Pulse
19 Jan 2026
In his famous work Cost of Discipleship published in 1937, the German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer sets out his profound understanding of human solidarity by grounding it not in the prevailing sociological and political theories but in the incarnation of the second person of the triune God.
So significant is Bonhoeffer’s statement, which served as the basis for his later work Ethics (whose completion was unfortunately precluded by his death), that I will reproduce it here in full:
In becoming human in Christ the entire humanity regains the dignity of being made in the image of God. Whoever from now on attacks the least of the people attacks Christ, who took on human form and who in himself has restored the image of God for all who bear the human countenance. In community with the incarnate one, we are once again given our true humanity. With it, we are delivered from the isolation caused by sin, and at the same time restored to the whole of humanity. Inasmuch as we participate in Christ, the incarnate one, we also have a part in all humanity, which is borne by him. Since we know ourselves to be accepted and borne within the humanity of Jesus, our new humanity now also consists in bearing the troubles and sins of all others. The incarnate one transforms his disciples into brothers and sisters of all human beings.
The inspiration behind Bonhoeffer’s Christ-centred theology was Karl Barth, who, with the exception of Martin Luther, has more profoundly shaped his thinking than any other theologian.
In particular, Bonhoeffer appreciated what has been described as Barth’s great theological inversion: whereas the liberal theologians of his day sought to force theology into the Procrustean bed of human reasoning and culture, Barth proclaimed the God who speaks freely and concretely to (and often in judgement of) culture.
Just as Bonhoeffer’s understanding of human solidarity – in its essence and depth – is grounded in Christology, in the meaning of incarnation of the eternal Son of God, so also is his concept of responsibility based on the reality of Christ as God’s will taking concrete form in human history. As Robin Lovin puts it, ‘In Christ, we see how it is that taking responsibility in human terms, acting on behalf of humanity, is also acting responsibly before God.’
In this article, we reflect on Bonhoeffer’s understanding of responsibility in relation to his rich concept of human solidarity. However, a brief glance at some of the basic features of the German theologian’s ethics – to set the stage, as it were – will prove to be helpful.
CHRIST-SHAPED ETHICS
Unsurprisingly, for Bonhoeffer, Christian ethics, like discipleship, has to do with participating in the reconciliation of the world to God in Christ, and the formation of Christ’s image – in every believer, but also in the church as a whole. Here is how Bonhoeffer puts it:
[Christ] formation occurs only by being drawn into the form of Jesus Christ, by being conformed to the unique form of the one who became human, was crucified, and is risen. This [occurs] as the form of Jesus Christ himself so works on us that it molds us, conforming our form to his own (Gal 4:9).
Bonhoeffer is emphatic that our notions of good and evil cannot be gleaned from human reason or the moral sensibilities or preferences of a given culture. Following Barth, he asserts that they can only be discerned from the will of God revealed in his Word.
Thus, he writes provocatively that:
Those who wish to focus on the problem of a Christian ethic are faced with an outrageous demand – from the outset they must give up, as inappropriate to this topic, the very two questions that led them to deal with the ethical problem: ‘How can I be good?’ and ‘How can I do something good?’ instead they must ask the wholly other, completely different question: what is the will of God?
Bonhoeffer’s ethics is therefore truly theological in that it claims that what constitutes the good can only be understood through the knowledge of God.
‘For what meaning would the goodness of human beings and the world have without God?’ he asks. ‘Since God, however, as ultimate reality is no other than the self-announcing, self-witnessing, self-revealing God in Jesus Christ, the question of good can only find its answer in Christ.’
If the first feature of Bonhoeffer’s ethics is its unapologetic Christocentrism, the second is its emphasis on the concrete.
Again and again, Bonhoeffer rejects the idea that ethical decision-making should be made on the basis of static absolutes.
This must not be taken to mean – as some have mistakenly done – that Bonhoeffer is unconcerned with ethical principles, and is advocating a version of relativism or situationism. As we have seen, Bonhoeffer, like Barth, believes that the divine commandment is the authoritative basis for all human action.
What Bonhoeffer wants to emphasise is that ethical or moral decision-making always has to do with an individual acting responsibly in obedience to the divine commandment in a given situation – always acting in freedom, and yet also accountable for the consequences of that action.
We may say that Bonhoeffer’s approach to ethics is characterised by a certain theological and moral realism. As Bonhoeffer explains:
Responsible action is neither determined from the outset nor defined once and for all; instead it is born in the given situation. The point is not to apply a principle that eventually be shattered by reality anyway, but to discern what is necessary or ‘commanded’ in a given situation.
RESPONSIBLE ACTION
The brief discussion above has (it is hoped) set the stage for the more specific focus on what Bonhoeffer has to say about responsibility and responsible action.
For Bonhoeffer, responsibility fundamentally means responsibility for the other. The fact that we live in a community, in a network of relationships, means that we are called to acknowledge and embrace our responsibility for our fellows.
Bonhoeffer stresses this when he writes in Ethics that ‘a human being necessarily lives in encounter with other human beings and … this encounter entails being charged … with responsibility for the other human being.’
The moral or ethical demand obtains in the context of human relationality and community because it is impossible to bracket away the consequences of the actions of the individual from the people around him. As Bonhoeffer explains further:
The moment a person accepts responsibility for other people … the genuine ethical situation arises … The subject of the action is no longer the isolated individual, but one who is responsible for other people.
Bonhoeffer uses the difficult and complex concept of ‘to take the place of another’ (German: Stellvertretung) to explore the depths of the meaning of responsibility.
The German word has no English equivalent. In the older translation of Ethics, it is rendered as ‘deputyship.’ In the new – more definitive – translation, ‘vicarious representative action’ is used to tease out the meaning of Stellvertretung.
This rendering, however, is not without its problems. For the term ‘vicarious’ is used in theology to refer to Christ’s suffering and sacrifice for the sake of fallen humanity. Bonhoeffer is of course not saying that an individual is to be exactly like Christ in his identification with the other.
So, what exactly does Bonhoeffer mean by Stellvertretung (‘vicarious representative action’)? Robin Lovin explains it this way:
The meaning of the word is shaped by theological understanding of Christ’s vicarious sacrifice, but the more ordinary meaning of acting for and on behalf of another, without regard for the claims of the self, also shapes Bonhoeffer’s theology of Christ as God’s presence in history and humanity.
To put this another way, the expression Stellvertretung points to Bonhoeffer’s ‘incarnational’ theology of responsibility and responsible action. We enter into the realm of genuine responsibility and responsible action only when we are willing to leave behind self-interest and concern ourselves with the needs of the other within the complex social structures and conditions in which we find ourselves.
This is not to be understood as a superficial expression of empathy or fellow-feeling. What Bonhoeffer has in mind is a kind of ‘kenotic’ identification with the other – a self-forgetting and self-denying entering into the ‘situation’ of the other in genuine solidarity.
This recalls the famous words of Pope John Paul II in his 1987 encyclical Sollicitudo res socialis (The Social Concern):
Solidarity is not a feeling of vague compassion or shallow distress at the misfortunes of so many people, both near and far. On the contrary, it is a firm and persevering determining to commit oneself to the common good; that is to say to the good of all and of each individual because we are all really responsible for all.
Bonhoeffer would fully agree with the late pontiff.
For Bonhoeffer, genuine solidarity is made evident by responsible action. And responsible act is motivated by genuine love (agape) and concretely directed at our neighbour in his need.
I conclude this article with some powerful and moving words from Ethics which bring together the themes that we have briefly explored.
The hungry needs bread, the homeless person needs shelter, the one deprived of rights needs justice, the lonely person needs community, the undisciplined one needs order, and the slave needs freedom. It would be blasphemy against God and our neighbour to leave the hungry unfed while saying that God is closest to those in deepest need. We break bread with the hungry and share our home with them for the sake of Christ’s love, which belongs to the hungry as much as it belongs to us. If the hungry do not come to faith, the guilt falls on those who denied them bread. To bring bread to the hungry is preparing the way for the coming grace.
Dr Roland Chia is Chew Hock Hin Professor at Trinity Theological College (Singapore) and Theological and Research Advisor of the Ethos Institute for Public Christianity.