Abstract

In its original form this was Bonhoeffer's first work, presented as a theological dissertation when the author was only twenty-one. It has been very influential on proponents of "religionless Christianity" among the Continental theologians. The argument is compressed and often elliptical, exceedingly difficult to grasp. Bonhoeffer follows Tonnies' distinction between society and community, holding that the religious community is a community of will which admits no end outside itself, but whose telos, God, is its boundary. It is a structure of meaning rather than a structure of purpose, uniting persons in an I-Thou relationship in which they assume the relative independence of a Leibnitzian monad. The book is magnificent; the translation unobtrusive and long overdue.—W. G. E.