This is the last of my small reflection papers for this class. I have one LARGE paper to write...not long, just LARGE. I think I will get some poster board for it. That should be large enough, don't you think?
The following will be edited for spelling and grammar before I send it in.
I discovered later, and I'm still discovering right up to this moment, that it is only by living completely in this world that one learns to have faith (p. 369).In our class, one of the frustrations continually voiced is that Bonhoeffer, no matter how hard he may have tried, is no less a phenomenologist than his forbears in German academia. He is an idealist in the midst of his arguments of concretizing faith. I think, after reading the above quote, that it may be possible that Bonhoeffer knew of his own weakness.
By this-worldliness, I mean living unreservedly in life's duties, problems, successes and failures, experiences and perplexities. In so doing, we throw ourselves completely into the arms of God, taking seriously, not our own sufferings, but those of God in the world - watching with Christ in Gethsemane. That I think is faith; that is metanoia; and that is how one becomes a [person] and a Christian (cf. Jer. 45!). How can success make us arrogant, or failure lead us astray, when we share in God's sufferings through a life of this kind (p. 369-70)?Even here he walks that tightrope between phenomenology and a concrete philosophy. Act and being merge and part ways. His struggle is clear, even in prison. What he is experiencing is indeed mystical and thus phenomenological. It cannot be proclaimed in great clarity simply because it is founded upon mystery. Or is this so? Bonhoeffer's dialectic seems more founded now upon his experience and the results of his actions than a philospohical notion about "sociality" he espoused when only twenty-one years of age. He is in jail. He suffers from anxiety surrounding his own uncertain fate. He misses family and friends. Yet he finds solace in his intellectual pursuits. He still writes. He has also taken to writing poetry in prison. His own suffering must be expressed. This is where he meets God again and again.
Whether the human deed is a matter of faith or not depends on whether we understand our own suffering as an extension of our action and a completionn of freedom. I think that is very important and very comforting (p. 375).If we read this as pastoral theologians, then we may be led to see how God is present with Bonhoeffer in his suffering and doubts. Bonhoeffer never says it clearly. Perhaps he does not believe it since his understanding even of Christ is utterly other-focused. Nevertheless, I perceive that he knows God is present with him in this suffering as God is present with all who suffer. His poetry leads me to draw this conclusion even if his theo-philosophical wrestling does not. Bonhoeffer finds solidarity with God in his own suffering.
Perhaps I am reading something into Bonhoeffer that does not exist, but his poetry has the same feel as earlier mystics. There is unity with God in suffering. The cross ceases to be idea or "mere symbol." In stead there is a cross that is for each of us. There we will suffer and die only to be reborn. There we are continuously transformed. This is how I read Bonhoeffer's "learning to have faith."
Bonhoeffer's expressions also illuminnate for me the trouble with my own quasi-liberal theological notions. As much as Bonhoeffer is aware of the atomizing quality of German Idealism, I too am aware of the same tendancy within more contemporary pragmatic theologies. We are too aware of "action" and not enough aware of being. Even acts of charity can be empty ritual. Bonhoeffer's challenge to us is a good one.
There exisits a dialectic in this. It is action and being, not one without the other, that is reality for the Christian. We can feed the poor, and clothe the naked. These are all admirable. Yet these practices alone do not make us Christian as laudable as they are. Instead it is the cross that makes us Christian. It is God's suffering in Christ on the cross that makes us Christian, restoring us as complete persons created in God's image. Our continued realization of this truth and our standing with Christ at the cross is our growth in faith.
This phenomenology is only true in the midst of the world where all mannner of salvation and damnation are met in action. Bonhoeffer had chosen a rough row to hoe. He has bequeathed it to us. I am very interested to see where this might take me.
Posted by tripp at December 9, 2003 10:41 AM