Skip to main content

The Limits of the Extraordinary Situation?

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Bonhoeffer
  • 214 Accesses

Abstract

This chapter begins to consider possible limitations to action in an ‘extraordinary situation’, each of which can be found in Bonhoeffer’s writing. The first is the place of the church as the locus of discipleship, which puts a limit to the isolated, existential disciple. The second is Bonhoeffer’s ultimate/penultimate distinction, which is considered an important part of Bonhoeffer’s political theology and locates existential action in a broader context. Finally, the role of guilt is considered as a limit and is of particular interest and relevance to contemporary political philosophy through the work of Michael Walzer.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

eBook
USD 16.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Hardcover Book
USD 89.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

References

  • Bonhoeffer. 2003. Discipleship, trans. Barbara Green and Reinhard Krauss. Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works English. Minneapolis: Fortress Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bonhoeffer, Dietrich. 2004. Creation and Fall. Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works English. Minneapolis: Fortress Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bonhoeffer, Dietrich. 2009a. Ethics, trans. Reinhard Krauss, Charles C. West, and Douglass W. Stott. Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works English. Minneapolis: Fortress Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bonhoeffer, Dietrich. 2009b. Sanctorum Communio, trans. Reinhard Krauss and Nancy Lukens. Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works English. Minneapolis: Fortress Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Charles, J.D. 2008. Retrieving the Natural Law: A Return to Moral First Things. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans.

    Google Scholar 

  • Coady, C.A.J. 2014. The Problem of Dirty Hands. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. https://plato.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/encyclopedia/archinfo.cgi?entry=dirty-hands. Accessed 14 August 2017.

  • DeJonge, Michael. 2016. Martin Luther, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and Political Theologies. In Oxford Research Encyclopedias. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Grabill, Stephen J. 2006. Rediscovering the Natural Law in Reformed Theological Ethics. Grandrapids, MI: Eerdsmans.

    Google Scholar 

  • Green, Clifford J. 1999. Bonhoeffer: A Theology of Sociality. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans.

    Google Scholar 

  • Green, Clifford J. 2012. Sociality, Discipleship, and Worldly Theology in Bonhoeffer’s Christian Humanism. In Being Human, Becoming Human: Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Social Thought. Cambridge, UK: James Clarke Company.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gustafson, James M. 1978. Protestant and Roman Catholic Ethics. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kelly, Geffrey B. 2008. Kierkegaard as ‘Antidote’ and the Impact on Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Concept of Christian Discipleship. In Bonhoeffer’s Intellectual Formation: Theology and Philsoohpy in His Thought, ed. Peter Frick, 147–165. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kierkegaard, Søren. 1983. Fear and Trembling/Repetition. Kierkegaard’s Writings. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kirkpatrick, Matthew D. 2011. Attacks on Christendom in a World Come of Age: Kierkegaard, Bonhoeffer, and the Question of “Religionless Christianity”. Princeton Theological Monograph Series 166. Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications.

    Google Scholar 

  • Law, David R. 2011. Redeeming the Penultimate: Discipleship and Church in the Thought of Søren Kierkegaard and Dietrich Bonhoeffer. International Journal for the Study of the Christian Church 11 (1): 14–26.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lee, Kevin. 2003. Goethe’s Iphigenie and Euripides’ Iphigenia in Taurus. Journal of the Australiasian Univerisities Modern Language Association, Feb. 2003: 64–74.

    Google Scholar 

  • Manoussakis, John Panteleimon. 2009. “At the Recurrent End of the Unending”: Bonhoeffer’s Eschatology of the Penultimate. In Bonhoeffer and Contintal Thought: Cruciform Philosophy, ed. Brian Gregor and Jens Zimmerman, 226–244. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nagel, Thomas. 1972. War and Massacre. Philosophy & Public Affairs 1 (2): 123–144.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nielsen, Kirsten Busch. 2012. Community Turned Inside Out. In Being Human, Becoming Human: Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Social Thought. Cambridge, UK: James Clarke Company.

    Google Scholar 

  • Palmisano, Trey, and Reinhard Krauss. 2016. Peace and Violence in the Ethics of Dietrich Bonhoeffer: An Analysis of Method. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock.

    Google Scholar 

  • Phillips, Jacob. 2018. ‘Having-to-Be-Thus’: On Bonhoeffer’s Reading of Goethe’s Iphegenia in Tauris. Literature & Theology 32 (3): 357–370. https://doi.org/10.1093/litthe/fry020.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rasmussen, Larry. 2005. Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Reality and Resistance. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schliesser, Christine. 2006. Everyone Who Acts Responsibly Becomes Guilty: The Concept of Accepting Guilt in Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Reconstruction and Critical Assessment. Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schlingensiepen, Ferdinand. 2010. Dietrich Bonhoeffer 1906–1945: Martyr, Thinker, Man of Resistance, trans. Isabel Best. London and New York: T & T Clark International.

    Google Scholar 

  • Valčo, Michal. 2017. The Value of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Theological-Ethical Reading of Søren Kierkegaard. European Journal of Science and Theology 13 (1): 47–58.

    Google Scholar 

  • Walzer, Michael. 1973. Political Action: The Problem of Dirty Hands. Philosophy & Public Affairs 2 (2): 160–180.

    Google Scholar 

  • Whitford, David M. 2003. Luther’s Political Encounters. In The Cambridge Companion to Martin Luther, ed. Donald K. McKim, 179–191. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2019 The Author(s)

About this chapter

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

Brown, P. (2019). The Limits of the Extraordinary Situation?. In: Bonhoeffer. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-05698-8_8

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics