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Four Book Reviews

In Dietrich BonhoefferÆs (1955) Ethics, we are privy to the authorÆs depiction of Nazi Germany. In the book, Bonhoeffer provides a philosophical discussion of the relationship between the individualÆs duty to self and the state. For his resistance to Nazism, Bonhoeffer was imprisoned and lost his life, unable to finish Ethics completely. However, his discussion of ethics focuses on the complex issue for the individual for determining when he or she has a higher duty to follow GodÆs law than state law. This knowledge of when to obey God over all is the only way to connect with others, ôIt is only in the unity of his knowledge of God that he knows of other men, of things, and of himselfö (Bonhoeffer, 1955, p. 21). Despite the complexity of the issue, Bonhoeffer contends that he was acting out of faithfulness to God in his resistance to Nazism more than those who obeyed the corrupt state.

One of BonhoefferÆs main contentions is that his resistance to Nazi authority exhibits much greater moral clarity than the actions of Germans who worshipped and obeyed the state without question. Bonhoeffer contends that LutherÆs doctrine of two kingdoms helps explain the blind obedience to the state exhibited by many Germans. For Luther argued that the state and its rules are required to help undermine manÆs capacity for evil. Luther encouraged believers to faithfully obey the state and its rules unless they were forced to deny their faith. As such, Bonhoeffer argues that such Germans abandoned and violated their faith in obeying the state against the moral prescriptions of God. In his discussion of the doctrine of the Primus Usus Legis, Bonhoeffer (1995) explains, ôThe believer, however, without compulsion and willingly, if he has been born again, does what no threat of the law could ever force from himö (p. 300).

Like Martin Luther King, Jr. and Gandhi, Bonhoeffer contends that in a corrupt state one must obey a higher l...

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Four Book Reviews. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 09:38, March 28, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1711510.html