This is the best study of Bonhoeffer’s engagement with Heidegger to date. It is also highly recommended for anyone interested in Heidegger’s reception history or in the vital, ongoing relationship between theology and continental philosophy.
-- Journal for Continental Philosophy of Religion
The theology of the Protestant reformation began with Martin Luther’s disputation with scholastic theology which challenged the extent to which it had become improperly enthralled by philosophy. In the mid-twentieth century, that dispute was back at the top of the agenda for the young Dietrich Bonhoeffer. In Nik Byle’s brilliant study of Bonhoeffer’s intense and formative engagement with the philosophy of Martin Heidegger we have a case study of how a genuinely Protestant theologian truly can make constructive use of philosophy without losing either its soul, or its mind.
-- Stephen J. Plant, University of Cambridge
Of all contemporary philosophers, Bonhoeffer was most influenced by Martin Heidegger. Nicholas Byle's brilliant study shows in which regard and how far. Every student of Bonhoeffer interested in the early Bonhoeffer should read Byle's nuanced analysis.
-- Christiane Tietz, University of Zurich
Overall, Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Christological Reinterpretation of Heidegger offers an incisive analysis of not only the interplay between Bonhoeffer and Heidegger, but also between theology and philosophy as disciplines.
-- Reading Religion
In Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Christological Reinterpretation of Heidegger, Nik Byle successfully shows howBonhoeffer repurposed the best of secular philosophy for theological use. Byle offers a deep, well-researched contribution to the literature surrounding the work of Bonhoeffer. Although focused primarily onBonhoeffer’s analysis of the problem of act and being, this book provides Christians and non-Christiansalike an example of how philosophy and theology can productively interact with foundational problems of human existence, all while remaining committed to mutually exclusive truth claims.
-- VoegelinView
