Paul Tillich and Hinduism: A Short Reflection

When Paul Tillich introduced the concept of the “God beyond God,” a famous phrase found in his two volume Systematic Theology, there was legitimate excitement again about the prospects of a Christian philosophy alongside the work already being done by such heavyweights as Karl Barth. This phrase referred to the idea that above and beyond the anthropomorphic representations of the god who finds his way into the narratives of Judeo-Christian scripture, there was a god-principle that exists as the ground of all being. This god was the formless, timeless reality, to quote Thomas Aquinas “whose essence was existence itself.” In this sense, any God formed below this philosophically rooted god was inferior in nature and scope. He was subject to passions and moral deficiencies, a point borne out in scripture where Yahweh regularly shows such emotions as anger, sorrow, and even love.

For Tillich, however, this lower stratum of godhood was an essential concept as well, primarily because like Barth, he believed that the God beyond God was radically transcendent in a way that made human communion impossible with such a reality. The intermediary of “God in the flesh” was consummated then in the person of Jesus Christ. While the God of the Hebrew bible was certainly similar in form and function to the Greek gods or any other god, the prospect of Jesus made possible God in the fullness of time (kairos) through the fullness of man. If humanity had any chance of penetrating God, it was through the formal witness of Christ.

The concept, however innovative, in as far as Christianity was making use of philosophy, was hardly new to religious reflection. Hinduism had for thousands of years, for example in the laws of Manu and the Vedas Samhitas, made the distinction between Brahma, an anthropomorphic god with four arms and four heads, posturing as the head of the trideva godhead in Hinduism against the life force of all existence known as Brahman. In this latter concept, Brahman is the existential unity of all reality and the efficient and final cause of all that is and all that exists, even Brahma himself. Brahman subsumed into itself Brahma in the same way Tillich asserted that God as the ground of being subsumed into himself the God of the bible. Perhaps most notable is that scholars believe the concept of Brahman developed about a thousand years earlier than the anthropomorphic stories of Brahma. In Christianity, because the concept of God as the reality of all being appears outside the more practical interventionist language of an anthropomorphic God in the bible, the former is often seen as a late, if not uninspired, addition to the tradition. This is one reason why you won’t find much teaching on it without a heavy capitulation to the anthropomorphic tradition. Unlike Hinduism where philosophical schools flourished outside the bhakti worship traditions of India, Christianity’s philosophical tradition was often remanded to the university and left out of the church. Today in India, you may be lucky to find a handful of temples to Brahma despite his prominence in the Hindu pantheon. Given these differences in development, it is interesting to note that the latter tradition gets less attention in the practical and day-to-day experience of the two religions.

Seven Provocative Portraits of Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Few theologians have been more venerated by generations of well-meaning seminary students, doting pastors, and laymen than Dietrich Bonhoeffer. The idea that Bonhoeffer easily translates into our modern worldview seems to ignore the fact that since his passing 72 years ago, both secular culture and Christianity have evolved in unexpected ways. As time pushes forward, the portrait of Bonhoeffer we create looks less like the aristocrat of mid-20^th century Germany and more like an evangelical Lutheran from the United States complete with contemporary sensibilities and an acute perceptiveness regarding the tension between secular and sacred worldviews.

But like all historical biographies, the Bonhoeffer of history is not immune to embellishment, and it is left to theologians and historians to establish his proper place on our world stage. So I wanted to offer seven portraits of Bonhoeffer in hopes that a more humanizing account of this great figure will emerge to lend us personal encouragement even as we deal with our own moral imperfections. Even if you don’t agree that all of these portraits rise to the level of moral offense or you believe that some underlying teleology shapes their justifications, perhaps there is something in the following pages that relates to your own struggles in trying to live up to an ideal that has so often eluded even the most diligent among us. Christianity is not an ideal, but a way of life that offers deep reflection into the morass of human frailty. Understanding like Paul that we see through a glass darkly in our present condition reminds us that faith is the center of one’s profession and not peripheral to a book of laws or rules that often appear ambiguous in the complicated nature of life’s many trials. And as we look at the person of Bonhoeffer, it helps to meditate on own words that capture this sentiment precisely: “Whenever a man in a position of weakness – physical or social or moral or religious weakness – is aware of his existence with God, he shares God’s life.”

Bullfighting

Forms of entertainment that involve the involuntary participation of animals have been met with outright scorn in our time. From dog racing to the highly publicized closure of the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey circus, it seems that wherever we go, protections against animal cruelty have moved us towards a heightened sensitivity in our interactions with our animal neighbors. In his early days travelling around Europe, Bonhoeffer spent time in Barcelona and Madrid where he came across the spectacle of bullfighting with his brother Klaus, who, from what we gather, was an immediate convert to the sport. From his journal entries, Bonhoeffer appears to have been enamored by the spectacle, characterizing the action as a mythic struggle between man and beast.

“I cannot truly say that I was horrified by it as many people think they ought to be because of their Central European civilization. It is, after all, a tremendous thing, savage, uninhibited brute force and blind fury attacking and being defeated by disciplined courage, presence of mind and skill.”

The growing outrage against such forms of entertainment in our day leaves us to wonder how Bonhoeffer might have reacted in response to such things had he been privy to the same secularly influenced push towards ending wanton violence against animals. The journal entry at least hints at the fact that there was outrage, but it was an outrage that unfortunately Bonhoeffer did not share at that moment in history.

Standing to Salute the Nazi Flag

There is an abundance of anecdotal information about Bonhoeffer that comes from friends who survived him. Eberhard Bethge, who was largely responsible for making Bonhoeffer a household name in the West, tells the story of how the two of them were in a café in Memel when the news that France had surrendered to Germany in 1940 reached their ears. As the Germans gathered there stood to perform the Nazi salute, Bethge and Bonhoeffer could have remained seated. It would have been their “Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego” moment and would have been a grand symbolic gesture with regard to the escalating tension within the population of Germans who secretly resisted Nazism. But Bonhoeffer, who on the surface looked to be acting more like Peter than Jesus, quickly scolded Bethge. Asking him first if he was crazy, he told his friend that the salute was the least of their concerns.

Most of those reading Bonhoeffer who have already forgiven him before they ever get to such accounts, have trouble making sense of such moral dilemmas. It is easy to release Bonhoeffer from such indiscretions when history is in the rear window. Yet in the moment, Bethge’s concern for taking a bold stand in the face of evil was met with Bonhoeffer’s own careful inaction. He encouraged his friend that there would be a moment for resistance, but now was the time to keep up appearances. How many of us would know when such a time should come? Bonhoeffer was not a seer but a hopeful actor in play that he did not know how it would end.

Drinking and Smoking

It is no secret that in Bonhoeffer’s own German culture there was an acceptance of drinking and smoking, and he often enjoyed a good drink and cigarette. While more puritanical diatribes and even secular pushback have turned cigarettes into outlaw paraphernalia, and churches in the United States are in general coy about open-armed acceptance of drinking, Charles Marsh notes that Bonhoeffer came from a “nation of smokers,” and Ferdinand Schlingensiepen reminds us how Bonhoeffer would carry on conversations with his student “amid clouds of cigarette smoke.” Bonhoeffer’s creature comforts are often overshadowed by more robust attention on his theology and self-discerning social action. But in Germany today, it’s not odd to find a church event where drinking remains part of the normal course of festivities. For the American Evangelical Protestant wing elevating Bonhoeffer as a model of righteousness and personal sacrifice, these facts tend to be inconvenient outliers. Yet throughout his short life, alcohol and smoking, were never far from the pastor and theologian.

Refusing to Conduct a Church Service for Fear of Offending an Atheist

In a day when some Christians are doggedly fighting to return prayer to public schools, the idea that Bonhoeffer would actually consider rejecting a request for an impromptu service for fear he would offend the only atheist in the room seems to send the wrong kind of message. Furthermore, when every impulse is measured by a life exhausted for the sake of the gospel, when those with a mind towards salvation picture every encounter as a possible non-repeatable singularity in the space-time continuum, when one missed chance to evangelize could be the difference between damnation and salvation for the person being considered, Bonhoeffer’s act appears as an uneven ripple in a non-negotiable mandate: Go out into all the world and preach the gospel. Making matters worse, the incident in question occurred as Bonhoeffer and his companions were in the final leg of their journey towards their own executions. How many of those men might have benefited from some hardy words of encouragement? To complicate matters, Bonhoeffer was teaching Wasily Wasiliew Kokorin the fundamentals of Christianity in exchange for Russian lessons. So knowing that Kokorin knew Bonhoeffer was a Christian, why would Bonhoeffer be concerned that Kokorin would refuse him the conviction of his faith and that of his comrades’ faith? The next time you are in church, imagine your pastor stopping the service out of respect for someone who accidentally wonders into the church because he disagrees with the message.

Contemplating Suicide

During Bonhoeffer’s imprisonment, which was no doubt as harsh as it was isolating for a man who was a communal Christian in both his pastoral and theological life, suicide weighed heavy on his mind. At the time of the writing of his unfinished magnum opus, Ethics, and with the deterioration of the Confessing Church, Bonhoeffer was struggling with the question of how the Christ of the Church becomes the foundation for Christ in the World. As he writes, “God embraces the whole reality of the world in this narrow space and reveals its ultimate foundation. So also the church of Jesus Christ is the place…in the world where the reign of Jesus Christ over the whole world is not to be demonstrated or proclaimed.” This was a man whose intellectual challenges were not mental abstractions but concrete lenses through which to view the practical problems of the day. This may give us some insight into why evangelism to his atheist friend wasn’t the first thing on his mind as they were being moved between prisons. But prison was as difficult for Bonhoeffer as everyone else. And despite the long-standing prohibition on suicide in major religious denominations, Bonhoeffer’s own words scribbled down as notes haunt us: “Suicide, not out of a sense of guilt, but because I am practically dead already, the closing of the book, sum total.” The editorial note in the afterword of the Letters and Papers from Prison where this note is mentioned makes an attempt to save face, but even the removal and replacement of a few words does not undo the feeling of despair recorded here, nor the moral stigma often attached to this final act.

Views on the Place of Women

Liberals who embrace Bonhoeffer as a kindred spirit are sometimes unaware of the rift he causes with one of their more faithful allies:  Feminists. Scholars of feminist theology, who have taken the time to read Bonhoeffer, come away with a view of a man who was patriarchal in his views and a product of his time. Judith Plaskow minces no words when she calls Bonhoeffer’s statements on marriage “appalling.” Much of the venom comes from Bonhoeffer’s “Wedding Sermon from a Prison Cell” written for his friend Eberhard Bethge and sister Renate Bethge. The sermon has become a soft target because of Bonhoeffer’s advice to his own sister about occupying her place as a subordinate under his friend. For someone supposedly on the cusp of European progressive sensibility, who was concerned an atheist would be offended by the Christian message and defended the radical theologian Rudolf Bultmann when his contemporaries shuddered at his theological conclusions, this violation of conduct appears hard to reconcile with his perceived open-mindedness on other issues, such as his advocacy towards the Jewish population of Germany.  

Participating in the Murder of a World Leader

For those who know Bonhoeffer or have gleaned a short summary of his life’s work, this is no doubt the event with which they are most acquainted, and surprisingly the one they seem most willing to forgive. It certainly appears to be Karl Barth’s opinion in Church Dogmatik that Bonhoeffer’s act of resistance was an in extremis decision, the kind that at certain times and under severe duress becomes inescapable. This conclusion appears to have been upheld by decades of well-meaning Christians despite the fact that a year after Adolf Hitler’s death, Bonhoeffer was not memorialized in Berlin and still treated as a traitor by those in the German Lutheran church for his involvement and knowledge of plans to assassinate der Führer. The question of whether murder is the proper category for someone posing a threat to human civilization was an idea worked out in Bonhoeffer’s more sophisticated writing, and he settles on more existentially layered words like “destruction” and “guilt” to speak of the act. Nevertheless, the taking of a human life against the commandment “thou shalt not kill,” produced an anxiety in Bonhoeffer’s writings and personal interactions that at times can be felt vividly and clearly. 

While most of the actions listed above do not represent some moral crucible in which a life and death decision needed resolution, in some cases, these examples found in the information we have about Bonhoeffer reflect the foggy territory of moral decision making in general and help us to appreciate why continental theologians writing at the time put such an emphasis on faith as an existential experience between God and man. We often do not have the luxury of pre-packaged answers even when the commandments are in our hands. We find ourselves often stumbling through the uncertainty of our decisions and the anxious nature of reflecting on their aftermath. But in each situation, Bonhoeffer’s famous line resonates before us: “Who is Jesus for us today?” We can’t simply look at Bonhoeffer and decide that he did what he thought was right. Bonhoeffer’s actions are a call for us to examine our own actions, no matter the seriousness, and ask ourselves if we are in keeping with Christ. Bonhoeffer’s theological method is one that prizes faith above moral platitudes. Moral certainty shuns the existential anxiety of being alone with our decisions, but in doing so it undermines the quality of personal faith. For what need is there of faith, if the answers are already laid out before us? Like a great banquet from which we have limitless decisions, so Bonhoeffer’s life was fraught with a future whose only anchor was the knowledge that his relationship with Jesus was made new for him each day.

Bonhoeffer is one of those rare gems in the Church who found the opportunity to blend meaningful theology with necessary action. In looking at these portraits, we can see which aspects that Church tradition has chosen to ignore and the way it has chosen to remember Bonhoeffer. In recovering some of these portraits, we humanize Bonhoeffer once again, and grant ourselves the mercy and patience we so mercifully grant him.