Bonhoeffer aims to liberate theology from metaphysics by exposing its self-imprisoning tendencies and failure to overcome the subject-object split. He critiques post-Kantianism, which merges traditional ontology and ideology with the act-being dialectic. Bonhoeffer rejects post-Kantianism’s self-centered approach to relationships and dismantles the harm caused by modern self-centered thinking, which has distorted the understanding of God and others. However, Bonhoeffer disagrees with the proposal to dismiss self-identity and replace it with other-centered ethics. Bonhoeffer sees that speaking of the other-as-person and the person-asother cannot solve the continuing challenge raised by the transcendental tradition’s paradigm of subject and object. This is because other-centered philosophy, including dialogicalism and I-You personalism, is unable to secure the continuity of human togetherness. If the person’s encounter with God is replaced with an encounter with the other, “then what occurs is not the overcoming of the absolute claim per se to master the world but the inversion of the absolute claim from the I to the encountering other.”³³ The other-centered approach absolutizes the demands of the other as you. This is simply to transfer the absolute position of the “I” in idealism to the “You.” Such an absolutization of the other is nothing more than a repetition of the Idealist tradition, which made the I absolute. From Bonhoeffer’s perspective, Levinas’s concept of sociality, emphasizing the responsibility for the other, remains entrenched in idealism because it overlooks the role of divine agency in social interactions. This critique is most evident in Bonhoeffer’s inaugural lecture at the University of Berlin. The text is long, but I will quote it. Hence the I posits the other as absolute, acknowledges that other as its concrete, absolute boundary only to have its own absolute essence ultimately returned to it through that absolute You. [After all, since I myself posit the claim of the You as absolute, I could just as easily relativize it,] and thus with my own possibilities I remain the master of the other person as well. Although Grisebach’s intentions are certainly worthy of serious attention, he cannot carry them out by these means. Here, however, we find ourselves in the very midst of the critique of what philosophy can even call the boundary of the human being. We must raise one significant objection against the attempt to understand the human being on the basis of his limits [rather than from that of his possibilities]. The boundary by which the human being limits himself remains a self-drawn boundary, that is, a boundary the human person essentially has already crossed, a boundary that person must already have stood beyond in the first place in order to draw it. The boundary is thus the absolute possibility that turns against itself. By limiting my own possibilities in thought—and I really cannot limit them in any other way in philosophy—I demonstrate through the very possibility of limitation the infinity of my possibilities, from which I can no longer go back.³⁴ Bonhoeffer criticizes the I-You personalism of Grisebach as a kind of Other-centered approach, for it “[makes] the Thou absolute in place of the I and [gives] it a position which can only be God’s.”³⁵ I-You personalism is no different from ontological idealism, for the I still controls the other. This means that other-centered philosophy, as a rejection of the universal subject, is entirely influenced by cor curvum in se. From Bonhoeffer’s point of view, even though other-centered philosophy seems to succeed in overcoming the transcendent subject, it returns to the problem of the modern self by absolutizing the other. Bonhoeffer’s critique of Grisebach’s ideas can extend to Levinas’s position, which fails to acknowledge the need for divine transcendence to escape self-enclosure. Levinas insists on a subject mediated through the Other and stresses that the basis of perception is not the consciousness of the self but the Other, who is not subordinated by the reason and judgment of the self. For him, the other is just a counterpart who calls the subject to unconditional hospitality. From Bonhoeffer’s view, however, the claim of the other’s priority is nothing but replacing the self with the other. It, therefore, cannot be an authentic alternative to the modern self. Although Bonhoeffer shares common ground with the philosophers of otherness in trying to bring down the modern self, he does not reduce the self to the other as they do. The transfer of the subject to the other is not regarded as a solution to the problem of the self-incurved mind of cor curvum in se. Bonhoeffer considers that the other cannot be a place to encounter the Absolute because the other is identified with the self in the sense that it is also an incurved atomistic entity. In essence, thought cannot impose limits on itself from within, as any such limits are intrinsic to thought. Since philosophy relies solely on the “I’s” own thinking, it cannot establish its own boundaries, even in its most rigorous attempts, like those of Grisebach. According to Bonhoeffer, true personhood is not achieved by simply hearing the command of the other or by adhering to moral laws. Attempting to align oneself with the truth through the command of the other is akin to justifying oneself by following the Law. Rather, Bonhoeffer asserts the radical severance between Christianity and ethics, arguing that “Christianity and ethics have absolutely nothing to do with each other. There is no Christian ethic.”³⁶ 78 Bonhoeffer claims that Christianity is fundamentally amoral, meaning that Christianity and ethics are initially incompatible and quite different. This is because Christianity focuses on the unique path from God to humans. In contrast, ethics centers on the path from humans to God, emphasizing the encounter between the holy God and the righteous human. Essentially, the Christian message highlights grace, while ethics emphasizes righteousness.³⁷ Bonhoeffer, thus, proposes a genuine alternative beyond the other-centered ethic in the collective and communal other, not in the isolated and individual other. Christ as a community is Bonhoeffer’s response to refuting the other’s individualistic social atomism and to realizing the encounter with the absolute other and the grace of revelation in the concept of the Christian person. Bonhoeffer’s concept of Christological personhood has a collective dimension, including a comprehensive scope of others beyond the individual. Bonhoeffer’s Christology eventually pursues the ethics of the others through Christ as the community. The collective personality of the “other” is demanded of the ethical decision of “responsibility” through Christ. Bonhoeffer says this is an “ethical collective person.”³⁸ Bonhoeffer explains that through “ethical collective persons,” the Christian person formed between God and an individual is an adaptable concept between God and community and even between God and all humankind. Bonhoeffer forms a Christian ethical framework that allows us to discuss “the responsibility of the community” beyond “individual responsibility” by presenting the collective person as the genuine way of facing the other.