Creation and Fall Temptation: Two Biblical Studies by Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Creation and Fall Temptation: Two Biblical Studies Reviews

• 
  Scott

  Creation and Fall comes from lectures given by Bonhoeffer in 1932-1933 at the University of Berlin. The chapters of the book take the reader through the first three chapters of Genesis. In the introduction, he writes that the Church reads the Scriptures from the point of view of Christ's ending of the old order and bringing of the new order. The Church ought to read the Bible from the point of view of the whole canon, and not only in a narrow sense that isolates a text from the rest of the Bible:
  
  

  When Genesis says 'Yahweh', historically or psychologically it means nothing but Yahweh. Theologically, however, i.e. from the Church's point of view, it is speaking of God. God is the One God in the whole of Holy Scripture: the Church and theological study stand and fall with this faith. (8)

  
  
  I don't know enough about the German intellectual scene in Bonhoeffer's time, but this seems to be Bonhoeffer pushing back against the higher criticism that had become prominent in Germany and other places that focused on identifying different authors in the Torah. To some extent, it seems that Bonhoeffer is comfortable with the methods of higher criticism, but he also believes in the unity of Scripture and the importance of theological interpretation that views the Bible as a whole and as a revelation of God's salvation. This is not his original point of view, of course, but it helps the reader to understand his method of interpretation.
  
  Bonhoeffer's writing on the fall was on the whole more compelling than his writing on creation. The section on creation didn't seem to dig into the text as much as his analysis of Genesis 3 did.
  
  Following Catholic commentators and Martin Luther, he suggests that the serpent is not identified as Satan in the text of Genesis 3 because that would make man the devil's "first victim" rather than the one at fault for the sin (65-66). That's an interesting way to look at it.
  
  Bonhoeffer's analysis of the serpent's question, "Did God say, 'You shall not eat of any tree of the garden'?" (RSV) was intriguing. He writes that the question (which is in truth "godless") is a powerful temptation precisely because it brings God in.
  
  

  This is the question that appears innocuous but through it evil wins power in us, through it we become disobedient to God. If we met this question in its real godlessness we should be able to resist it. But that is not the way to attack Christians. They must be approached with God himself, they must be shown a better, prouder God than they seem to have, if they are to fall. What is the real evil in this question? It is not that it is asked at all. It is that the false answer is contained within it, that within it is attacked the basic attitude of the creature towards the Creator. Man is expected to be judge of God's word instead of simply hearing and doing it. (68)

  
  
  The trap, for Bonhoeffer, is that the serpent's modification of God's command (he asks if all trees are off limits) allows Eve "to feel, for the first time, the attraction of making judgments about the World of God" (69). Since Christians are often tempted to save God, the Christian faith, and the Bible from themselves by showing that they actually support whatever trendy trends are out there, this seems to be an observation that is always timely.
  
  The last insight that I want to note is the contrast between imago dei (the image of God, in which man is created) and sicut deus (like God, what the serpent promises to Eve if she eats the fruit). Bonhoeffer sees man in the image of God as a creature, created by God to be free like God, but within the limits of being a creature. Being "like God" is a rejection of the status of creature. He believes that being like God now makes man a creator as well, although I think that we were intended to be creators like God from the beginning (although of course not in the ultimate sense).
  
  Creation and Fall is not a perfect book. He has a rather dismissive view of the creation narrative (prompting a previous reader to write in the margins "So you got the key (infallibility) to decide what is true in the Bible/You're all wet, it's all true!"). There's a strange sentence that says that the Word of God is where "God himself draws his own power" (67). I'm not sure I've ever seen it put that way before. But on the whole, there were some good insights. I think that I would benefit from reading it again sometime to better understand what he says about the trees in the middle of the the garden and the Hebrew words for good and evil.
• 
  Helen

  ‘Creation and Fall’ is an incredible text. A deep and rich exploration of the theology of Genesis 1-3 which refuses easy answers or flippant rejection of these challenging chapters and instead demands they be allowed to address the church today. Bonhoeffer’s writing on the Tree of Life and the Tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil place Christ firmly at the centre and limit of humanity as he explores what it means to be ‘for the other.’
• 
  Jana Light

  A phenomenal reframing of the Fall story.
• 
  James Wheeler

  Good theology is encouraging, refreshing and healing. It can rescue you from bad thinking and pull you out of fundamentalisms or literalisms about biblical stories that are regressive and ideologically driven. Do modern day people need help with reading Genesis 1-3? This is a huge need as we are over run with hot takes that are simply opinions.
  
  Bonhoeffer does this. It is as if he is a prophet for how to avoid the obsession about the nature of the male and female relationship in Genesis that is so dominant in the church today. Instead he stretches his legs and gives the reader a theology of the void and focuses very intensely on the meaning of the two trees in the garden and the proper place of man in the Garden. He mentions Adam and Eve but mentions them in relation to the rest of the story and happenings (65, 83).
  
  I really liked how Christocentric his reading was and also how it seemed extremely important for him to hold up the transcendence of God in relation to him being the creator. His insight that God moves dynamically from being a creator to a preserver after the fall is also a helpful theological distinction. "The created world is now the fallen, preserved world" (100).
  
  Finally, the last section on Temptation, was written in 1937. This was so close to the war and in the midst of the rise of the Nazi's, it always gives his theology an urgency when this is remembered. He is a keen thinker, deeply disturbed by the Nazi's. I found certain small bits throughout reminded me of his book Letters and Papers From Prison (55, 81). Being religious for him is a problem, because it is a mode of being without a compelling ethic for how to live like the crucified Christ.
  What a gift to the church and world.
• 
  Corey

  Better than I remember it the first time. Tons of good stuff for the project.
• 
  Kendall Davis

  Absolutely phenomenal. Bonhoeffer presents an excellent model for theological reflection by structuring his work as reflections on particular texts rather than abstracted treatises on loci of the faith. Bonhoeffer's depth of analysis and simplicity is so rare. It is genuinely a treat to read such well-done theological writing.
• 
  Carmen

  I read the first essay: Creation and Fall. Excellent and thought provoking, as per Bonhoeffer. I am a teacher of Godly Play, a Montessori-based method of children's religious education, and I was struck by how much of Bonhoeffer's thoughts on this story are paralleled (or included) in Jerome Berryman's Second Creation story for children.
• 
  Kyle Donohue

  I highly recommend this book to any pastor or staff person that works in the Church. It helps one understand their own creation and our humanness connected to God. We are truly human when we understand we are created beings we n the likeness of God.
• 
  David Dominguez

  Bonhoeffer has quickly become one of my favorite authors and this book is no exception. He treats the first 3 chapters of genesis with some focus on the creation account and eventually a larger focus on the fall and temptation. I by no means agree with all his conclusions but overall love his inquisitive writing style in which his questions about the text stand out and invite you to also read and think more deeply about what is going on. Some of his most insightful work is when he contrasts the transition from being in the image of god to being like god after the fall at which point man leaves that creature state in some way summarizing it like this “This flight, Adam's hiding from God, we call conscience. Before the Fall there was no conscience. Man has only been divided in himself since his division from the Creator.” If you come to this book looking for answers you will be disappointed, if you come to it looking for new questions you will leave happy.
• 
  Corey

  Great theological commentary on creation and the Fall. Love Bonhoeffer's ability to take one concept or verse and riff for a whole chapter on truths from the concept or verse. Extremely creative while still remaining orthodox.
• 
  Greg

  Let me please start by stating that I am in no way qualified by education or insight to provide a critical analysis of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s thought. His faithfulness and his theological insights are rightfully and widely praised. These two biblical studies do absolutely nothing to warrant any reexamination of that praise.
  
  Creation and Fall is a study of the first three chapters of Genesis. Bonhoeffer launches directly into his exegesis. “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. That means that the creator, in freedom, creates the creature. Their connexion is not conditioned by anything except freedom, which means that it is unconditioned. Hence every use of a causal category for understanding the act of creation is ruled out. Creator and creature cannot be said to have a relation of cause and effect, for between Creator and creature there is neither a law of motive nor a law of effect nor anything else. Between creator and creature there is simply nothing: the void. For freedom happens in and through the void. There is no necessity that can be shown in God which can or must ensue in creation. There is nothing that causes him to create. Creation comes out of this void.” (18) At times his writing is incredibly clear. Regarding the lines, “Let there be Light,” Bonhoeffer writes, “God is never in the world in any way except in his absolute transcendence of it.” (23)
  
  At times, Bonhoeffer can become quite difficult to read. “The fact that Christ was dead did not mean the possibility of the resurrection, but its impossibility; it was the void itself, it was the nihil negativum. There is absolutely no transition or continuity between the dead and the resurrected Christ except the freedom of God which, in the beginning, created his work out of nothing. If it were possible to intensify the nihil negativum we would have to say here of the resurrection that with the death of Christ on the Cross the nihil negativum was taken into God himself. ‘O great affliction, God himself is dead’—but he who is the beginning lived, destroyed the void and created the new creation in his resurrection. By his resurrection we know of the creation—for if he were not resurrected the Creator would be lifeless and would not bear witness to himself.” (19)
  
  Regarding the lines, “And God saw that the light was good,” Bonhoeffer writes, “this means that God loves his work and therefore wills to preserve it. Creation and preservation are two aspects of the one activity of God.” (25)
  
  “Creation means wresting out of non-being; preservation means confirmation of being. Creation is real beginning, always ‘before’ my knowledge and before preservation. At this point creation and preservation are still one, for they are related to the same object, the original good work of God. Preservation is always ‘in relation to’ creation, and creation is in itself. But the preservation of the original creation and the preservation of the fallen creation are two entirely different things.” (26)
  
  Bonhoeffer is at his best when discussing Freedom. “No substantial or individualistic concept of freedom can conceive of freedom. I have no control over freedom as over a property. It is simply the event that happens to me through the other. We can ask how we know this, or whether this is not just again speculation about the beginning resulting from being in the middle. The answer is that it is the message of the gospel that God’s freedom has bound us to itself, that his free grace only becomes real in this relation to us, and that God does not will to be free for himself but for man. God in Christ is free for man. Because he does not retain his freedom for himself the concept of freedom only exists for us as ‘being free for.’ For us who live in the middle through Christ and know our humanity in his resurrection, that God is free has no meaning except that we are free for God. The freedom of the Creator is proved by the fact that he allows us to be free for him, and that means nothing except that he creates his image on earth. The paradox of created freedom cannot be eliminated. Indeed it must be made as obvious as possible. Here created freedom means-and it is this that goes beyond all previous deeds of God, the unique par excellence-that God himself enters into creation.” (38)
  
  His study, “Temptation,” is also brilliant. “God shows himself in temptation not as the gracious, the near one, who furnishes us with all the gifts of the spirit; on the contrary he forsakes us, he is quite distant from us; we are in the wilderness. (103) Much of the work is targeted at explaining God’s permission of temptation in the world, and he goes on to show how through God’s grace one can overcome it.
  
  
  See my other reviews here!
  
• 
  Roy Khadra

  About the first book "creation and fall", I liked the way the writer "Dietrich Bonhoeffer" represented the scenes, and especially how he portrayed Adam, Eve, and the serpent. I was deeply captured by his philosophical perspective in connecting the events together piece by piece as a puzzle, and in the majority part of his explanation he tends to be very convincing or at least inspiring, knowing that this book can be considered as a study of the psychology of the biblical writer (the old testament), or a christian concept about the creation's myth like "Dietrich" himself mentioned it many times, and here I quote from the chapter "The day - creation and fall":
  * "The writer of the first chapter of Genesis is behaving in a very human way".
  * "The biblical author was limited by his time and his KNOWLEDGE".
  Which means that the text isn't about sanctity or about the Word of God.
  In the chapter "The image of God on earth", the way he allied the man to the image of his creator by freedom, and the definition of the freedom as something not to be owned, but as the reflection of the association with the OTHER, in relationship and in action, were very fascinating and dreamful, since religions are a thousand miles away of this fact.
  In the second part "Temptation", the writer described Jesus in the best way it could be.
  What I didn't like in this book are the following points:
  * "Dietrich" speaks about the absolute freedom, but in the other hand there is a serious invitation for a complete obedience, which he calls "alliance to God".
  * The fact that God gives the permission to Satan to tempt the man.
  
  Best quote in this book:
  If we would answer the question of the existence of the Evil then we would not be sinners, we could make something else responsible.
• 
  Caleb Stober

  Fierce
  
  Be wary of skimming the first chapters of Genesis, for at the least they form the foundation of the worldview of one of the world's largest religions, and at the most, they form the foundation of the world itself.
  
  "Humankind knows itself to be totally deprived of its own self-determination, determination, because it comes from the beginning and is moving toward the end without knowing what that means. This makes it hate the beginning and rise up in price against it."
  
  Bonhoeffer works excellently through ch. 1-3 of Genesis, the creation and fall account; he does not get bogged down as so many do in unprofitable discussion on timespans and "science vs scripture" debates which are nothing more than smoke. Rather he focuses on the wonderful and terrible implications of our creation by God and our rejection of him. His discussions on the limitedness of man first as a blessing (being in the garden and in God's provision-presence) and then as a curse as man tried to reach beyond it and found himself outside of it (blocked from re-entering the garden) was particularly good food for thought.
  
  Probably the highlight of the book for me was the breakdown of the concept of sicut-deus, "like God", the state to which Adam aspires and despairingly achieves. I sat under Raphael Anzenberger several years ago who used this concept as a basis for his class on Biblical Theology of Missions and it was intriguing to revisit an idea which was so eye-opening for me at the time.
• 
  W Tyler

  This is a short but profound (and dense) theological study of Genesis 1-3, along with a shorter study on the general theme of temptation. I had to read it twice to get a decent understanding of it, but I'm sure there's a lot that I missed along the way.
  
  Bonhoeffer starts Creation and Fall by noting that the Church, living in the middle of the fallen world between the beginning and the end, can only know of the beginning through Christ who meets us in the middle. When it comes to creation we can only know what God reveals to us through the Word. Thus "It is impossible to ask why the world was created, about God's plan or about the necessity of creation. These questions are finally answered and disposed of as godless questions by the sentence, 'In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth'." From here Bonhoeffer launches into exegesis. His line-by-line analysis of the creation narrative in Genesis 1 bears some similarity to that of St. Augustine's (in Books XI-XIII of his Confessions), but it has the sophisticated philosophical and theological edge that is characteristic of dialectrial theology. The empty void represents the space between God's freedom to create and creation itself - nothing bridges the gap between Creator and created. Even before the Fall God preserves creation, and it is this preservation that condemns creation to its continued sinful existence after the Fall. In creating day and night God sets up the rhythms of creation (not to be confused with the strictly physical rhythm of day and night). In erecting the firmament, God puts in place the fixed and unchangeable aspects of creation, including mathematics; these seem to take on a life of their own after the Fall, thus alienating us from them. After creating life in general, God creates humanity so that, as God looks on creation, God can see the image of God. God's freedom with respect to creation is mirrored in each person's freedom with respect to other people (hence "God created them male and female") - not a freedom from other people, but rather a freedom for other people. "The analogy of man to God is not [the analogy of being] but [the analogy of relationship]".
  
  Bonhoeffer notices a seamline between Genesis 1 and Genesis 2. "In the first account we find man-for-God, here we have God-for-man; there the Creator and Lord, here the near, the fatherly God." Genesis 2 reveals that, for humans, body and soul are one - the two do not exist without each other. Eden is placed "in the middle of the earth", and in the middle of Eden are placed the two trees. These trees represent the limit of humanity - not a limit on the edge of our existence, but a limit in the very middle of our existence. Everything in the story from this point on represents a sort of attack on these trees; with each new event, the risk of humanity placing itself at the center of creation grows. Eve herself gives Adam a tangible way of knowing his own limit, and vice versa; yet rather than strengthening one another in bearing their limits, they lead one another to surpass their limits. The serpent, too, is found inside the garden; the serpent does not come from outside creation but is part of creation. By asking about the actual meaning of God's commands, the serpent does not directly tempt Adam and Eve to disobey God (an impossibility), but rather tempts them to obey God in a new way that God has not revealed to them. They can only understand the lie of the serpent as new truth. Even so, the Fall is uncaused by all of this and is therefore entirely inexcusable. From here, mankind is condemned to live in its own death, to exist because of God yet to be without God. The story of Cain and Abel points to the story of Christ, thus establishing the Cross as the Tree of Life planted in the middle of the world and Golgotha as the new Eden.
  
  In Temptation, Bonhoeffer opens by noting that the prayer "Lead us not into temptation" cannot be understood by either the natural or the moral person, both of whom see temptation as a desirable test of their own strength. But for the Christian temptation means being stripped of one's own strength and being delivered into the hands of Satan - this is something that we can and should pray to avoid. The story of Adam's temptation is paralleled by the story of Christ's temptation, yet "The temptation of Christ was harder, unspeakably harder, than the temptation of Adam; for Adam carried nothing in himself which could have given the tempter a claim and power over him. But Christ bore in himself the whole burden of the flesh, under the curse, under condemnation." In the wilderness Christ is tempted in the flesh, in the spirit, and finally in completeness. On each occassion his only recourse is to the Word of God, no more and no less - unlike Adam, he does not try to go behind the Word of God. Rather than understanding our temptations as being our own, we can understand our temptations as the temptation of Christ in us. To ask why God allows us to be tempted is to ask why God allows Christ to be tempted. The idea of temptation by the devil speaks to the objectivity and external nature of tempation, while the idea that we tempt ourselves speaks to the subjectivity and internal nature of tempation; both points of view are necessary.
  
  What I really love about both of these studies is their emphatic Christocentrism - something that is typical of Bonhoeffer but very atypical of studies about Genesis. For Bonhoeffer, Christ pulls together and brings into focus all the various strands of theology. Thus while these studies are fairly heady and can be difficult to wade through, they also serve an important devotional function by pointing the reader back to Christ again and again.
• 
  C.H.E. Sadaphal

  The bottom line: An illuminating & thought provoking book that is equal parts commentary, exegesis, and philosophical analysis of Genesis’s first three chapters.
  
  
  The book of Genesis is a story about beginnings, and these beginnings set the tone for the rest of the Biblical text.
  
  In Creation and Fall Temptation: Two Biblical Studies, Dietrich Bonhoeffer provides a meticulous analysis of the creation narrative, simultaneously extracting ...
  http://www.chesadaphal.com/creation-a...
• 
  Keith

  Brilliant book for illustrating what happened to humanity in the Fall. How the Tree of Life & Tree of Knowledge of Good & Evil in the midst of the Garden represent God as the center, and how the fall leaves man at the center of his own universe, but unable to bear the burden of being the center of his/her own existence.
• 
  Ryan

  If you can suffer through the dense and difficult to understand language of this book there are many great treasures of knowledge to be found. Dietrich is an absolutely brilliant theologian and I will use much of what he had to say in my discussions with others on the topics of creation and the origan of man.
• 
  Jonathan

  This was a difficult book to read because I did not understand a lot of it. However, from time to time I understood something that seemed profound. I will re-read it in the future and would highly recommend it to those wanting to learn about creation, the fall, and temptation. He certainly changed my perspective on a few points.
• 
  Jim Kilson

  This book was amazing... it's been sitting on my self for several years and I'm just now getting to it. While I may not necessarily agree with all of his conclusions or observations it was a great little theological read, suffice to say I wasn't writing things of such depth when I was at the age he was when he wrote it... I was simply trying to survive college :)
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  Chris Whisonant

  This was a fairly good book overall, though the overly philosophical commentary on the first few chapters of Genesis was not particularly my style. It was surly great food for thought. For anyone familiar with Bonhoeffer, you should definitely read this compilation of lectures and Bible studies.
• 
  Kyle

  Dear Preacher,
  
  Before embarking on your next sermon series examining the first three chapters of Genesis, please consult Bonhoeffer's magnificent theological exposition of the creative and redemptive God Genesis 3 so wonderfully speaks of.
  
  Sincerely,
  Your parishioner
• 
  Old_airman

  I used this book as a daily devotional. It is VERY deep and at times a VERY, VERY tough read. As a Lutheran, I wanted to read this book written by one of the great Lutherans of the 20th Century. It challenged me to think about what I truly believed in the creation stories.
• 
  Bob Ayres

  Short book that requires focused reading, pondering and praying. Bonhoeffer provides amazing insights that I am only starting to comprehend. I imagine I will return for a second reading at some point in the future.
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  Jared

  Bonhoeffer's incisive and philosophical commentary on the topics is admirable. The first part on creation and fall was hard to follow at times. This must be due to the translation I suppose. It's a book to be read twice, and may be more.
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  Alex Strohschein

  The short book comprises two studies, the first exploring the Creation of the world and the Fall of mankind, the second delving into temptation and how to resist it. Both are excellent, but the study on temptation is brilliant, 5/5.
• 
  Katie

  This is an amazing book, with great theological potential and foresight. However, it is also a very heavy read, so you have to be pretty dedicated to make it all the way through.
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  John

  40 years ago I could not understand two consecutive words. As an "Adult," I understand so much more. This is one eye-opening read.