Peter Selby wrote:

>> A dogmatic enquiry is one which uses as its evidence
>> the doctrinal tradition of the Church
>> in order to clarify its corporate nature, i.e. its sociology.
>> The risk of that method, of course, is that you end up
>> with a description of the Church which is prescriptive,
>> i.e. it may not represent any church that actually exists. 

Mike Perry answered:

> Selby's reply could not be improved upon.
> Forget any stereotypes about religion being different (odd).
> The dogma vs. sociology conflict is not unique to theology....

In considering this issue, I think it is helpful to refer
to the dictionary definitions of doctrine and dogma respectively.
The distinction, which has become blurred in usage, is that
doctrine refers to what is taught (and learned from formal
instruction). It derives, via "doctrina",  instruction,
from the Latin "doceo", to teach.

The term dogma, on the other hand, originally referred
to the affirmation of a (subjective) conviction, to a
subjectively compelling statement of purported fact.
"dogma" is naturalized in our language from the Greek,
where, according to Liddell and Scott, its primary meaning
was "that which one thinks true, an opinion", being derived
from "dokeo", to think, suppose, expect, imagine.

Bonhoeffer's use of the term "dogmatisch" in the subtitle to
Sanctorum Communio, seems to me to reflect both meanings,
inasmuch as the book is obviously both a statement of Bonhoeffer's
passionate beliefs, and an analytical summary of the doctrines,
both sacred and secular, which helped to guide him to his
conclusions.

Not to be overlooked is that the choice of his thesis topic
was an issue of some disagreement between Bonhoeffer and his
teacher, and it seems not unreasonable to ask whether the 
explicit denomination of Bonhoeffer's work as "dogmatisch" 
might not have been in part an expression of respect for his
mentor whose reputation rested on a two volume "Christliche
Dogmatik," (Christian Dogmatics) and on a three volume
"Lehrbuch der Dogmengeschichte," (Textbook of the History
of Dogma) and whose recommendations concerning a theses topic
Bonhoeffer had chosen not to follow.

==============

I thank Mike Perry for his wide-ranging comments about the
epistemology and ethics of medicine which he wrote for my benefit,
i.e.
> P.S. For the benefit of the physician
> who made the original posting. 

I wish to demur both to the tenor and to the substance of his
opinions, but I am uncertain whether or not I should make my
reply on this discussion list. Arguably any issue concerning
human life can be linked to Bonhoeffer's concerns, without
necessarily adding to our understanding of him or his work.

The same cannot be said about the exhortation:

> Forget any stereotypes about religion being different (odd).

From what I have read by and about Bonhoeffer, I conclude
just the opposite. Not only was his religion different,
but his religion was to be different; this essential difference
is reflected in his writings, in his life and in his death.
It is my inference that many, if not most of the participants
in this dicussion group are here, not inspite of, but because
of that difference. The biblical authorization for Christianity's
being different is in John 18:36: "Jesus answered, My kingdom
is not of this world ..."

Mike Perry, if I understand him correctly, has translated my
question about the professed dogmatism of Bonhoeffer's Communio
Sanctorum into to related issue of whether ecclesiology should
avail itself of, and accept the constraints of the scientific
methods applicable to sociology. I understand his answer to
this question to be in the affirmative.

I have four comments: 1) As has previously been noted here
by others, it is an unduly narrow definition of sociology
which excludes the work of Georg Simmel, Ferdinand Toennies,
Max Weber, or for that matter, that of Adam Smith, Ricardo,
Malthus or Aristotle, solely because they relied on observation
and inference and did not resort to experimental techniques.
Of the approximately 150 references cited by Sanctorum Communio
a large number are sociological treatises which even though
they did not style themselves as "dogmatic", nonetheless utilized
the same scientific techiques of which Bonhoeffer availed himself.

2) The modern classification of sciences derives from Auguste
Comte's "Cours de la Philosophie Positive", upon which John Stuart
Mill elaborated in his "System of Logic". Both works served as
points of departure for Wilhelm Dilthey's "Einleitung in die
Geisteswissenschaften" (1883) (Introduction into the sciences of
the spirit). These sciences of the spirit were referred to by
Mill as "Moral Sciences" and comprised disciplines that are
classified as humanities and social sciences in contemporary
college course catalogues.

3) Comte's writing had a clear anti-theological bias. He wrote:
"L'esprit positif est plus apte que l'esprit theologico-metaphysique
a organiser la societe et a systematiser le morale." In Mill's Logic,
I find no reference at all to theology. Dilthey was very sensitive
to the claims of theology on the human spirit, and wrote perceptively
and sympathetically about the theological controversies of the 
Reformation and Counter-reformation. He did so, however from the
perspective of the historian of ideas, not from that of the committed
theologian; and perhaps that is why Bonhoeffer entirely ignored Dilthey's
work in Sanctorum Communio and cited only one of Dilthey's books in
Akt und Sein.

4) Dilthey repudiated the postulate of Comte and Mill that
Geisteswissenschaften, the sciences of the spirit, should subject
themselves to the constraints, or rely on the experimental methods
of the natural sciences.  Dilthey wrote:

"Ausschlieszlich in der inneren Erfahrung, in den
Tatsachen des Bewusztseins fand ich einen festen
Ankergrund fuer mein Denken...  Alle Wissenschaft
ist Erfahrungswissenschaft, aber alle Erfahrung
hat ihren urspruenglichen Zusammenhang und ihre
hierdurch bestimmte Geltung in den Bedingungen
unseres Bewusztseins, innerhalb dessen sie auftritt."
         (Einleitung in die Geisteswissenschaften p xiii)

"I found a firm foothold for my thinking exclusively
in inward experience, in the facts of consciousness.
All science is science of what is experienced,
but all experience has its original nexus in the
conditions of consciousness.  The validity of this
original nexus of experience derives from the conditions
of our consciousness within which experience makes
its appearance."
         (freely translated from the above)


I have offered this brief historical summary for two reasons:

a) The issues of whether ecclesiology should mimic sociology,
and whether sociology should imitate the physical sciences have
historical roots which we ought not ignore if we choose to debate
these questions.

b) The consciousness within which Dilthey locates the
roots of scientific knowledge is, if I understand him
correctly, the same about which Bonhoeffer writes:

Dann wird es klar werden, dasz christliche Person
ihr eigentliches Wesen  erst erreicht, wenn Gott
ihr nicht als DU gegenuebertritt, SONDERN ALS ICH
IN SIE "EINGEHT".  Sanctorum Communio (S.33-34)

It will then become obvious, that Christian
Personality is actualized only when God no longer
confronts it as THOU, BUT ENTERS INTO IT AS I.
(freely translated from Sanctorum Communio,
Chr. Kaiser Verlag, 1986, pp. 33-34)

If one chooses to take both Bonhoeffer and Dilthey
seriously, and locates both (the experience of) deity
and (the roots of) knowledge within the subjectivity
of the (Christian) person, then one arrives once more
at the coincidence of deity and mind which, if I read
them correctly, was postulated by Aristotle and
St. Thomas and Spinoza.

I cannot help, and I apologize for being dogmatic,
but I make no pretense to being doctrinal,
and I thank Mike Perry for giving me the occasion
to think things through.

                               Ernst Meyer