I am highly skeptical of the continental project.

[Wm. Wells · Rating 4 out of 5]

A difficult read, but truly inciteful into Bonhoeffer's later work.

[Rocky Say]

Bf4

[Jennifer · Rating 1 out of 5]

i was totally misled by wikipedia! this was bonhoeffers dissertation, not some book that could offer a non-theologian insights on conscience and consciousness. problems started when i couldn't understand the editor's introduction or "part I : the problem".

moving on to more bonhoeffer-lite i think.

ps--how is it possible for this book to have an average rating of 6 out of 5?