Questions of whether the Christian belief in the Resurrection of Christ is merely a Deuce Ex Machina- [a plot device whereby a seemingly unsolvable problem is suddenly and abruptly resolved by the contrived and unexpected intervention of some new event, character, ability or object]- led me to quotes both by Karl Barth and Dietrich Bonhoeffer. I especially liked Bonfoeffers comment his Christian Instinct more often drew him to people who were not believers without any evangelical intention but as Brothers: What is bothering me incessantly is the question what Christianity really is, or indeed who Christ really is, for us today. The time when people could be told everything by means of words, whether theological or pious, is over... We are moving towards a completely religionless time... Barth, who is the only one to have started along this line of thought, did not carry it to completion, but arrived at a positivism of revelation, which in the last analysis is essentially a restoration. For the religionless working man (or any other man) nothing decisive is gained here... I often ask myself why a Christian instinct often draws me more to the religionless people than to the religious, by which I dont in the least mean with any evangelizing intention, but, I might almost say, in brotherhood. While Im often reluctant to mention God by name to religious people — because that name somehow seems to me here not to ring true, and I feel myself to be slightly dishonest (its particularly bad when others start to talk in religious jargon; I then dry up almost completely and feel awkward and uncomfortable) — to people with no religion I can on occasion mention him by name quite calmly and as a matter of course. Religious people speak of God when human knowledge (perhaps simply because they are too lazy to think) has come to an end, or when human resources fail — in fact it is always the deus ex machina that they bring on to the scene, either for the apparent solution of insoluble problems, or as strength in human failure — always, that is to say, exploiting human weakness or human boundaries... As to the boundaries, it seems to me better to be silent and leave the insoluble unsolved... Belief in the resurrection is not the solution of the problem of death. Gods beyond is not the beyond of our cognitive faculties... How this religionless Christianity looks, what form it takes, is something that Im thinking about a great deal. ~Bonhoeffers Letter to Eberhard Bethge [Tegel] 30 April 1944:
Posted on: Mon, 03 Nov 2014 11:19:19 +0000
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