Author:
ZHAO Xiaowei, Assistant Professor, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Xi'an Jiaotong University.
Abstract:
The dissertation Sanctorum Communio by Dietrich Bonhoeffer poses a challenge to readers due to its unique social philosophical and sociological methodology. Earlier scholars have tended to interpret this work from the perspectives of ecclesiology or Christology. This paper will explain one aspect of the anthropology in Sanctorum Communio , namely the transformation from sinners to righteous people, through Bonhoeffer's definition of the collective-person as humanity. It also aims to reveal the connections between the anthropology, ecclesiology, and Christology within this work. Clifford J. Green has suggested interpreting the anthropology in Sanctorum Communio through the main paradigms of "act" and "being" found in Bonhoeffer's second dissertation. Although this paper examines the anthropology in the context of the connection between Act and Being and Sanctorum Communio, it will give a relatively independent explanation to the Anthropology in Sanctorum Communio with the help of the idea of the collective person. After the completion of Act and Being , the collective person all but disappeared from Bonhoeffer's writings, a phenomenon that has not been given any attention in scholarship. The concluding section of the paper gives three speculative explanations for this problem.
Keywords:
Bonhoeffer, Sanctorum Communio , collective person, anthropology
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