"Good is... reality as a whole held in the hand of God"

Good is reality,
reality itself seen and recognised in God.
Human beings,
with their motives and their works,
with their fellow human beings,
with the creation that surrounds them,
in other words,
reality as a whole held in the hands of God -
that is what is embraced by the question of good.

(Dietrich Bonhoeffer, DBW 6, Ethics, page 53)

Those words written during years of moral and political darkening in Germany and Europe. I took the liberty of putting them in a format that allows slowed down reading.

Guantanamo is to close, thank God. Guantanamo, with its prisoners held behind electrified and razor wire in humiliating, and dehumanising conditions, under the absolute power of their captors; Guantanamo and its military and intelligence personnel who are no less prisoners held behind inner barriers that inevitably dehumanise those who believe their power over others is absolute. Guantanamo is to close.

It is one of the challenges of theology that to make an all inclusive statement like 'reality as a whole held in the hands of God', must therefore include Guantanamo in that reality. It takes with shocking literalness 'He's got the whole world in His hands'; yes Guantanamo too. The military and their prisoners, human beings each caught up in the rage of the wronged.

So when that theologian was himself a prisoner, held, interrogated, tortured then executed by those with totalitarian power over his life, the words quoted above become profound affirmation, radiating a view of God and the world that negates the absolute claims of those forces of darkness that dehumanise. This is theology of hope, taking on the powers of despair, fear and hate, and not being defeated. And going on believing, 'reality as a whole [is] held in the hand of God'. 

Comments

[angela almond]

Wasn't it Bonhoeffer who pointed out that in the Old Testament Law "A man is never punished by being deprived of his liberty" ?