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All of the key claims of Bonhoeffer’s Ethics are based on the affirmation that the world has been reconciled with God in Christ and that the believer is “formed” by Christ. The familiar description of the “responsible life” puts forward Christological arguments for a situational ethics. Nevertheless, there is a tension between this situational ethic and two other key elements of Bonhoeffer’s thought, the ideas of the “natural” and of “mandates”, both of which are also made explicit in the Christological perspective. This tension brings us back to the idea of Christ’s incognito: his formative presence is an object of faith, unquestionable, whereas the Christian must take the risk of making ethical decisions by virtue of reason and experience, etsi Deus non daretur.