Letters and Papers From Prison (47 page)

But first, a little more about the historical position. The question is: Christ and the world that has come of age. The weakness of liberal theology was that it conceded to the world the right to determine Christ’s place in the world; in the conflict between the church and the world it accepted the comparatively easy terms of peace that the world dictated. Its strength was that it did not try to put the clock back, and that it genuinely accepted the battle (Troeltsch), even though this ended with its defeat.

Defeat was followed by surrender, and by an attempt to make a completely fresh start based on the fundamentals of the Bible and the Reformation. Heim sought, along pietist and methodist lines, to convince the individual man that he was faced with the alternative ‘despair or Jesus’. He gained ‘hearts’. Althaus (carrying forward the modern and positive line with a strong confessional emphasis) tried to wring from the world a place for Lutheran teaching (ministry) and Lutheran worship, and otherwise left the world to its own devices. Tillich set out to interpret the evolution of the world (against its will) in a religious sense - to give it its shape through religion. That was very brave of him, but the world unseated him and went on by itself; he, too, sought to understand the world better than it understood itself; but it felt that it was
completely misunderstood, and rejected the imputation. (Of course, the world
must
be understood better than it understands itself, but not ‘religiously’ as the religious socialists wanted.)

Barth was the first to realize the mistake that all these attempts (which were all, in fact, still sailing, though unintentionally, in the channel of liberal theology) were making in leaving clear a space for religion in the world or against the world. He brought in against religion the God of Jesus Christ,
‘pneuma
against
sarx’
That remains his greatest service (his
Epistle to the Romans,
second edition, in spite of all the neo-Kantian egg-shells). Through his later dogmatics, he enabled the church to effect this distinction, in principle, all along the line. It was not in ethics, as is often said, that he subsequently failed - his ethical observations, as far as they exist, are just as important as his dogmatic ones-; it was that in the non-religious interpretation of theological concepts he gave no concrete guidance, either in dogmatics or in ethics. There lies his limitation, and because of it his theology of revelation has become positivist, a positivism of revelation’, as I put it.

The Confessing Church has now largely forgotten all about the Barthian approach, and has lapsed from positivism into conservative restoration. The important thing about that church is that it carries on the great concepts of Christian theology; but it seems as if doing this is gradually just about exhausting it. It is true that there are in those concepts the elements of genuine prophecy (among them two things that you mention: the claim to truth, and mercy) and of genuine worship; and to that extent the Confessing Church gets only attention, hearing, and rejection. But both of them remain undeveloped and remote, because there is no interpretation of them. Those who, like e.g. Schütz or the Oxford Group or the Berneucheners, miss the ‘movement’ and the ‘life’, are dangerous reactionaries; they are reactionary because they go right back behind the approach of the theology of revelation and seek for ‘religious’ renewal. They simply haven’t understood the problem at all yet, and their talk is entirely beside the point. There is no future for them (though the Oxford Group would have the best chance if they were not so completely without biblical substance).

Bultmann seems to have somehow felt Barth’s limitations, but
he misconstrues them in the sense of liberal theology, and so goes off into the typical liberal process of reduction - the ‘mythological’ elements of Christianity are dropped, and Christianity is reduced to its ‘essence’. - My view is that the full content, including the ‘mythological’ concepts, must be kept - the New Testament is not a mythological clothing of a universal truth; this mythology (resurrection etc.) is the thing itself - but the concepts must be interpreted in such a way as not to make religion a precondition of faith (cf. Paul and circumcision). Only in that way, I think, will liberal theology be overcome (and even Barth is still influenced by it, though negatively) and at the same time its question be genuinely taken up and answered (as is
not
the case in the Confessing Church’s positivism of revelation!). Thus the world’s coming of age is no longer an occasion for polemics and apologetics, but is now really better understood than it understands itself, namely on the basis of the gospel and in the light of Christ.

Now for your question whether there is any ‘ground’ left for the church, or whether that ground has gone for good; and the other question, whether Jesus didn’t use men’s ‘distress’ as a point of contact with them, and whether therefore the ‘methodism’ that I criticized earlier isn’t right.

9 June

I’m breaking off here, and will write more tomorrow. A letter to Maria also has to go off. Many thanks
for
your greeting of 6 June, so shortly before your departure … The Bultmann letter went several weeks ago to Italy (shortly before you left). I expect that you will find it there … By the way, if we’re talking about ‘roles’, yours is undoubtedly much more difficult, and I was very glad that you were going into the future so cheerfully and bravely. In short, it was very splendid for both of us to be together and I can’t imagine that anything will change in the years that are to come. That is a real possession, perhaps acquired slowly and laboriously, but how worthwhile have been all the sacrifices that we have made for it!

That’s all. All the very, very best. I’m thinking of you faithfully and with gratitude.

Ever your Dietrich

From Eberhard Bethge

In the train, 8 June 1944

Dear Dietrich,

I was very surprised to get another letter from you with the verses. I find in them once again the compactness of your style, the clarity with which you say a thing and some very vivid imagery.

I wonder what Maria will say to it? Is the conclusion perhaps too short for others, as you yourself fear? … I wonder whether you oughtn’t to find a more ‘propitious’ title if you give it to her. In other words, you oughtn’t to send her just this, or only something in this tenor. You express yourself so vividly and compel-lingly in the poem that one might feel (and she certainly can’t read it objectively) that you were alone in the situation. You certainly are, but you also live, feel and think in other dimensions - and in a very lively way …

It’s so easy for those who are near to a person to react painfully and sensitively to any work he may produce of this kind. But my immediate reaction was one of great joy and wonderment … I shall be getting out at Munich and have the break of journey certified. They must have the latest news of the new position in Munich, at Theresienstrasse,
⁵³
because of radio links, etc. Perhaps they will also give me a military pass to cover all eventualities, so that I don’t get whisked off.

Evening

I’m now lying in white sheets once again at the Europäische Hof and living once again on your connections. The same sister always sits in reception; she had a couch prepared for me because they were flail up.

Friday morning, early

This morning I spoke to Renate on the telephone and heard that all was going well. There’s another letter there. A pity that it came a day too late. Now I’ll have to wait longer for it. I wonder whether it’s the one with the Bultmann thing? … With loyal thoughts,

your Eberhard

From Eberhard Bethge

[Munich] 16 june 1944
Friday

Dear Dietrich,

Before I finally leave the country, one quick letter … The attempt of that place that you know to find my unit took a marvellously long time. It was unsuccessful, so I must find other ways of achieving my end …

The best thing of all was that Renate was able to come, with the help of my parents and Barbel. And thanks to your person, the Europäische Hof was very helpful and generous about everything that one needed. This time parting was more horrible for me, as I returned to the room and had to wait almost the whole day. The departing train and an over-full carriage are more merciful. Then this evening came the OKW report of the flying-bomb attacks on England.
⁵⁴
One can’t envisage them at all. What immediate effects, what further consequences? Anxiety; will you feel any? … When I arrive, I hope that I shall find post there before too long. Greetings and loyal thoughts,

your Eberhard

Notes
⁵⁵

[End of June 1944]

‘God’ - is not a demonstrable entity

‘Hades’ - what has been

‘Man’ - not a beast

Dionysus - not Homeric

‘He who has thought most deeply, loves most vigorously’

Hölderlin on Socrates/Alcibiades

Human form - animal form unspiritual, tremendous, boundless against the world of care, the longings that cannot be stilled, the delight in death. Against the trend towards the
supernatural
as
hubris.
Therefore ‘instead of a symbol for the absolute, instead of bewildering monstrosity, the perfect human form’.

Guilt and freedom,
not the humility of putting the blame on oneself, but the alternative of knowing that one is not the only cause of what has happened.

‘Ye gods, to meet again, then, is a God!’ (Helen and Menelaus)

The divine not in absolutes, but in the natural form of man.

‘Theomorphism, not anthropomorphism’ (Goethe)

No self-revelation of the gods. Apollo reveals ‘the right’, but not himself.

To Eberhard Bethge

[Tegel] 21 June [1944]

Dear Eberhard,

Many thanks for your last letter from Munich before your departure. I can imagine that returning to the empty room was a wrench. But once again it was unexpectedly splendid that you had another couple of days together. You must have been very pleased that everything happened so conveniently to make it possible for you. Now you’re somewhere looking for your unit, and I hope that when you reach it you will find some letters there to greet you - assuming that your old field post number is still correct. All I want to do today is to send you a greeting. I daren’t
endose the next instalment of theological argument, or any poetry, as I don’t know whether the old field post number will still get you. As soon as I hear about that, there will be some more to follow. I’m very grateful for your opinion and criticism of the poem. I hardly know yet what to make of these new children of mine, as I’ve no standard to judge them by. I think that you’re quite right in all your criticisms. But I’m rather in despair at being able to find anything else for the verse ‘And a new thing now I hear’ that doesn’t destroy the whole construction of the last verse. Still, perhaps an idea will occur to me.

This morning we had the worst of all the air raids so far. For several hours my room was so dark with the cloud of smoke that hung over the city that I almost switched the light on. I’ve just heard that all is well at home. I expect that Renate is continuing to stay in Sakrow with the little boy; she could do any shopping that she needed in Potsdam. Nothing has happened there yet. I’m not pleased that my parents are coming back at just this moment. They, too, ought to go to Sakrow for the time being. I’m very confident and assured about the use of our new weapon.
⁵⁶

It often seems hard to have to spend the beautiful long summer days here for the second time; but one just can’t choose where one has to be. So we must keep on trying to find our way through the petty thoughts that irritate us, to the great thoughts that strengthen us. - I’m at present reading the quite outstanding book by W. F. Otto, the classics man at Königsberg,
The Gods of Greece.
To quote from his closing words, it’s about ‘this world of faith, which sprang from the wealth and depth of human existence, not from its cares and longings’. Can you understand my finding something very attractive in this theme and its treatment, and also -
horribile dictu
- my finding these gods, when they are so treated, less offensive than certain brands of Christianity? In fact, that I almost think I could claim these gods for Christ? The book is most helpful for my present theological reflections. By the way, there’s a good deal about Cardano in Dilthey.

Good-bye for today. I’m waiting daily for news of your whereabouts and am always with you in my thoughts.

With all my heart.

Your Dietrich

SORROW AND JOY

Sorrow and joy,
striking suddenly on our startled senses,
seem, at the first approach, all but impossible
of just distinction one from the other,
even as frost and heat at the first keen contact
burn us alike.

Joy and sorrow,
hurled from the height of heaven in meteor fashion,
flash in an arc of shining menace o’er us.
Those they touch are left
stricken amid the fragments
of their colourless, usual lives.

Imperturbable, mighty,
ruinous and compelling,
sorrow and joy
- summoned or all unsought for -
processionally enter.
Those they encounter
they transfigure, investing them
with strange gravity
and a spirit of worship.