Bonhoeffer and the Bible in Christian Ethics: Psalm 119, The Mandates, and Ethics as a 'Way'

Abstract

This paper elucidates Bonhoeffer's understanding of Christian ethics as a `way'. The concept is prominent in his unfinished exegesis of Psalm 119 and shapes his Ethics, written during the same time period. This reading of Bonhoeffer's ethics yields the claim that he gave a much more central role to biblical exegesis in his ethical framework than is typically granted. It concludes that much of the criticism of his concept of the mandates reveals not the weakness of the concept, but a misunderstanding of both his conception of Christian ethics as a way, and the importance of theological exegesis in his thought.