NACHLASS DIETRICH BONHOEFFER:

A GUIDE TO UNDERSTANDING THE INFLUENCE OF SREN KIERKEGAARD

ON DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

American Academy of Religion

November 2010

Matthew D. Kirkpatrick
University of Oxford

Introduction

The influence of Sren Kierkegaard on Dietrich Bonhoeffer has been widely acknowledged
by specialists of both authors. However, until recently there has been no substantial analysis
of the subject, and writing about it has been limited to the occasional footnote, paragraph, or
aside.
Perhaps part of the reason for this omission is that establishing influence is extremely
difficult. Bonhoeffer certainly doesnt make the task easy as he rarely referenced Kierkegaard
and, particularly in SC, we find a certain critique of his work. Both writers also share a
similar intellectual and spiritual ancestry through Paul, Luther, and the continued influence of
the pietist, herrnhut movements of their youths. We must also deal with the growing interest
in Kierkegaard at the time of Bonhoeffers work, so asking whether he read Kierkegaard
directly or simply appropriated him from others such as Barth, Bultmann, or Tillich.
Alongside these more methodological concerns, there is also one of perception. Kierkegaard
is often considered the individualist who rejected both the church and the world. Bonhoeffer,
on the other hand, is envisioned as the ecumenist and ecclesiologist. Consequently, many
have often simply assumed that although there may be areas of overlap, both writers have
ultimately irreconcilable goals and trajectories. This has often stunted the discussion of
influence, or, for some, made it irrelevant.
A textual analysis of Bonhoeffer and Kierkegaards works must lie at the heart of our
investigations. However, without direct quotes or acknowledgements it is extremely hard to
overcome these concerns.

In Attacks on Christendom in a World come of Age, I offer a systematic analysis

across the breadth of both authors work. However, when considering what could most
helpfully be presented from my research at this session, the clear answer was an analysis of
Bonhoeffers library, now housed at the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin. In my mind, it is within
these books that we find the most helpful guide to understanding the relationship between
Kierkegaard and Bonhoeffer, and answering the concerns of influence.

Bonhoeffers Library

The very first question that Bonhoeffers library answers is how much of Kierkegaards work
Bonhoeffer read over the course of his lifetime. The answer is quite striking, for the library
contains a significant number of works.

From the first Gesammelte Werke editions edited by Christoph Schrempf we find:
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Part Two of Concluding Unscientific Postscript

The Concept of Anxiety

The Sickness Unto Death

Practice in Christianity

In other editions the Library also contains

-

Either/Or

The Gospel of Suffering

A Selection of Christian Discourses (Ausgewhlte christliche Rede)

A selection of Kierkegaards journals edited by Wilhelm Ktemeyer, entitled,

Kierkegaard: Der Einzelne und die Kirche Kierkegaard: The Individual and the
Church. This edition also includes editions 1 and 9 of The Moment.

A two volume selection of Kierkegaards journals edited by Theodor Hcker entitled,

Die Tagebcher

And a collected volume, edited by Christoph Schrempf, entitled The Agitating

Writings and Articles of Sren Kierkegaard: 1851 bis 1855. This work includes:
o For Self-Examination
o Judge for Yourself!

All Kierkegaards autobiographical works:

o The Point of View of my Work as an Author
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o About my Work as an Author

o The Individual
And even:
o A first and last explanation from the end of Postscript
And finally:
o This edition contains Kierkegaards later correspondence in Fdrelandet
newspaper, and all ten editions of The Moment.

This list is impressive and it is most likely incomplete. For instance, it doesnt contain Works
of Love and Fear and Trembling two of the only works that Bonhoeffer directly states he
used as well as Volume 1 of Postscript and Philosophical Fragments, both of which find
significant textual agreement in Bonhoeffers work. However, Bonhoeffer has helped us
further. In the majority of these works we find underlinings, exclamation marks, and the
occasional annotation at key moments. Although these marks require interpretation, they
reveal what particularly caught Bonhoeffers eye and, when united to parallels within his
writing, help direct us towards the concept of influence.
Although dating when Bonhoeffer read these works is a complex issue, the evidence
offered so far demonstrates that by the end of his life, Bonhoeffer had read the majority of
Kierkegaards works, and that Bonhoeffers appreciation of Kierkegaard was not a youthful
flash in the pan that some commentators have suggested.
In Attacks on Christendom, all of these works are discussed in detail. For this paper, I
would like to use just a couple of examples from Sanctorum Communio to demonstrate
Bonhoeffers use of these works, and to show that Bonhoeffers understanding of
Kierkegaard progressed beyond individualistic stereotypes to embrace Kierkegaard as a
kindred spirit.

Sanctorum Communio

The Direct Influence

At the end of the first section of Sanctorum Communio, Bonhoeffer reveals that his attack on
idealist philosophy is close to that of Kierkegaards with respect to time and reality. As one
of the most well-known aspects of Kierkegaards thought, Bonhoeffer could have gained an
understanding of the attack through secondary sources. Indeed, one commentator has argued
that in his early work Bonhoeffer merely deals with Kierkegaardian generalities, and that
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there is no evidence of a first hand reading of Kierkegaard in either the Communion

of Saints (1972) or Act and Being (1930).1

However, when we turn to Bonhoeffers library, we find another story. Although there isnt
time to investigate these links further, Bonhoeffers argument in Sanctorum Communio does
indeed bear striking similarity to that of Concluding Unscientific Postscript and The Concept
of Anxiety. For thinkers, idealism has undermined the law of contradiction, made thought
synonymous with reality, and so destroyed the possibility of real decision. Furthermore, it
fails to recognise that we are existing beings who live within the system and cannot have the
spectator knowledge that the system requires as its proof. In contrast, life must be defined
according to both movement and the moment the point in time in which one is confronted
by decision and anxiety, and this in the presence of the eternal.
If we take The Concept of Anxiety striking links can be found. Bonhoeffers copy has
markings on almost every page, in particular concerning the nature of the moment, and that
found in relation to the eternal. Although Bonhoeffers description is far less psychological
than Kierkegaards concerning anxiety and decision, when Bonhoeffer underlines
Kierkegaard comment that In the individual life, anxiety is the moment (The Concept of
Anxiety, 81), he himself declares, idealism has no understanding of the moment in which the
person feels the threat of absolute demand . . . Where is there room, then, for distress of
conscience, for infinite anxiety in the face of decisions? (Sanctorum Communio, 49).
Likewise, when Bonhoeffer underlines Kierkegaard comment that the moment is not
properly an atom of time but an atom of eternity (BA, 85; The Concept of Anxiety, 88), he
writes, The moment is not the shortest span of time, a mechanically conceived atom, as it
were. The moment is the time of responsibility, value-related time, or, let us say, time
related to God; and most essentially, it is concrete time (Sanctorum Communio, 48).
These are just a few tantalising examples of the many that fill Bonhoeffers first work.
Now, the concerns of influence are ultimately still present. As we dont know when
Bonhoeffer read The Concept of Anxiety, we cant say whether these marks demonstrate ideas
that Bonhoeffer will go on to use, or simply that he acknowledges their agreement with what
he has already written. Fortunately, we can say more. Bonhoeffers description of original sin
in Sanctorum Communio, bears both linguistic and substantial parallels with that present in

Hopper, Metanoia, 70.

The Concept of Anxiety, and this in opposition to Augustine, Schliermacher, and Luther. As
the discussion of original sin is not a central part of Kierkegaards attack on idealism, the
most likely explanation for why Bonhoeffer is using both ideas is that he get them directly
from this one work.

The Stereotyped Individual

So far, we can therefore confidently suggest that Sanctorum Communio was at least written
under the direct influence of The Concept of Anxiety. However, more needs to be said.
Despite arguing for a significant direct influence through The Concept of Anxiety and
Concluding Unscientific Postscript, I consider Bonhoeffers understanding of Kierkegaard at
this stage to be defined by his individualist stereotype. When Bonhoeffer discusses the
closeness of his attack on idealism to Kierkegaards, he adds the important proviso that he
believes Kierkegaard only conceives of the individual and rejects the revelatory potential of
the human other. This ascription of individualism to Kierkegaard is affirmed a little later
when he offers two statements concerning FT:
-

First: Kierkegaard, who knew how to speak of the burden of loneliness like few
others, comes out from there to the rejection of the idea of the church (cf. Furcht und
Zittern, Diederichs, p. 171).

And second, quoting FT itself, As soon as the single one [Einzelne] has entered the
paradox, he does not arrive at the idea of the church (p. 106) (Sanctorum Communio
(K), 104 n. 20 (Sanctorum Communio, 162 n. 20)authors translation).2

FT is arguably one of Kierkegaards most influential works on Bonhoeffer, and it plays a

central role in both Discipleship and Bonhoeffers ethics as a whole. However, there is reason
to doubt whether Bonhoeffer had at this point the same depth of understanding he shows in
these later works. First, the page numbers Bonhoeffer offers to these two statements are
incorrect. Secondly, the passage that Bonhoeffer quotes does not actually offer the rejection
of the idea of the church Bonhoeffer suggests, but rather makes the point that in the
movement of faith, the individual is alone before God, and cannot defer this responsibility out
of obedience to the church. In context, it could be suggested that Kierkegaards argument is
that the individual owes an absolute duty towards God, and only a relative one towards the
church. This is Bonhoeffers own argument in Sanctorum Communio where he describes the

The page numbers refer to Schrempfs 1909 Gesammelte Werke edition.

absolute authority of the Word of God in conflict with the relative authority of the church
(Sanctorum Communio, 251). Had Bonhoeffer a deeper understanding of FT at this point, one
suspects his comments would have been different. This is backed up by the fact that in
Discipleship, in the chapter Discipleship and the Individual, Bonhoeffer offers a direct
interpretation of FT that sees the Akedah as actually establishing community rather than
undermining it.

Bonhoeffers Progression

It isnt surprising that Bonhoeffer should have considered Kierkegaard an individualist this
early on as the German stereotype of the day was of see Kierkegaard as a philosophical
relativist and, in particular, to divorce him from his spiritual writings. However, when we
look at Bonhoeffers library, this image is rather different. Of these works, the major editorial
influence is that by Christoph Schempf, Theodor Haecker, and Wilhelm Ktemeyer. Through
their introductory essays and editorial choices, each sought to undermine this caricature and
to root Kierkegaard back into a theological and ecclesiological context, and to reveal
Kierkegaards significance for Germanys troubled times. Schrempf does this by setting
Kierkegaard firmly against the church, but for Haecker and Ktemeyer, it is quite the reverse.
Haeckers designed his selection of Kierkegaards journals in Die Tagebcher to show that
Kierkegaard was not actually attacking the church but rather Christendom. It is significant
that in the same year Die Tagebcher was published, Haecker converted to Catholicism.
Although Ktemeyers selection in Der Einzelne und die Kirche is different, many of the
same concerns are present. Ktemeyer, above even Haecker or Schrempf, sought to publicise
Kierkegaard as having profound significance for Germany at that time. Published in 1934,
just shortly after Bonhoeffers move to London out of frustration at the rise of Nazi brutality
and the refusal of the church to take a stand, Ktemeyer appears to share some of
Bonhoeffers perceptivity into the current events at this early stage in their development. On
the publishers sleeve, surrounding the book and its cover, Ktemeyer asks, Is this book a
current contribution to the religious crisis? That it most assuredly is. It concerns more than
just Kierkegaards lifetime. In the essay that prefaces the work, Ktemeyer then goes on to
translate Kierkegaards work into Germanys political and historical climate. First,
Ktemeyer interprets Kierkegaard firmly into the debate concerning the orders of creation,
that so concerned Bonhoeffer and the pseudo-Lutheran volkisch theology, by describing how
Protestantism has delighted the world through the union of throne and alter, God and petrol,
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poisonous Gas and Holy Ghost.3 Secondly, he unambiguously declares that without the
remedy, historically identified by the name of Kierkegaard, a quick and awful downfall will
overtake Europe.4 With this marketing, it is no wonder that EK should have proved such an
influence on Bonhoeffers later work. Not only do we find a significant number of fervent
underlinings and exclamation marks throughout Bonhoeffers copy, but as Kelly reveals in an
interview at the end of his doctoral thesis, according to Bethge EK had a significant influence
on Discipleship, and in particular on the concept of cheap grace.
Bearing in mind Bonhoeffers statements in Sanctorum Communio, when we turn to
EK we find a very different picture. In an entry from 1850 Kierkegaard comments,

In the public and the like the single individual is nothing . . . In community the single individual is;
the single individual is dialectically decisive as the presupposition for forming community . . . The
cohesiveness of community comes from each ones being a single individual, and then the idea; the
connectedness of a public or rather its disconnectedness consists of the numerical character of
everything. Every single individual in community guarantees the community; the public is a chimera
. . . In a public there is no single individual and the whole is nothing . . . Community is certainly
more than a sum, but yet it is truly a sum of ones; the public is nonsensea sum of negative ones, of
ones who are not ones, who become ones through the sum instead of the sum becoming a sum of the
ones. (EK, 94; JP, 2952/Pap, X2 A 390)

Bonhoeffer vigorously underlined this passage, and it is striking that it bears profound
parallels with Bonhoeffers own description of the contrast between true community and the
mass in Sanctorum Communio. As he himself declares, By viewing the individual person in
a primal state as an ultimate unit who is created by Gods willbut also by seeing individual
persons as real only in socialitywe interpret their relations to one another, which are built
upon their difference, as willed by God (Sanctorum Communio, 84).
However, it is not just the sense of community that is redeemed in EK, but also the
church. In a further entry from 1851 Kierkegaard states,

The definition of Church found in the Augsburg Confession, that it is the communion of saints
where the word is rightly taught and the sacraments rightly administered, this quite correctly (that is,
not correctly) grasped only the two points about doctrine and sacraments and has overlooked the
first, the communion of saints . . . Thus the Church is made into a communion of indifferent

3
4

Ktemeyer, Vorbesprechung, 13.

Ktemeyer, Vorbesprechung, 31.

existences (or where the existential is a matter of indifference)but the doctrine is correct and the
sacraments are rightly administered. This is really paganism. (EK, 148; JP, 600/Pap, X4 A 246)

It is scarcely surprising that Bonhoeffer marked his copy of EK with two dark marginal lines
and an exclamation mark next to this entry. If in Sanctorum Communio Bonhoeffer believed
that Kierkegaard had rejected the church, from 1937 and the time of writing Discipleship this
interpretation was no longer possible.

Conclusion A Theory of Influence

Before finishing I would like to say a few words about how we should understand
Bonhoeffers use of Kierkegaard. When trying to consider the issue of influence, one is
inevitably drawn to Harold Blooms concept of the anxiety of influence. In his seminal
work of the same name, Bloom suggests the potentially Freudian relationship a son has to his
intellectual father(s), desiring above all else to break free and establish his own originality
and sense of self. Bloom suggests that its most common manifestation is in the sons denial
or omission of the fathers work from his own, mentioning him only by way of critique. The
conclusion of my research is that Kierkegaard was one of the most significant influences
throughout Bonhoeffers work a fact that is not obvious from Bonhoeffers meagre
references to him. However, I would suggest that in Bonhoeffer we dont find an anxiety of
influence, but quite the opposite an ambivalence of influence. Bonhoeffer had an anxiety
for truth, and strive to not only write about it, but also to conform to it. Consequently, if he
thought something was right, he didnt keep it as an idea in his academic arsenal, but rather
absorbed it.
An example from 1934 perhaps illustrates this point. During his brief stay in London,
Bonhoeffer preached the sermon on Mat 11:2830, Come to me, all you who are weary and
burdened, and I will give you rest (L, 3715). This is the same text with which Kierkegaard
begins Part I of PC, and the markings within Bonhoeffers own copy show his interest in this
section. Bonhoeffer does not cite, reference, or show any external sign that Kierkegaard is his
influence. And yet the tone and direction of the sermon strongly resemble Kierkegaard.
Bonhoeffer draws on the universality of Christs call, the absurdity of judging an individuals
spiritual need by externals, and the truly human nature of Christ, learning through the yoke of
suffering, all of which are central to Kierkegaards short discussion. In terms of
Kierkegaards influence, the point is not that Bonhoeffer is copying Kierkegaard, writing
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with a copy of PC next to him. Rather, Bonhoeffer immersed himself in Kierkegaard, found
himself in Kierkegaard, and therefore wrote his own words from within Kierkegaard. For
Bonhoeffer the anxiety concerns truth not originality.
As Kelly suggests, Bonhoeffer found in Kierkegaard a kindred soul.5 This becomes
strikingly clear in this sermon. At its end, discussing the final rest of eternity, Bonhoeffer
quotes the lines by the Danish hymn writer, Hans Adolf Brorson.

In yet a little while

I shall have won;
Then the whole fight
Will at once be done.
Then I may rest
In bowers of roses
And unceasingly, unceasingly
Speak with my Jesus.6
These words are carved on Kierkegaards gravestone.7 This information is not in any of the
primary or secondary sources we know Bonhoeffer read, revealing again the fragmentary
nature of the information we do have. However, it reveals the close, personal bond between
Bonhoeffer and Kierkegaard that stood alongside Bonhoeffers intellectual admiration.
Bonhoeffers sermon revolves around the response of the individual to Christ, of taking hold
of his yoke, and following him along the path of suffering. It is one of obedience, sacrifice,
fulfilment, and ultimately rest. And this poem suggests that, maybe, it is with Kierkegaard in
mind that Bonhoeffer wrote it.

Kelly, Kierkegaard as Antidote, 150.

The poem that adorns Kierkegaards gravestone, by H.A. Brorson, translated from Danish by Alastair Hannay,
in Hannay, Kierkegaard, 418.
7
The German Bonhoeffer uses is a somewhat free version of the Danish. Interestingly, it does not appear in
Bonhoeffers library or in any of the secondary sources that we know Bonhoeffer read (L, 375; cf. ITS, 219).
6