Theology of the Cross and the Death of God
apologetic on the adulthood of the world I consider pointless . . . ignoble . . . and unchristian.”98 It is within this depth of theological thought that Bonhoeffer can be claimed neither by a liberal/mainline nor a conservative/evangelical theological movement within the North American church. He critiques both equally, primarily for trying to find religious (read, “unbelief”) space for God in the world. From the conservative approach, the attempt is to “exploit man’s weakness for purposes that are alien to him and to which he has not freely assented . . . confusing Christ with one particular stage in man’s religiousness.”99 A neo-orthodoxy from Barth, while quite formative for Bonhoeffer, is critiqued as yet another way to create space for religion in the world through its renewal. Bonhoeffer finds no solution for a world come of age though the renewal of religion on earth. While Barth has provided biblical substance to fill in what Bonhoeffer didn’t receive from his reductionist liberal theological education, the critique of his mentor is “that in the nonreligious interpretation of theological concepts he gave no concrete guidance, either in dogmatics or in ethics. Therein lies the limitation, and because of it his [Barth’s] theology of revelation has become positivist.” 100 By “positivist” Bonhoeffer is here chiding Barth for opening the door to pit revelation entirely against natural reason in writing which extols the ordinary, this-worldliness of those who followed Jesus.101 Bultmann’s attempt to “correct” Barth’s “positivism of
98 Ibid., 327. 99 Ibid. 100 Ibid., 328. 101 Andreas Pangritz, Karl Barth in the Theology of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000), 75. 65