Creation and Fall/Temptation

I give this book 5 stars for the quality of thought, not the ease of reading. One should start reading Bonheoffer with his great "The Cost of Discipleship." It has been decades since I have read any Bonheoffer when he was all the rage. One must remember that he was first and last a theologian, not a philosopher. He is a wonderful expositor and thinker within a Christian framework, so do not expect him to grapple with fundamental questions without his focus on God and Jesus Christ. His is a creationist approach that explains by elimination of certain questions. "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." This type of thinking that will not allow question because they are "godless" does not belittle his arguments, but definitely puts him in the camp of the Christian theologian, and he must be encountered there. Bonhoeffer is a journey every Christian should take at one time or another. O yes, he was a German Lutheran pastor whose life is perhaps more interesting than even his writings. Had he not died in a Nazi concentration camp, he most likely would have expanded his ideas even more. Bonhoeffer was open to new ideas within his Christian framework which makes him intellectually appealing, and his martyrdom makes his life an even more powerful demonstration of his ethics.

These are two of the most lucid and insightful commentaries I have ever read. Bonhoeffer moves beyond the usually mundane issues often dealt with when discussing the creation and fall. Instead, he places the focus on God and on how the creation and fall effect our lives as human beings. Temptation is a poignant counterpoint to the story of the fall. It points the way through the darkness of our everyday lives and to the one who is the Way, the Truth and the Life...Jesus Christ.

If you are already familiar with Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the wonderfully perceptive German theologian who was killed in a Nazi concentration camp in 1945, then this book will serve to deepen your understanding of Bonhoeffer's theology. If this is your introduction to Bonhoeffer, then you are in for a delightful surprise. In his short, but dense, analysis of the Genesis story of humanity's creation and fall, Bonhoeffer asks the reader to view the familiar with new eyes - with our eyes fixed firmly on God, not on traditional readings of Genesis. Creation reveals much about God - our sovereign God of life, who worked and rested, and offered the same blessings of work and rest to us. Creation also reveals much about humanity, our desire to be God, and our guilt about disobeying God. In the course of his delightful book, Bonhoeffer wrestles with the fundamental issues of good and evil, of temptation, of the graceful limits imposed by God, and humanity's "freedom." If you, too, have ever wrestled with such questions, this book will guide you and challenge you in your thinking.