ABSTRACT
This chapter develops in a few ways the theological and moral insights of Karl Barth and Dietrich Bonhoeffer into the meaning of telling the truth. Bonhoeffer ponders the sorts of hiddenness necessary for revealing in speech what is true. Both theologians affirm that the truth that ought to be told relates to the reality of the world that God has created and redeemed in Christ. The chapter introduces an exchange that took place over forty years ago that is itself an instance of the Barth/Bonhoeffer legacy. Bonhoeffer is always referring to specific bonds, rather than to undifferentiated notions of human "openness" or "mutual discovery". The moral demand of truth telling is thus rendered intelligible through the idea that moral agency is involved with integral human bonds that, indeed, make human life more fully human. Karl Barth, directly and in detail, identifies the Creator of the terrain. The root of falsehood is the Christian's flight from freedom.
