What is Absolute about Moral Absolutes?

Moral absolutism is often defined as a problem with ethical rigidity stemming from a particular interpretation of scripture. Unlike scriptural literalism, in which a literal interpretation that is broadly applied to the entire corpus of the Biblical witness does not exist due to the use of exaggeration or figurative speech, moral absolutism does exist, but often is a victim of ad hoc exceptions or philosophical problems, which makes its application as a broad-reaching approach more problematic.  

Moral absolutism of course seems good on the one hand. It creates a portrait of God whose work is perfect and irrepressible. It places the burden of faulty interpretations of scripture on the human being rather than problems of moral ambiguity on God. Moral absolutism is also an approach that is extracted from scripture rather than argued directly from scripture. It means that I can take a general position on a morally absolute interpretation of scripture rather than look for evidentiary warrant directly from scripture. For example, “Be perfect as I am perfect.”  Or in God there is no “shadow of turning.” Depending upon my understanding of libertarianism and deterministic thinking, I can do all sorts of things with these passages that do not necessarily impugn my approach to moral absolutes. I may, for example, examine how God “repented of his works” after destroying the world in Genesis, but I’m not obliged to read this as a flaw in his strategic planning. Perhaps I simply wanted to show the anthropocentric attention God gives to his creatures. Here,  we have removed the lens of moral absolutism entirely. We simply can blame ourselves for not knowing how to read the statement, instead of God for reneging on his perfect plans for creating a world that he did not anticipate would jeopardize the same through sin.

In other cases, however, the position of moral absolutism does not seem easily deflected. Moral absolutism is often bumped up against statements for which the commandment is complicated by other factors. Perhaps my friend asks me where his gun is. I learned last night that my friend wishes to take revenge on someone. I know where his gun is. When he comes to ask me, I have the opportunity to lie or to be honest. In fact, I hid it. Looking strictly at my situation using two prominent commandments, I find myself in a dilemma. If I lie, I break the commandment, but I might save the life of the person he is looking to harm. If I don’t lie and show him his gun, I do not break the commandment, however, now I might as well have broken another commandment as I will most likely become an accessory to murder.

May I offer a third option grounded in the academic theology of last century's ethical theorists: Moral absolutes are not about the commandment at all, but about my response.

The demand of the commandment is before me.  "Thou shalt not..." It is not the demand that requires obedience, but the demand that requires my response, which may or may not generate obedience. Obedience itself was a term used intentionally but with conscious redress against its more simplistic forms that throughout the history of Christian ethics affected its manifestation to "yes" and "no" reactions.


Think about it in terms of the nuances of law in the American judicial system. Laws in our country that allow us permission to self-defense differ from state to state and often involve a series of circumstances that can only be solved by carefully weighing the details.  There are certainly precedents, but ultimately anyone claiming self-defense as a motive for murder has to show any number of conditions have been satisfied, and even those details are often left to the determination by the jury or judge. What becomes absolute about a moral absolute? In this situation, it is not the law, but the response. One type of a response or any response?  If the command alone is a moral absolute, then there is little room for debating the details. It wouldn’t matter if a person struck me first, and I killed him. It wouldn’t matter if I didn’t see that person crossing the street. The moral absolute argument would dictate that the taking of a life is murder.

So is moral absolutism a term we should even use? Yes, but shifting the emphasis away from right action and to the act of action. What is absolute about a moral absolute is not the demand but my response. My response is an absolute in so far as it is a moral orientation to God - for better or worse. Given my contingent being, God does not need to demand anything of me in his commandment. As Kierkegaard writes, such a situation would undoubtedly make the commandment "higher than the individual." When, however, I acknowledge that even as far as the boundaries of my life extend, God is a necessity that draws in my contingency, my response becomes my trajectory. The content or context of my response is not what is in contention, but rather that I respond. When I am lukewarm, failing to respond, like the church in Revelation, I am “spit out of his mouth.”

Remember Abraham and God?

“I will destroy these cities because they have sinned.”

“Lord, please reconsider?”

“Remember Jacob and the angel?”

“I will not let you go until you bless me.”

Jacob and Abraham’s answers suggest that what is more important than God’s sovereign intervention is that his intervention always comes with the effect of soliciting my response, not a “right response.” After all, what confidence do we have in our flesh? writes Paul. The expediency of Jesus making his followers righteous means that the focus on the commandment’s rightness or wrongness is not as important as God loving the world to send his only Son.  This is the lesson of Luther, of Bonhoeffer, of Kierkegaard.  This is why these men started first with the human-divine relationship, before addressing the legal repercussions of the sin. This is why Luther could say beyond all other commandments, the greatest moral order was faith - the confidence of standing before God and saying your "yes" or "no."

The Passion of Dietrich Bonhoeffer: A Creative Meditation on the Anniversary of his Death

It may be perfunctory that on the anniversary of the death of one of the most influential Western theologians of our time one is expected to talk about that fateful day. I would like instead to focus on the events leading up to that day first – a sort of passion narrative that follows a logic similar to that of Jesus’ own death.  Such an exercise will require some creative license to get us from the Via Dolorosa and the cross to the road that led to the Flossenbürg concentration camp and vice versa. This is one way we make tangible those events lost to time and space, and in accessing memory, which is a type of reconstruction of events, we project back into the story our own questions, answers, and expectations, creating the possibility of personal meaning where there is none, so that meaning becomes an existential possibility rather than merely a static imposition of the details.

Ash mound in Flossenbürg CC (what Eberhard Bethge referred to as a pyramid).
Dietrich Bonhoeffer's own ashes  were most likely deposited here along
with many others who were cremated on the premises after execution.

Today, April 9, 2016, marks seventy-one years since the execution of Dietrich Bonhoeffer by the Nazis on the charge of high treason.  Much of the information we have pertaining to the execution come from seasoned Bonhoeffer biographers like Eberhard Bethge, although others have contributed in recent years.

In his account of those days leading up to that execution, a number of men were tried for high treason and conspiratorial activities, stemming from work in the Abwehr and documents that were uncovered. Bonhoeffer’s name was found among the conspirators.

Upon receiving more evidence of conspiracy from SS General Ernst Kaltenbrunner, Adolf Hitler probably ordered him to liquidate Hans von Dohnanyi, Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, and his co-conspirators, which included Bonhoeffer.

At that same time the leading priests and elders were meeting at the residence of Caiaphas, the high priest, plotting how to capture Jesus secretly and kill him. “But not during the Passover celebration,” they agreed, “or the people may riot.” – Matthew 26:3-5

In the days closely leading up to Bonhoeffer’s execution, all who were to be tried as double agents, traitors, and resistors were present and accounted for with one exception. Bonhoeffer somehow had managed to slip between the cracks. The transport that was supposed to take him to Flossenbürg kept moving south.  Inside the prison, the night of April 5, 1945, the list of those to be executed was not adding up.  Accusations flew between prisoners who had been informed of the up-and-coming proceedings. “But you are Bonhoeffer!” At least three men were misidentified that evening, and it very well could have cost them their lives.

A servant girl noticed him in the firelight and began staring at him. Finally she said, “This man was one of Jesus’ followers! But Peter denied it. “Woman,” he said, “I don’t even know him! After a while someone else looked at him and said, “You must be one of them! No, man, I’m not!” Peter retorted. About an hour later someone else insisted, “This must be one of them, because he is a Galilean, too.” But Peter said, “Man, I don’t know what you are talking about.” And immediately, while he was still speaking, the rooster crowed.  – Luke 22: 56-60

Meanwhile, the convoy, known to us only by the label of the man leading the procession, an SS prison official by the name of Gogalla, would eventually stop in Schönberg.

They brought Jesus to the place Golgotha (which means ‘the place of the skull’) – Mark 15:22

Bonhoeffer was here, held up with friends from the convoy in a school. Though the men were suffering, they were able to support one another, to look out over a green mountain valley and see the countryside.

Jesus crossed the Kidron Valley with his disciples and entered a grove of olive trees.  Judas, the betrayer, knew this place, because Jesus had often gone there with his disciples. The leading priests and Pharisees had given Judas a contingent of Roman soldiers and Temple guards to accompany him. Now with blazing torches, lanterns, and weapons, they arrived at the olive grove. – John 18:1-3

Bonhoeffer had the opportunity to lead a hastily put together Mass that day among his fellow prisoners in a school room where they were resting and waiting for the next step in their extradition. Most of the men were Roman Catholics, with Vassily Kokorin being the only one who was an atheist of whom Bonhoeffer was fond and took the time earlier in the day to practice speaking Russian. When all had agreed to the Mass, Bonhoeffer decided to read from the prophet Isaiah.

The scroll of Isaiah the prophet was handed to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where this was written:

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
for he has anointed me to bring Good News to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim that captives will be released,
that the blind will see,
that the oppressed will be set free,
and that the time of the Lord’s favor has come.”

He rolled up the scroll, handed it back to the attendant, and sat down. All eyes in the synagogue looked at him intently. Then he began to speak to them. “The Scripture you’ve just heard has been fulfilled this very day!” – Luke 4: 17-21

Once the extradition was under way and Bonhoeffer was back in Flossenbürg, his trial was characteristically quick, as it was important to eliminate any trace of political prisoners to disguise the dubious practices of the Nazi death machine.  A farce of a trial transpired on April 8, 1945, with Dr. Otto Thorbeck pronouncing death on the conspirators, such were those who would destroy the German Reich and its people, who were expressly insubordinate to the will of the people and the national Zeitgeist. All were sentenced without the benefit of proper witnesses, testimonies, or documentation. The trial, for all intents and purposes, was an insubstantial shadow of justice.

Then the people who had arrested Jesus led him to the home of Caiaphas, the high priest, where the teachers of religious law and the elders had gathered. Meanwhile, Peter followed him at a distance and came to the high priest’s courtyard. He went in and sat with the guards and waited to see how it would all end. Inside, the leading priests and the entire high council were trying to find witnesses who would lie about Jesus, so they could put him to death. But even though they found many who agreed to give false witness, they could not use anyone’s testimony. Finally, two men came forward  who declared, “This man said, ‘I am able to destroy the Temple of God and rebuild it in three days.’” Then the high priest stood up and said to Jesus, “Well, aren’t you going to answer these charges? What do you have to say for yourself?” But Jesus remained silent. Then the high priest said to him, “I demand in the name of the living God—tell us if you are the Messiah, the Son of God.” Jesus replied, “You have said it. And in the future you will see the Son of Man seated in the place of power at God’s right hand and coming on the clouds of heaven.” Then the high priest tore his clothing to show his horror and said, “Blasphemy! Why do we need other witnesses? You have all heard his blasphemy. What is your verdict? Guilty!” they shouted. “He deserves to die!” – Matthew 26: 57-66

There was general anxiety among the high command that soon Germany would be overthrown and discussions about surrender were underway. There were attempts to spare certain political prisoners as a gesture of goodwill. Others, who could potential reveal damning evidence, needed to be eliminated. Though Bonhoeffer did not make this list, others like Martin Niemöller and Austrian Chancellor Kurt Alois Josef Johann Schushnigg, did, as those like Heinrich Himmler felt sparing such prisoners could save face with the Alliance and spare them the punishment of international law they rightly deserved. Those prisoners who were thought to be "political capital" were perhaps useful to exonerate anyone whose actions in judicial and leadership roles could be perceived as inhumane.

Meanwhile, the leading priests and the elders persuaded the crowd to ask for Barabbas to be released and for Jesus to be put to death. So the governor asked again, “Which of these two do you want me to release to you?” The crowd shouted back, “Barabbas!” Pilate responded, “Then what should I do with Jesus who is called the Messiah?” They shouted back, “Crucify him!” – Matthew 27: 20-22.

There are variations on the story of how Bonhoeffer died.

On the moment of his death Eberhard Bethge records the word of the camp doctor:  “I saw Pastor Bonhoeffer... kneeling on the floor praying fervently to God. I was most deeply moved by the way this lovable man prayed, so devout and so certain that God heard his prayer. At the place of execution, he again said a short prayer and then climbed the few steps to the gallows, brave and composed. His death ensued after a few seconds. In the almost fifty years that I worked as a doctor, I have hardly ever seen a man die so entirely submissive to the will of God.”

When the Roman officer who stood facing him saw how he had died, he exclaimed, “This man truly was the Son of God!” – Mark 15:39

However, these words and testimony have been challenged in more recent times. Noting a number of reasons, scholars today do not believe Bonhoeffer died with the resolve of a romanticized stoic, keeping his wits about him, in silence or serenity, concretizing his place in the annals of martyrdoms, but rather in pain and agony. Ferdinand Schlingensiepen’s version of what happened during those moments appears credible. He indicates that the individual in charge of executions was also given the nefarious task of keeping the hanged victims alive long enough for them to experience unnecessary torture and pain.  Such a sight clearly evokes the Jesus of Matthew rather than Luke:  

At noon, darkness fell across the whole land until three o’clock. 46 At about three o’clock, Jesus called out with a loud voice, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” which means “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?” – Matthew 27: 45-46

And so we are faced with a Bonhoeffer who offers competing portraits as well - One who was stalwart in the face of death, or silent, or like many before him died in the fullness of pain and suffering.  In any case we are met by the man where the final words on his life were also challenged, who remains more controversial than we give him credit and yet remains part of our ritual veneration of men and women who braved harrowing circumstances to testify to Jesus.