Dietrich and Karl-Friedrich Bonhoeffer THE BROTHERS BONHOEFFER ON SCIENCE, MORALITY, AND THEOLOGY by Larry Rasmussen
Abstract. On one level this is a case study in science, religion, and morality, with special attention to the consequences for morality of science’s embeddedness in society. On another level this is the scienceand-theology dialogue between the theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer and his brother Karl-Friedrich, a physicist. The influence of KarlFriedrich and the brothers’ exchanges on Dietrich’s prison theology receives special attention. Because this study is set in Germany in the 1930s and 40s, and Karl-Friedrich’s work intersected Germany’s efforts to develop a nuclear weapon, the discussion leads to Los Alamos and the Manhattan Project. The attention there is to the interplay of science, religion, and morality at the time the bomb was detonated at the Trinity site. Keywords: Dietrich Bonhoeffer; Karl-Friedrich Bonhoeffer; deus ex machina; Fritz Haber; individual and communal moral responsibility; Manhattan Project; Robert Oppenheimer; science, morality, and religion; scientific knowledge; Leo Szilard; theology
Civilization and barbarism are not incompatible, and science serves them both well. This is a conclusion from the following case study. Set amid German fascism in the 1930s and 40s, it is a study in science, religion, and morality. The immediate subjects are the brothers Bonhoeffer, Dietrich and Karl-Friedrich. Connected at a distance are Los Alamos and the Manhattan Project.
Larry Rasmussen is Reinhold Niebuhr Professor Emeritus of Social Ethics, Union Theological Seminary, New York City. His mailing address is 605 Calle de Marcos, Santa Fe, NM 87505; e-mail lrryrasmussen@yahoo.com. [Zygon, vol. 44, no. 1 (March 2009)] © 2009 by the Joint Publication Board of Zygon. ISSN 0591-2385
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