The Work
Ethics (Ethik) was left unfinished at Dietrich Bonhoeffer's arrest in April 1943. It was edited and published posthumously by his friend and biographer Eberhard Bethge, first in German in 1949 (Chr. Kaiser Verlag, Munich) and in English translation by Neville Horton Smith in 1955 (SCM Press, London). The work consists of a series of manuscripts Bonhoeffer wrote between 1940 and 1943, which Bethge organized into a coherent whole. The critical edition in the Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works (Volume 6, English translation 2005) presents the manuscripts in probable chronological order rather than Bethge's thematic arrangement, offering a different reading experience. The work is approximately 380 pages.
Biblical Engagement
Bonhoeffer's Ethics is saturated with Scripture, but its engagement is not primarily expository -- he draws on biblical texts to build a christological ethics rather than to comment on them verse by verse.
Romans 13:1-7 (submission to governing authorities) is the text Bonhoeffer wrestles with most urgently. Writing while participating in the conspiracy to assassinate Hitler, he needed to think through what obedience to Romans 13 meant when the governing authority was murderous and criminal. His answer is that Romans 13's account of the state is descriptive of the state in its proper function (promoting justice and restraining evil); when the state inverts its purpose and becomes an agent of injustice, obedience to the state and obedience to God can diverge. But Bonhoeffer refuses easy casuistry: he acknowledges that the conspirators bear genuine guilt, even when their action is the right one.
Matthew 5:9 ("Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God") informs Bonhoeffer's treatment of the ethics of responsibility. He does not embrace pacifism; he argues for what he calls "responsible action" -- action that accepts the burden of guilt for the sake of others, as a parent might bear guilt to protect a child. The peacemaker of Matthew 5:9 does not avoid conflict but enters it for the sake of others.
Philippians 2:4 ("Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others") is the text Bonhoeffer uses to articulate "deputyship" (Stellvertretung) -- the concept that defines responsible life. The responsible person acts not for themselves but in place of and for others: the parent for the child, the statesperson for the people, Christ for humanity. This deputyship is rooted in the Incarnation itself: God in Christ took the place of sinful humanity, bearing the guilt that belonged to others.
John 10:11 ("I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep") provides the model of responsible self-giving at the heart of Bonhoeffer's ethics. The shepherd's responsibility for the sheep defines responsible action: the good shepherd does not abandon the sheep when the wolf comes (John 10:12-13) but lays down his life. This christological foundation distinguishes Bonhoeffer's ethics from both Kantian duty ethics and consequentialist calculation.
Author and Context
Bonhoeffer (1906-1945) began work on Ethics immediately after the outbreak of World War II, writing at the monastery of Ettal in Bavaria, at the Benedictine Abbey of Beuron, and at the family estate of his close friends. His participation in the Abwehr (military intelligence) provided cover for his actual activities: acting as a courier for the resistance and participating in the conspiracy that included the July 20, 1944 assassination attempt.
The unfinished character of the Ethics is inseparable from its meaning. Bonhoeffer was writing an ethics of the moment -- of the specific demands of this crisis, in this historical situation -- and the manuscript breaks off precisely at the point where the theological argument would need to address the political situation most directly. Whether this was deliberate caution or the simple result of his arrest is unknown.
Bethge's editorial arrangement of the manuscripts shaped the work's reception significantly. The critical edition's chronological arrangement shows the development of Bonhoeffer's thought and reveals some sections as earlier drafts rather than final positions.
Critical Reception
The Ethics was recognized from publication as one of the most important works of Christian social ethics in the twentieth century. Its engagement with the ethics of resistance, responsibility, and the bearing of guilt for the sake of others addressed questions that the Nazi period had forced on theology with urgent force. Reinhold Niebuhr, who had arranged Bonhoeffer's 1939 visit to New York (during which Bonhoeffer decided to return to Germany rather than remain safely in America), wrote appreciatively about the posthumously published works.
Later scholarship has focused on the relationship between the Ethics and the Letters and Papers from Prison, tracing the development of Bonhoeffer's thought from his earlier "cost of discipleship" emphasis toward a more "worldly Christianity" -- a Christianity that affirms the secular world rather than withdrawing from it. Some scholars see continuity; others see significant development.
Theological Significance
Bonhoeffer's most important contribution in the Ethics is the concept of the "structure of responsible life" -- the claim that Christian ethics is not a set of abstract principles but a pattern of personal response to Christ's call in concrete historical situations. This situational character does not mean relativism; it means that the same principle (love thy neighbor, Matthew 22:39) takes different shapes in different circumstances.
His treatment of the "penultimate" and "ultimate" -- the relationship between the goods of this world (health, justice, beauty, truth) and the ultimate good of eternal life -- offers a framework for social ethics that takes seriously both the penultimate goods that sustain human dignity and the ultimate good that relativizes all penultimate claims.
Legacy
Bonhoeffer's Ethics has been foundational for Christian social ethics, liberation theology, and the ethics of political resistance. Its influence on Latin American liberation theologians (Jose Miguez Bonino, Gustavo Gutierrez), on South African resistance theology, and on North American social ethics (William Stringfellow, Cornel West) is substantial. The concept of responsible action that accepts guilt for others has been applied to political ethics, medical ethics, and the ethics of civil disobedience.
Reading Alongside Scripture
Readers should study Romans 13:1-7 (the state and its proper limits), Matthew 5:1-12 (the Beatitudes as an ethics of the cross), Philippians 2:1-11 (the mind of Christ as the foundation of communal ethics), John 10:1-18 (the good shepherd and the ethics of deputyship), and 1 Corinthians 13 (love as the ultimate ethical norm).
Further Reading
- Eberhard Bethge, Dietrich Bonhoeffer: A Biography (1967; English trans. 1970, revised 2000) -- the definitive biography. - Larry Rasmussen, Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Reality and Resistance (1972) -- focuses specifically on Bonhoeffer's political ethics and resistance activities. - Clifford Green, Bonhoeffer: A Theology of Sociality (1999) -- a scholarly study of the social-ethical dimensions of Bonhoeffer's thought.