The Radiant Faith of Dietrich Bonhoeffer (III)
Rose-Marie Barandiaran: is it not thanks to the “withdrawal of God” that man allows himself to be reached by him? Why, then, do we invoke him in our crises? Why do we separate the worldly from the sacred? Jesus was not a priest. He was simply human. If we take God’s sufferings seriously, if we watch with Jesus in Gethsemane, will that help us to be and remain Christians?
José Arregi: The metaphor of “retreat” or “withdrawal” is very evocative. But we cannot understand it either in the theistic sense (“God”, once he created the universe, he withdraws from it and will only intervene occasionally: miracles, revelation, incarnation…), or in the deistic sense (“God”, after creating, withdraws altogether and becomes a passive “idle God”, idea that can already be found in Aristotle and culminates in the illustrated deism of Voltaire, Rousseau and Montesquieu). The “withdrawal” of God metaphor should be rather interpreted in the sense of the tzintzum of the Jewish Kabbalah: creation means that the Infinite withdraws or “narrows” itself as the mother who “makes room” within herself for the creature growing with her. In our days this idea has been developed by authors such as, for example, the Rabbi Marc-Alain Ouaknin, the philosopher Hans Jonas (whose mother disappeared in Auschwitz) and the theologian Jürgen Moltmann. It is revealing that the Hebrew term bara, used in the Genesis account to mean “create”, means “to separate”. Create means “separate” in the sense of making room for…. give rise to. God creates the world as the sea creates the beach: by withdrawing, wrote Hölderlin the poet.
But this image of the divine withdrawal still easily evokes a dualist image, for the mother and the baby, like the sea and the beach, are two. God and the world are not two (neither one is made up of two parts, nor “one and the same” as opposed to two). God is –we cannot but use poor metaphors- the Heart of everything that is, the Bottom, the Fire, the Breath that inspires, the creativity that moves and interrelates everything… Thus, it makes no sense “to pray” so that “God” will come to our rescue. When we turn to the depth inside ourselves and compassionately lean over becoming neighbours to the wounded person, then we realize how divine we are, for God manifests itself and grows as the deepest worldly and human, as the best possibility in the world. God is not someone who can come to help us, but our deepest and most real self that we can awaken. That is how, an agnostic mystic, Etty Hillesum, 8 years younger than theologian Bonhoeffer, prayed at about the same time and in similar circumstances to his: “You cannot help me, but I will help you, my God. And it will be how you help me”
R.M.B.: I strive to understand: the infinite (and plural!) God contracts, withdraws, to make room for creation, makes a vaccuum, and that makes me think: “Earth was tohu and bohu, darkness above the abyss, but the breath of Elohim hovered over the waters” (Gen 1:2). We could add: the movement of the waves was getting ready to welcome “the otherness of the world”. When God withdrew, he left behind some emanations of his light which could be elements of mercy to which we could cling to build a better world. Man is not intrinsically good, but he could become good, it is an election. In my opinion this version is more interesting than that of the original sin and it gives a new meaning to the crucifixion of Jesus.
J.A.: Reality, all of it, is divine, in everything that realizes it for the common good. Jesus was divine in his compassionate, caring and committed humanity. The more humane we are, the more divine (free and good, good and happy, healthy and saved) we become.
Therefore, we cannot understand “God’s suffering” that Bonhoeffer talks about as the suffering of a “God” different from and external to the world; if we did, we would be returning to a crude dualist theism. The “suffering of God” is the suffering of the world in its heart –made of power and patience, of active hope, of action moved by the breath- the suffering of the world looking for its full realization of the common good.
That is how I understand the life of Jesus, image and foretaste (neither unique nor perfect) of the cosmic Christ to be fulfilled in all beings. This takes us beyond theism and deism, but also beyond positivist atheism.
R.M.B.: There was a time when the Church was all-powerful in almost all areas. Today, what would it take for the discourse of the Church to sound truthful? According to Dietrich, “power is contrary to conversion and purification”. Aren’t there other ways to live in wisdom and goodness?
J.A.: Bonhoeffer always wondered, particularly in his prison years, his final years, about the place of the Church in an a-religious world, and about the form it should adopt in this world. That is to say, about the form of the Church in its “adult age”. When it arrives, he states, “the face of the Church will have changed completely”. But he did not have time to specify and systematize the features of that adult form of the Church. Yet, the fundamental criteria to walk towards that adult realization are clear. For example:
1) It should quit considering itself “religiously privileged “, it should “belong fully to the world”; 2) It should quit presenting itself as a necessary mediator between God and society, humanity; 3) It should quit preaching the human necessity of God so that it can reaffirm the necessity of its religious services; 4) It should not look for its place where humanity fails, but “in the middle of the village”, like Jesus did, where the joys and dramas, the feasts and the struggles of the people occur; 5) It should quit offering doctrines, beliefs and norms, let alone pretending to monopolize truth and goodness; but on the contrary, it should offer a humble word and testimony over the Word of reconciliation, of mercy and liberation, and thus, infuse inspiration and courage to live; 6) It should speak about God in a different manner, “in a worldly manner”; 7) It should not worry about its own self-conservation as an institution, but about its profound transformation, and, above all, about the profound transformation of the world; 8) And the first condition: it should quit the register of power, domination and superiority; and for that, in its internal organization, all vestige of hierarchical clericalism (also present in Protestant and Anglican Churches, although they are much milder than in the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches) should disappear.
These fundamental criteria pose questions that the young imprisoned and executed theologian could not address either theoretically or practically. For example: in a world without religion and in an “a-religious Christianity”, for “a-religious” and “worldly” Christians, what would the ecclesial community, the parish, the temple, preaching and liturgy mean? What objectives could be proposed? What specific forms could they adopt? Should we perhaps do away with any community space for prayer and reflection, or any personal space for interiority and meditation inspired by the Christian tradition of “religious” and “theistic” imprint? These questions are alive even today, because Christians are social persons and every living community, like every living being, needs a form. These are not the most important questions, but are not trivial either for many Christians in transition towards an unknown land for traditional religions.
R.M.B.: What must the Church live by in order to be an authentic witness to the message of which she is the custodian? Dietrich even says that “the Church is really Church when she helps the non-religious”. “Christ can be the Lord of the non-religious”.
J.A.: I have questions and perplexities similar to the ones I have just formulated: what should the Church live on and for what purpose in an adult and “a-religious” world? Not even the Church herself can continue believing in a “tutor God”, or maintaining beliefs considered absurd today, or practicing strange medieval or millenary rites, or upholding obsolete moral norms (for example, in the areas of gender and sexual orientation, sexuality in general, the beginning and end of human life…). She cannot offer any of these if she wants to be salt, leaven and encouragement for the great majority of today’s women and men who are far from these beliefs and religious practices. Dietrich Bonhoeffer rightly wrote that religion (beliefs, rites and norms) is nothing more that a cultural, historical and dispensable clothing.
Today’s Christians, both as individuals and as a community, should abandon all letter that kills and live by the spirit which is breath, wideness and life. They should live the grace and liberation of Jesus’ Gospel, reread in today’s language and paradigms. And what they live by should be offered to everyone –whether Christians or not, religious or not- as sheer responsibility, without any feeling of superiority over anybody, receiving from others and offering to everyone the spirit, life, breath and inspiration for a personal and profound political transformation. The common life of humanity and the planet is at stake
For that, the Church can and should do away with all language and religious form that today lacks meaning, wherever it lacks meaning. But, in principle, there is no reason to disdain any source of inspiration, religious or lay –neither, therefore, Christian sources- because the profound inspiration and the water are the same. The Spirit breathes over all beings. One person may be inspired by Gregorian Chant or Bach, and another by Jazz or Dalida.
Should the Church do away with the Gospels, her foundational “myths” (Christ the healer, the Paschal Supper, the caring Cross, the resurrection of the Crucified, the universal Pentecost…), all her scriptures, symbols and rites? Not necessarily. Bonhoeffer himself, in spite of all the criticisms of religion and his insistence on the “a-religious” character of the world and of Christianity, not even before or after his arrest renounced to all forms and religious expressions of his faith in the “God the centre of reality” and in the “Christ of the non-religious”. In fact, on the scaffold, before the gallows, he knelt and prayed…
Whatever may be said, Jesus was religious and theist. But he taught that no “human tradition” should be above a human life (Mc 7,8) (and all beliefs, rites and norms are so). The only absolute thing for Jesus was deep trust, open communion, healing compassion, liberating solidarity, and being “for others”. And thus, he is also “Lord of the non-religious”: in no way does this mean that the non-religious are subjected to his power, but rather that they can also be inspired by him to lead a more caring and blessed life.
(To be continued)
Rose-Marie Barandiaran – José Arregi
(Published in GOLIAS Magazine 211, July-August 2023, pp. 26-29)
Translated by Mertxe de Renobales Scheifler