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Bonhoeffer's New Beginning investigates the ethics of making new beginnings after devastating moral rupture. The work argues that new beginnings must be made in order to sustain the fundamental convictions that it is good to exist and that life in the world with others should be loved without exclusion. Bonhoeffer's ethics of new beginning is set in conversation with the thought of four moral philosophers, Friedrich Nietzsche, Hannah Arendt, Jonathan Glover, and Jonathan Lear. DeCort argues that Bonhoeffer's ethics of new beginning opens and energizes a more promising, world-affirming moral vision with radical hope for new beginnings vis-à-vis the perceived absence of God in the face of devastation.
List of contents
Beginning
Introduction - Our Over-All Take on Human Life: The Problem of Morality and the Ethics of New Beginning
Chapter 1 - The Trial: Universal Entry and The Problem of Morality
Chapter 2 - Four Options: The Problem of Morality and the Ethics of New Beginning in Nietzsche, Arendt, Glover, and Lear
Chapter 3 - "A Rift Irreparable Through Human Initiative": Devastation and the Human (In)Capacity to Make a New Beginning in Bonhoeffer's Thought
Chapter 4 - "Only with God Is There A New Way, A New Beginning": Justification and Guidance For New Beginning In Bonhoeffer's Thought
Chapter 5 - "The Dawning of The New World, The New Order": Practices of New Beginning In Bonhoeffer's Thought
Conclusion - After the Beginning: The Problem of Morality, Divine Absence, and the Ethics of New Beginning after Devastation
Beginning Anew
Appendix - Bonhoeffer's Last Words: A Personal Testament and Theological Summary?
About the author
Andrew D. DeCort is lecturer in ethics and theology at the Ethiopian Graduate School of Theology and director of the Institute for Christianity and the Common Good.
Summary
Bonhoeffer’s New Beginning investigates Dietrich Bonhoeffer's life-affirming answer to how we begin again after devastation. Combining scholarly rigor and existential honesty, DeCort argues that Bonhoeffer offers an ethical and moral vision of radical hope vis-à -vis the perceived absence of God in the face of devastation.
