Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Dedication
- Preface
- Abbreviations
- 1 Creation, revelation and the analogy theory
- 2 The Trinity and philosophical reflection: a study of David Brown's The Divine Trinity
- 3 ‘Is it true what they say about “theological realism”?’
- 4 The impassibility of God and the problem of evil
- 5 Theodicy?
- 6 Tragedy and the soul's conquest of evil
- 7 Atonement and moral apocalypticism: William Styron's Sophie's Choice
- 8 Atonement and christology
- 9 Revelation, salvation, the uniqueness of Christ and other religions
- 10 ‘Many religions and the one true faith’: an examination of Lindbeck's chapter 3
- 11 Contemptus mundi and the disenchanted world: Bonhoeffer's ‘discipline of the secret’ and Adorno's ‘strategy of hibernation’
- 12 ‘The weight of weakness’: intratextuality and discipleship
- 13 ‘Theistic arguments’ and ‘rational theism’
- Notes
- Index of names
- Index of subjects
11 - Contemptus mundi and the disenchanted world: Bonhoeffer's ‘discipline of the secret’ and Adorno's ‘strategy of hibernation’
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 19 January 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Dedication
- Preface
- Abbreviations
- 1 Creation, revelation and the analogy theory
- 2 The Trinity and philosophical reflection: a study of David Brown's The Divine Trinity
- 3 ‘Is it true what they say about “theological realism”?’
- 4 The impassibility of God and the problem of evil
- 5 Theodicy?
- 6 Tragedy and the soul's conquest of evil
- 7 Atonement and moral apocalypticism: William Styron's Sophie's Choice
- 8 Atonement and christology
- 9 Revelation, salvation, the uniqueness of Christ and other religions
- 10 ‘Many religions and the one true faith’: an examination of Lindbeck's chapter 3
- 11 Contemptus mundi and the disenchanted world: Bonhoeffer's ‘discipline of the secret’ and Adorno's ‘strategy of hibernation’
- 12 ‘The weight of weakness’: intratextuality and discipleship
- 13 ‘Theistic arguments’ and ‘rational theism’
- Notes
- Index of names
- Index of subjects
Summary
It is widely acknowledged that the history of Western society is characterized above all by the rise and spread of a socio-economic rationalization and its concomitant ideological manifestation, cultural rationalism. In theological circles, it has become something of a commonplace to affirm that the contemporary theological agenda is shaped decisively by this ‘rationalistic’ post-Renaissance and post-Enlightenment intellectual setting. In the same theological circles, it is also widely believed that of the significant theologians of this century, none tried harder or more rigorously than Dietrich Bonhoeffer to face up to the implications, for theology, of the ‘disenchantment’ of the world associated with the rise and growth of social rationalization and cultural rationalism. It is hard to gainsay that Bonhoeffer's greatness as a theologian lies in the freshness and intellectual vigour he brought to the task of understanding what would be involved, theologically, in facing the central tenets of the Christian faith up to a world that is (allegedly) ‘religionless’. My purpose in this essay is five-fold. Firstly, to use some of Max Weber's ideas to chart the course of the world's progressive ‘disenchantment’. Secondly, to evaluate Bonhoeffer's proposals for a properly-constituted theological response to the essentially ‘this-worldly’ intellectual horizon brought about by the ‘disenchantment’ of the world. Thirdly, to argue that Bonhoeffer's proposals, which centre on this notion of the ‘discipline of the secret’ (Arkandisziplin), are rendered problematic by a dialectic inherent in the processes of social rationalization.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Turnings of Darkness and LightEssays in Philosophical and Systematic Theology, pp. 180 - 200Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1989