Abstract
Perhaps it is my own contrary nature, but book reviews are more easily written if one disagrees vehemently, or at least has a significant bone to pick, with the book under review. That being understood, this was not an easy review for me. It helps, of course, that both key topics in the title are areas of keen interest for me personally and professionally. My stake in virtue ethics is as old as my academic career; and my ever-growing appreciation for Bonhoeffer dates back to early undergraduate days. Reading Moberly’s work, I kept hoping for a wrong turn or a thin argument that would provide a ready target; but instead I found myself in hearty agreement and left with the task of trying to craft a supportive endorsement that nevertheless remains interesting to read.
While twentieth-century martyrs for the faith are sadly plentiful, until the great reversal and vindication of the eschaton, most will remain obscure statistics. Not Bonhoeffer. Bonhoeffer’s final witness was preceded by a remarkable career that most importantly included a brilliant written record. His writing remains as fresh, vibrant and compelling today as when it flowed from his pen. Thus, his enduring and widening influence makes good sense. It is not surprising that all manner of people and schools of thought have sought to enlist Bonhoeffer as an ally or early supporter. Stanley Hauerwas notes that one of the earliest attempts at taking Bonhoeffer hostage came from death of God theologians who latched onto portions of Letters and Papers from Prison, and claimed him as one of their own (Performing the Faith, p. 35). Those with heads full of … something other than brains (Hauerwas in a live reading of the essay provides a more precise if less polite term) got hold of Bonhoeffer with unfortunate consequences for Bonhoeffer’s actual thought and potential contribution to his beloved church. Moberly, quite happily, does not co-opt Bonhoeffer for some peculiar twenty-first-century agenda. Moberly gets Bonhoeffer right. That is, Moberly reads Bonhoeffer with the correct assumption that the great theologian is both consistent with himself and faithful to a confession of Christian faith (p. 45). I believe that an honest reading of Bonhoeffer can reach no other conclusion. In fact, Bonhoeffer is an even better, that is a more orthodox and faithful, Lutheran than Moberly recognises—more on that momentarily.
The driving argument of Moberly’s dissertation now matured into the present book is that Bonhoeffer’s Ethics can be rightly read as supportive of the concerns and emphases typically associated with the school of thought that has come to be known as virtue ethics. To this end, she spends a good deal of time capably and helpfully situating virtue ethics within the current ethical landscape. She is quite right to emphasise that virtue ethics is less interested in any particular list or set of virtues than it is in the motives and character of the agent (p. 89); and she does a masterful job of presenting the essential attributes of virtue ethics in a way that shows they are not contradictory to rules or even natural law (pp. 89–97). Indeed, her conclusion regarding what virtue ethics might mean within Christian confession is one that I share: ‘virtue ethics may be well able to articulate how Christ takes form among us here and today’ (p. 97). In other words, virtue ethics provides a vocabulary and a way of thinking that are very useful in appreciating and expressing the reality of what it means to follow Christ in word and deed. But does it make sense to claim Bonhoeffer as an advocate of such thinking—or is this, after all, another example of the great theologian being contorted into a position he never intended? Moberly recognises the validity of this criticism and handles it deftly. For her, while virtue ethics is certainly an ‘anachronistic’ term when used with Bonhoeffer’s Ethics, it is nonetheless ‘meaningful to anyone writing about this subject in the wake of Alasdair MacIntyre’s After Virtue … [and] a convenient shorthand’ (p. 17). Hence Bonhoeffer’s work in Ethics, Moberly argues, can be read as compatible with and even supportive of the concerns and thinking of those who would embrace the virtue ethics label. With great attention to the work of previous interpreters, and with a meticulous reading of Ethics, Moberly builds a case that is credible and convincing. But, of course, such praise is tempered by my own altogether sympathetic ideas about both Bonhoeffer and virtue ethics.
With regard to Moberly’s thesis and argument, my only concern, and it is slight in comparison to all that she has right, is a tendency perhaps too neatly to distinguish the different trends or emphases in Bonhoeffer’s Ethics. Moberly employs a sharp distinction between ‘command’ ethics and ‘formation’ or ‘conformation’ ethics, and applies this distinction to the different sections of Bonhoeffer’s Ethics, seeing earlier manuscripts as more in tune with the conformation emphasis of virtue ethics and later ones as resonating with a more Barthian divine command ethics. She points out, rightly, that this distinction should not be overdrawn as elements unique to each can be found regularly in the other (p. 201). Yet her case, finally, is that Bonhoeffer does operate with two distinct approaches, and that he works to reconcile them rather than holding them in contradiction. ‘Indeed, it seems likely that Bonhoeffer was consciously bringing together two different modes of conceiving ethics … using them both in service of a more cosmic vision of ethics in terms of the reconciliation of all things to God in Christ’ (p. 218).
I agree heartily with Moberly’s conclusion that Bonhoeffer is driven above all by his desire to ground and conclude everything—in particular his sweeping ethics—in Christ. I am less convinced, however, that Bonhoeffer was striving to reconcile two different modes of conceiving ethics, or that he even recognised two different modes. Rather, it may be, more simply, that Bonhoeffer grasped the comprehensive fullness of the Christian life. It is a life that is grounded in divine monergism and the continuing stark fact of man’s absolute dependence on God for all, and simultaneously a life that surges with the demanding work of following Christ in all the great and mundane moments of existence. As Bonhoeffer worked mightily to articulate this compound reality, he did so in ways that seem to us to divide between the competing schools of conformation and command. Maybe for Bonhoeffer the need to describe the richness of the Christian life meant using whatever terms and ideas effectively conveyed that truth without regard for whether they happened to originate in different ethical traditions. Whether Bonhoeffer was ‘consciously’ reconciling competing schools is not clear. That he was seeking to instill in his reader and in his church the fullness of the Lordship of Christ is unquestionably and abundantly clear. Perhaps this is explanation enough for his seeming dexterity in moving between what have become competing approaches to the ethical task.
Hopelessly and happily bound to my own peculiarly Lutheran confession, I was disappointed, though hardly surprised, at Moberly’s somewhat shallow understanding of the way that Lutherans are able to approach the issue of sanctification. Granted, the notion that Lutherans do actually approach the issue may come as news to some; nevertheless, there is within Lutheranism a remarkable amount of thoughtful work that goes well beyond the caricature of Lutherans as strong on grace but weak on works. Adolf Köberle certainly grasped the truth of salvation by grace through faith in Christ alone, but he could also address without flinching the obligation of the believer actually to look like a believer in the routine of life (The Quest for Holiness). Of course, Melanchthon and Luther himself (The Large Catechism is but one bit of evidence) could make similar strong arguments for the necessity of an aggressive Christian life. Failing to recognise that a Lutheran as a Lutheran is quite capable of presenting a robust defense of discipleship and zealous Christian conformation to Christ may create dilemmas for Moberly and other interpreters of Bonhoeffer that are more artificial than real. In step with standard assumptions, Moberly opines, ‘The strengths on the Lutheran side lay on the primacy of grace, and assurance of salvation. The great weakness was that there was no theological rationale for how ethics is related to justification by faith, by grace.’ (p. 219). Lutherans, too many to number, have served to create and cultivate this account; but it is not a problem inherent within Lutheranism itself, and faithful Lutherans including Regin Prenter, Robert Benne, Gilbert Meilaender, Robert Kolb and Charles Arand all serve as evidence against the errant notion. Lutheranism can grasp both salvation by grace alone and the need for demanding discipleship. This, indeed, as Moberly recognises, was the achievement of Bonhoeffer’s Ethics. It is my contention, though, that Bonhoeffer managed this great accomplishment not in spite of his Lutheranism, but in prefect harmony with and perhaps even because of it.
Lest the previous few paragraphs unduly cast a dark pall on my overall impression of Moberly’s book, let me reiterate once more that this is a book with which I am in almost complete agreement. With humility and circumspection, Moberly presents a compelling case for Bonhoeffer as a proponent of virtue ethics. Whether or not he was seeking intentionally to endorse one ethical system over another, it is clear from Moberly’s text that in the process of addressing the manifold and exhaustive realities of the Christian life Bonhoeffer clearly and forcefully made arguments that resonate with those of virtue ethics. Moberly provides ample evidence of this emphasis and in the process presents a fair and balanced picture of the usefulness of virtue ethics for the work of Christian discipleship. She has made a fine contribution to understanding both Bonhoeffer and the value of virtue ethics within the Christian conversation.