Bonhoeffer's Religionless Christianity: Part 3, A World Come of Age

To understand Bonhoeffer's "religionless Christianity" we need to come to grips with Bonhoeffer's understanding of a "world come of age." Specifically, if a "nonreligious interpretation" is a part of the "solution" we need to understand what the "problem" or "diagnosis" might be.

In his theological letters, which began on April 30, 1944, Bonhoeffer's first mention of the "world come of age" appears in a letter dated June 8 (LPP pp. 324-329):

June 8, 1944

To Eberhard Bethge:

...I'll try to define my position from the historical angle.

The movement that began about the thirteenth century (I'm not going to get involved in any argument about the exact date) towards the autonomy of man (in which I should include the discovery of laws by which the world lives and deals with itself in science, social and political matters, art, ethics, and religion) has in our time reached an undoubted completion. Man has learnt to deal with himself in all questions of importance without recourse to the "working hypothesis" called "God." In questions of science, art, and ethics this has become an understood thing at which one now hardly dares to tilt. But for the last hundred years or so it has also become increasingly true of religious questions; it is becoming evident that everything gets along without "God"--and, in fact, just as well as before. As in the scientific field, so in human affairs generally, "God" is being pushed more and more out of life, losing more and more ground.

...Christian apologetics has taken the most varied forms of opposition to this self-assurance. Efforts are made to prove to a world thus come of age that it cannot live without the tutelage of "God." Even though there has been surrender of all secular problems, there still remain the so-called "ultimate questions"--death, guilt--to which only "God" can give an answer, and because of which we need God and the church and the pastor. So we live, in some degree, on these so-called ultimate question of humanity. But what if one day they no longer exist as such, if they too can be answered "without God"?...The attack by Christian apologetic on the adulthood of the world I consider to be in the first place pointless, in the second place ignoble, and in the third place unchristian. Pointless, because it seems to me like an attempt to put a grown-up man back into adolescence, i.e. to make him dependent on things on which he is, in fact, on longer dependent, and thrusting him into problems that are, in fact, no longer problems for him. Ignoble, because it amounts to an attempt to exploit man's weakness for purposes that are alien to him and to which he has not freely assented. Unchristian, because it confuses Christ with one particular stage in man's religiousness, i.e. with a human law. More about this later.

But first, a little more about the historical position. The question is: Christ and the world that has come of age...

Again, here in the June 8 letter we find the first wrestling with the "world come of age." According to Bonhoeffer the world come of age has achieved "autonomy" from God because, on a day to day basis, the "working hypothesis of God" is no longer needed. Humanity is, pragmatically speaking, on its own. God is "pushed more and more out of life." Bonhoeffer also describes this as leaving the "tutelage" or "guardianship" of God to enter the "adulthood of the world."

In all this, Bonhoeffer seems to be articulating a version of the "secularization hypothesis" as articulated by thinkers like Freud, Marx, Feuerbach, and Nietzsche. According to the secularization hypothesis, as humanity "matures" it will become increasingly non-religious and secular. Bonhoeffer seems to be making a similar argument. That said, while we are moving into an increasingly post-Christian culture in the West faith and spirituality remain pervasive. As I describe in Hunting Magic Eels, some call this the "myth of disenchantment." 

All that to say, standing here in 2024 it's unclear how much Bonhoeffer would want to revisit his analysis about the "world come of age." He might want to take back some of his diagnosis, or at least give it some critical nuance, which would have some downstream impact upon his vision of a "religionless Christianity." As we ponder Bonhoeffer's enigmatic letters from prison, we need to keep this issue in mind: Bonhoeffer's sociological assessment of a "world come of age" might have been mistaken, or at least too narrow.

Having offered these caveats and pushing on, Bonhoeffer makes a really surprising move at this point. For Bonhoeffer, the "world come of age" is actually a really good thing. More, Christianity, to be Christian, needs the world to come of age. For only in the world come of age can Christians fully understand both God and the gospel.

We get a hint of this move in the June 8 letter. Bethge has us note how Bonhoeffer keeps placing "God" in parentheses. That is, what is being "pushed out of the world" is a false view of God. A religious (i.e., human) view of God. This is why Bonhoeffer is so frustrated in the June 8 letter (and elsewhere) with Christian apologetics. Such an apologetics is trying to protect and prop up a misconception about who God really is in the world today. In resisting the secularization of the world Christianity has clung to a heretical notion of God. Thus, it is only in embracing the world come of age where Christianity can fully discover the true nature God. In all this, the world come of age becomes a sort of midwife to the gospel.

So, how are we to embrace the world come of age? Bonhoeffer describes what this looks like in one of his most famous (and controversial) letters:

July 16, 1944

To Eberhard Bethge:

...And we cannot be honest unless we recognize that we have to live in the world etsi deus non daretur [translation: "as if there were no God"]. And this is just what we do recognize--before God! God himself compels us to recognize it. So our coming of age leads us to a true recognition of our situation before God. God would have us know that we must live as men who manage our lives without him. The God who is with us is the God who forsakes us (Mark 15:34). The God who lets us live in the world without the working hypothesis of God is the God before whom we stand continually. Before God and with God we live without God. God lets himself be pushed out of the world on to the cross. He is weak and powerless in the world, and that is precisely the way, the only way, in which he is with us and helps us. Matt. 8:17 makes it quite clear that Christ helps us, not by virtue of his omnipotence, but by virtue of his weakness and suffering.

The phrase etsi deus non daretur, living as if there were no God, is startling. More, Bonhoeffer asks for something rather strange: Before God and with God we live without God. What could this possibly mean?

What we are encountering here is the theologia crucis of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Theologia crucis is a term coined by Martin Luther to suggest that the true nature of God can only be ascertained in the crucifixion of Jesus. That is, if you ask the questions "Who is God?" or "Where is God?" or "What is God like?" the theologia crucis answers: "Look at Jesus on the cross." The cross is who God is, where God is found, and what God like. 

Recall the main question of the theological letters: Who is Christ for us today? Bonhoeffer answers with the theologia crucis. We see this very clearly in the July 16th letter. Right after the shocking "Before God and with God we live without God" the very next sentence picks up the theme of theologia crucis:

God lets himself be pushed out of the world on to the cross. He is weak and powerless in the world, and that is precisely the way, the only way, in which he is with us and helps us. Matt. 8:17 makes it quite clear that Christ helps us, not by virtue of his omnipotence, but by virtue of his weakness and suffering.

God is "weak" and "powerless." God "lets himself be pushed out of the world" and "on to the cross." God helps us in the world not through power ("omnipotence") but by "his weakness and suffering." In this we see how the world come of age is functioning as a midwife to the gospel. By pushing the false "Powerful God" out of the world the way becomes clear for the God revealed in the cross of Jesus. Thus, the July 16 letter continues:

...Man's religiosity makes him look in his distress to the power of God in the world: God is the deus ex machina. The Bible directs man to God's powerlessness and suffering; only the suffering God can help. To that extent we may say that the development towards the world's coming of age outlined above, which has done away with a false conception of God, opens up a way to seeing the God of the Bible, who wins power and space in the world by his weakness.

The world come of age kills off a "false conception of God" and this allows us to see the "God of the Bible, who wins power and space in the world by his weakness." This is how the world come of age acts as a midwife to the gospel. The "adulthood" of humanity has allowed us to dispose of a false conception of God, the Big Guy in the Sky, the deus ex machina, who swoops down to solve our problems or answer all mystery. This God has been kicked to the margins in the world come of age. And, for Bonhoeffer, this is a good thing for it allows us to see the God of the cross, the weak and powerless God here in the midst of us.

Key for Bonhoeffer is combatting the "other-worldliness" that a religious/false conception of God produces. Before the "world came of age," humanity looked to the sky and away from this world in seeking petitions and favors from a distant deity. Religion becomes other-worldly and Gnostic. God is found "outside of" or "beyond" this world. It's this other-worldliness that Bonhoeffer's religionless Christianity is trying to combat.

The world come of age helps here by denying other-worldliness, increasingly directing our attention toward "the secular," toward human life. And if you understand the incarnation and cross of Jesus, argues Bonhoeffer, this attention to human life is exactly where our attention should have been the entire time. We replace other-worldliness with the secular "this-worldliness" that Bonhoeffer speaks of over and over again in his letters. We find Christ in the "midst of life." In this secular world, we, as Christians, come to live before God and with God etsi deus non daretur.

What might that look like? As Bonhoeffer writes on July 18, Christians follow God into the world where we are "summoned to share in God's sufferings at the hands of the world." As God became radically available to the world and suffered for it, so the church becomes radically available to the world and suffers for it. And that's the crucial point. The dynamic we see in the world come of age is the same movement of the theologia crucis, a "this-worldly" focus that creates a radical availability to the world. 

The point in all this is that, yes, there is a "death of God" being spoken of in Bonhoeffer's theological letters. And there is a sense in which the secular world has marginalized God and made God irrelevant. But all this is, Bonhoeffer contends, some very good news, as it begins to clear the ground and position us to envision the true shape of the answer to the question: "Who is Christ for us today?"