Ontology and Ethics: Bonhoeffer and Contemporary Scholarship

Recent scholarship in a number of disciplines has explored the relationship between ontology and ethics. The essays in this collection indicate what the German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945) has to contribute to this discussion. By engaging the breadth of his academic and pastoral writings these essays retrieve Bonhoeffers theology for a contemporary audience. They do so by critically clarifying and extending key concepts developed by Bonhoeffer across his corpus and in dialogue with Hegel Heidegger Dilthey Barth and others. They also create dialogues between Bonhoeffer and more recent figures like Levinas Agamben Foucault and Lacoste. Finally they take up pressing contemporary ethical issues such as globalization managerialism and racism. This essay collection is a great addition to Bonhoeffer scholarship that shows the ongoing relevance of this important theologian not merely for postmodern academic concerns but for wider issues of global significance. --Jens Zimmermann Trinity Western University There is no mystery in the fact that interest in Dietrich Bonhoeffer has remained consistently high since the publication of his prison correspondence. In this volume we hear from yet another generation of young scholars who find him to be an important interlocutor for contemporary theology. These essays bring valuable new insights and perspectives to bear on Bonhoeffers life and thought particularly with regard to the connection between ontology and ethical reflection in his theology. --Barry Harvey Baylor University Adam C. Clark is a doctoral candidate in Christian Ethics at the University of Notre Dame. His dissertation compares Bonhoeffer to other recent figures on the contribution of the grammars of creation and salvation history to social justice. Michael Mawson is Lecturer in Theological Ethics at the University of Aberdeen. His doctoral dissertation focused on Bonhoeffers ecclesiology and social ethics.