Journal: Westminster Theological Journal
Volume: WTJ 34:2 (May 1972)
Article: "Dietrich Bonhoeffer": A Review Article
Author: Cornelius Van Til

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WTJ 34:2 (May 72) p. 152

Dietrich Bonhoeffer: A Review Article

Cornelius Van Til

[Review of Eberhard Bethge: Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Man of Vision, Man of Courage. New York and Evanston: Harper and Row, 1970. xxiv, 867. $17.95.]

In this book Eberhard Bethge presents us with an exhaustive and idefinitive story of the life and labors of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Every page of it makes fascinating reading.

If you are primarily interested in Bonhoeffer’s struggle against Adolf Hitler, you can find a “blow-by-blow” report of what happened. If you are primarily interested in Bonhoeffer’s brave leadership in the Confessing Church, you will be impressed, even amazed, at the insight, the zeal, and the perseverance of the man. I could not help comparing him to Dr. J. Gresham Machen and his struggle in the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America. However, my primary interest is in Bonhoeffer’s theological views.

There has been a good deal of debate about the question of whether Bonhoeffer’s theology is orthodox or non-orthodox. Let us see what we may garner on this question from Bethge’s book and then supplement this with material from Bonhoeffer’s own works.

Bethge traces the development of Bonhoeffer’s theology from its inception to its consummation. We shall follow his story in broad outline.

“Bonhoeffer was registered,” Bethge says, “at Berlin University from June 1924 to July 1927.”1 Friedrich Schleiermacher had been the “founder” of this institution. “Adolf von Harnack’s authority…was no longer in dispute” at Berlin.2 Harnack lived next door to the Bonhoeffers. Bonhoeffer attended the “special seminar” Harnack held in his house on “the origins and early history of the Church.”3 This took place in 1929 and after.

WTJ 34:2 (May 72) p. 153

At about this time Bonhoeffer was already interested in Soren Kierkegaard. At this time, too, Karl Holl, the famous Luther interpreter, “made a lasting impact on him.”4 But “Bonhoeffer’s favourite subject in Berlin was systematic theology, which was taught by Reinhold Seeberg….”5 “Seeberg transmitted to him Ritschl’s aversion to metaphysics.”6 Seeberg also taught him “to take the social category seriously.”7 “The key to his theology of the following five years, the concept of ‘Christ existing as community’,...

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