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Dietrich Bonhoeffer
72 quotes
“Your Yes to God demands your No to all injustice, to all evil, to all lies, to all oppression and violation of the weak and the poor, to all godlessness and mocking of the holy. Your Yes to God demands a brave No to everything that will ever hinder you from serving God alone, whether it be your profession, your property, your house, your honor before the world. Faith means decision.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) first seen 1938 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Gift of Faith" (9 April 1938), in The Collected Sermons of Dietrich Bonhoeffer (2012), p. 203
“Time is the most precious gift in our possession, for it is the most irrevocable. This is what makes it so disturbing to look back upon the time which we have lost. Time lost is time when we have not lived a full human life, time unenriched by experience, creative endeavor, enjoyment, and suffering. Time lost is time not filled, time left empty.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) said by 1945 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in LIFE magazine (22 April 1957), p. 152; also in Letters and Papers from Prison (1967), p. 47
“How wrong it is to use God as a stop-gap for the incompleteness of our knowledge. If in fact the frontiers of knowledge are being pushed further and further back (and that is bound to be the case), then God is being pushed back with them, and is therefore continually in retreat. We are to find God in what we know, not in what we don’t know.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) first seen 1944 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Eberhard Bethge (25 May 1944), Letters and papers from Prison (1997), p. 311
“We must be ready to allow ourselves to be interrupted by God… It is a strange fact that Christians and even ministers frequently consider their work so important and urgent that they will allow nothing to disturb them. They think they are doing God a service in this but actually they are disdaining God’s “crooked but straight path”. It is part of the discipline of humility that we must not spare our hand where it can perform service and that we do not assume that our schedule is our own to manage, but allow it to be arranged by God.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) said by 1945 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Life Together, as quoted in The Wisdom of Tenderness: What happens when God's firece mercy transforms our lives (2002), by Brennan Manning, California: HarperSanFrancisco, p. 74
“Costly grace is the treasure hidden in the field; for the sake of it a man will gladly go and sell all he has. It is the pearl of great price to by which the merchant will sell all his goods.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) said by 1945 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again, the gift which must be asked for, the door at which a man must knock. Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life. It is costly because it condemns sin, and grace because it justifies the sinner.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) said by 1945 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“God did not reckon his Son too dear a price to pay for our life, but delivered him up for us. Costly grace is the Incarnation of God. Costly grace is the sanctuary of God; it has to be protected from the world, and not thrown to the dogs. It is therefore the living word, the Word of God, which he speaks as it pleases him. Grace is costly because it compels a man to submit to the yoke of Christ and follow him; it is grace because Jesus says: "My yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) said by 1945 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The call to the cloister demanded of Luther the complete surrender of his life. But God shattered all his hopes. He showed him through the Scriptures that the following of Christ is not the achievement or merit of a select few, but the divine command to all Christians without distinction. Monasticism had transformed the humble work of discipleship into the meritorious activity of the saints, and the self-renunciation of discipleship into the flagrant spiritual self-assertion of the "religious.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) said by 1945 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: translated as The Cost of Discipleship (1959), p. 47
“The outcome of the Reformation was the victory, not of Luther's perception of grace in all its purity and costliness, but of the vigilant religious instinct of man for the place where grace is to be obtained at the cheapest price.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) said by 1945 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: translated as The Cost of Discipleship (1959), p. 49
“At the end of a life spent in the pursuit of knowledge Faust has to confess: "I now see that we can nothing know." That is the answer to a sum, it is the outcome of a long experience. But as Kierkegaard observed, it is quite a different thing when a freshman comes up to the university and uses the same sentiment to justify his indolence. As the answer to a sum it is perfectly true, but as the initial data it is a piece of self-deception.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) said by 1945 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: translated as The Cost of Discipleship (1959), p. 51
“If any want to become my followers," Jesus says. Following him is not something that is self-evident, even among the disciples. No one can be forced, no one can be expected to follow him. … "If any want to follow me, they must deny themselves … and take up their cross.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) said by 1945 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“God honors some with great suffering and grants them the grace of martyrdom, while other are not tempted beyond their strength. But in every case it is one cross. It is laid on every Christian. The first Christ-suffering that everyone has to experience is the call which summons us away from our attachments to this world. It is the death of the old self in the encounter with Jesus Christ. Those who enter into discipleship enter into Jesus' death.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) said by 1945 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The Cross is not the terrible end of a pious happy life. Instead, it stands at the beginning of community with Jesus Christ. Whenever Christ calls us, his call leads us to death.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) said by 1945 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Jesus' call to bear the cross places all who follow him in the community of the forgiveness of sins. Forgiving sins is the Christ-suffering required of his disciples. It is required of all Christians.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) said by 1945 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It was the error of Israel to put the law in God’s place, to make the law their God and their God a law.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) said by 1945 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The truthfulness which Jesus demands from his followers is the self-abnegation which does not hide sin. Nothing is then hidden, everything is brought forth to the light of day. In this question of truthfulness, what matters first and last is that a man’s whole being should be exposed, his whole evil laid bare in the sight of God. But sinful men do not like this sort of truthfulness.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) said by 1945 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted.” With each beatitude the gulf is widened between the disciples and the people, their call to come forth from the people becomes increasingly manifest. By “mourning” Jesus, of course, means doing without what the world calls peace and prosperity: He means refusing to be in tune with the world or to accommodate oneself to its standards. Such men mourn for the world, for its guilt, its fate, and its fortune.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) said by 1945 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A community of Jesus which seeks to hide itself has ceased to follow him. “Neither do men light a lamp and put it under a bushel, but on the stand.” … The bushel may be the fear of men, or perhaps deliberate conformity to the world for some ulterior motive.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) said by 1945 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Reformation theology” … pretends to prefer to Pharasaic ostentation a modest invisibility, which in practice means conformity to the world. When that happens, the hallmark of the Church becomes justitia civilis instead of extraordinary visibility. The very failure of the light to shine becomes the touchstone of our Christianity.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) said by 1945 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“By willing endurance we cause suffering to pass. Evil becomes a spent force when we put up no resistance. By refusing to pay back the enemy with his own coin, and preferring to suffer without resistance, the Christian exhibits the sinfulness of contumely and insult. Violence stands condemned by its failure to evoke counter-violence.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) said by 1945 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“By his willingly renouncing self-defence, the Christian affirms his absolute adherence to Jesus, and his freedom from the tyranny of his own ego. The exclusiveness of this adherence is the only power which can overcome evil.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) said by 1945 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Jesus bluntly calls the evil person evil. If I am assailed, I am not to condone or justify aggression. Patient endurance of evil does not mean a recognition of its rights. That is sheer sentimentality, and Jesus will have nothing to do with it. The shameful assault, the deed of violence and the act of exploitation are still evil. … The very fact that the evil which assaults him is unjustifiable makes it imperative that he should not resist it, but play it out and overcome it by patiently enduring the evil person. Suffering willingly endured is stronger than evil, it spells death to evil.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) said by 1945 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Jesus is no draughtsman of political blueprints, he is the one who vanquished evil through suffering. It looked as though evil had triumphed on the cross, but the real victory belonged to Jesus. And the cross is the only justification for the precept of non-violence, for it alone can kindle a faith in the victory over evil which will enable men to obey that precept. And only such obedience is blessed with the promise that we shall be partakers of Christ's victory as well as his sufferings.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) said by 1945 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The passion of Christ is the victory of divine love over the powers of evil, and therefore it is the only supportable basis for Christian obedience. Once again, Jesus calls those who follow him to share his passion. How can we convince the world by our preaching of the passion when we shrink from that passion in our own lives? On the cross Jesus fulfilled the law he himself established and thus graciously keeps his disciples in the fellowship of his suffering.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) said by 1945 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Distinction between person and office is wholly alien to the teaching of Jesus. He says nothing about that. He addresses his disciples as men who have left all to follow him, and the precept of non-violence applies equally to private life and official duty. He is the Lord of all life, and demands undivided allegiance.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) said by 1945 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The will of God, to which the law gives expression, is that men should defeat their enemies by loving them.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) said by 1945 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In the New Testament our enemies are those who harbor hostility against us, not those against whom we cherish hostility. For Jesus refuses to reckon with such a possibility.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) said by 1945 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“By our enemies Jesus means those who are quite intractable and utterly unresponsive to our love.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) said by 1945 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Christian love draws no distinction between one enemy and another, except that the more bitter our enemy’s hatred, the greater his need of love. Be his enmity political or religious, he has nothing to expect from a follower of Jesus but unqualified love. In such love there is no inner discord between private person and official capacity. In both we are disciples of Christ, or we are not Christians at all.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) said by 1945 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The disciples realized that they too were his enemies, and that he had overcome them by his love. It is this that opens the disciple’s eyes, and enables him to see his enemy as a brother.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) said by 1945 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The πξρισσον [extraordinary] never merges into the το αυτο [merely personal]. That was the fatal mistake of the false Protestant ethic which diluted Christian love into patriotism, loyalty to friends, and industriousness, which in short, perverted the better righteousness into justitia civilis.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) said by 1945 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“From whom are we to hide the visibility of our discipleship? Certainly not from other men, for we are told to let them see our light. No. We are to hide it from ourselves. Our task is simply to keep on following, looking only to our Leader who goes on before, taking no notice of ourselves or of what we are doing.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) said by 1945 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The sword wherewith they judge their brethren will fall upon their own heads. Instead of cutting themselves off from the brother as the just from the unjust, they find themselves cut off from Jesus.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) said by 1945 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When we judge other people we confront them in a spirit of detachment, observing and reflecting as it were from the outside. But love has neither time nor opportunity for this. If we love, we can never observe the other person with detachment, for he is always and at every moment a living claim to our love and service.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) said by 1945 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Love for the sinner is ominously close to love of the sin. But the love of Christ for the sinner in itself is the condemnation of sin.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) said by 1945 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“To everyone God is the kind of God he believes in.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) said by 1945 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“By judging others we blind ourselves to our own evil and to the grace which other are just as entitled to as we are.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) said by 1945 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If when we judged others, our real motive was to destroy evil, we should look for evil where it is certain to be found, and that is in our own hearts. But if we are on the look-out for evil in others, our real motive is obviously to justify ourselves.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) said by 1945 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Jesus offers his disciples a simple rule of thumb which will enable even the least sophisticated of them to tell whether his intercourse with others is on the right lines or not. All he need do is to say “I” instead of “Thou,” and put himself in the other man’s place.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) said by 1945 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“To be conformed with the one who became human means that we may be the human beings that we really are. Pretension, hypocrisy, compulsion, forcing oneself to be something different, better, more ideal than one is - all are abolished. God loves the real human being. God became a real human being.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) said by 1945 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Bodily life, which we receive through no action of our own, intrinsically bears the right to its preservation. This is not a right that we have stolen or earned for ourselves; it is in the truest sense a right that is “born with us.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) said by 1945 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Catholic moral theology ... eliminates the unnaturalness of contraception, but replaces this with the unnaturalness of a marriage without bodily communion.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) said by 1945 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Then there is the man with a conscience, who fights single-handedly against heavy odds in situations that call for a decision.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) said by 1945 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Who stands fast? Only the man whose final standard is not his reason, his principles, his conscience, his freedom, or his virtue, but who is ready to sacrifice all this when he is called to obedient and responsible action in faith and in exclusive allegiance to God — the responsible man, who tries to make his whole life an answer to the question and call of God. Where are these responsible people?”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) said by 1945 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“One may protest against evil; it can be exposed and, if need be, prevented by use of force. Evil always carries within itself the germ of its own subversion in that it leaves behind in human beings at least a sense of unease. Against stupidity we are defenseless.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) said by 1945 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Neither protest nor the use of force accomplish anything here; reasons fall on deaf ears; facts that contradicts one's prejudgment simply need to be believed — in such moments the stupid person even becomes critical — and when facts are irrefutable they are just pushed aside as inconsequential, as incidental.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) said by 1945 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Greater caution is called for when dealing with a stupid person than with a malicious one.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) said by 1945 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There remains an experience of incomparable value. We have for once learned to see the great events of world history from below, from the perspective of the outcasts, the suspects, the maltreated — in short, from the perspective of those who suffer.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) said by 1945 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“God lets himself be pushed out of the world on to the cross. He is weak and powerless in the world, and that is precisely the way, the only way, in which he is with us and helps us. Matt 8:17 makes it quite clear that Christ helps us not by virtue of his omnipotence, but by virtue of his weakness and suffering. Here is the decisive difference between Christianity and all religions. Man's religiosity makes him look in his distress to the power of God in the world. God is the 'deus ex machina.' The Bible directs man to God's powerlessness and suffering; only the suffering God can help.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) said by 1945 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: p. 188 (1967 edition)
“Nicht aus dem schweren Boden wo Blut und Geschlecht und Schwur mächtig und heilig sind, wo die Erde selbst gegen Wahnsinn und die geweihten heilgen uralten Ordnungen hütet und schützt und rächt, — nicht aus dem schweren Boden der Erde, sondern aus freiem Gefallen und freiem Verlangen des Geistes, der nicht des Eides und des Gesetzes bedarf, wird der Freund dem Freunde geschenkt.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) said by 1945 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As translated in A New Critique of Theoretical Thought (1953) by Herman Dooyeweerd, Vol. 3, p. 179