Creation and Fall/Temptation

Creation and Fall is Bonhoeffer's lucid, brilliant analysis of the first three chapters of Genesis. Here he discusses the seeming scientific naivete behind the creation story, God's love and goodness, and humanity's creation, its free will, and its blessedness. Bonhoeffer also tackles difficult questions that are raised in the first book of the of the Bible, questions about the seemingly redundant second story of creation, about God's own beginning, about the source of the light that was created on the first day. The author then expounds on Adam and Eve's fall from grace: How could they, creatures made in God's image, have thought to oppose God so foully? Where did the first evil come from? How did humanity lose its right to live in paradise?

In "Temptation," Bonhoeffer questions how temptation appeared in the midst of Eden's innocence, and he explores the very nature of evil. Bonhoeffer explains that Jesus Christ helps us to understand and conquer physical and spiritual temptation through His grace and goodness.