Cardinal Müller is a heretic /Part 1/
20 April 2020
After reading the section on the resurrection in Card. Müller’s Dogmatics, a Christian believer is shocked. The fundamental truth of Christianity is: Jesus Christ is true God and true man. He died on the cross for our sins. He proved His divinity by His glorious resurrection and thus confirmed His teachings. Müller denies this truth of Christ’s historical and real resurrection in a sophisticated manner. And this is a grave heresy.
A) First, we give clear Catholic teaching on the resurrection
B) Quotes and responses to Müller’s statements in his book “Catholic Dogmatics”
C) The roots of German theology – the basis for Card. Müller
Ad A) Clear Catholic teaching on the resurrection
The mystery of Christ’s resurrection is a real event, associated with historically established phenomena, as evidenced above all by the Gospel and the letters of the Apostles. The empty tomb is also a witness. When the disciples discovered it, it was the first step for them to acknowledge the very fact of the resurrection. The empty tomb was first seen by the pious women (Lk 24:3.22-23), then by Peter (Lk 24:12). When the Apostle John entered the empty tomb, he “saw the linen cloths lying there” (Jn 20:6) “…and believed” (v.8). Even from the condition in which the empty tomb was found (vv.5-7), he recognized that the absence of Jesus’ body could not be a human work and that Jesus did not return to earthly life, as was the case with the raising of Lazarus. Mary Magdalene and the pious women, who went to complete the embalming of the body of Jesus (Mk 16:1), were the first to meet the Risen Lord (Mt 28:9-10). Then Jesus appeared to Peter, and later to the Twelve.
The Apostle of the nations says: “And we bring you the good news that what God promised to the fathers, this He has fulfilled to us their children by raising Jesus.” (Acts 13:32f) Around 56AD, St Paul wrote to the Christians in Corinth: “I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that He was buried, that He was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that He appeared to Cephas, then to the Twelve. Then He appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Then He appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, He appeared also to me.” (1Cor 15:1-8)
Christ’s resurrection is a reality that has affected the physical realm and is therefore historical. Its witnesses were concrete people who saw Jesus Christ after His resurrection. When Jesus appeared to the apostles on Sunday evening, “He rebuked them for their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they did not believe those who had seen Him after He had risen” (Mk 16:14). Thomas, in particular, experienced the test of doubt. Hence, the presumption of liberal theologians that the resurrection is a “fabrication” of the naive credulity of the apostles will not stand. Quite the opposite! Their testimony about the resurrection of Christ is based on direct personal experience of the Risen Christ. Jesus wanted them to touch Him to make sure they did not see a spirit, because at first they considered Him a spirit. Then He gave them another proof and ate a piece of fish in their presence, leaving the fishbones as testimony. By showing them His pierced hands and the wound in His side and urging them to touch Him, Jesus confirmed that it was the same body that had been nailed to the cross.
There is a difference between the resurrection of Christ and the resurrection of Lazarus. Lazarus returned to earthly life and then died again. Christ’s resurrection is different in essence. Lazarus was an ordinary man, while Christ is God who took upon Himself a human body and died for our salvation. Therefore also the Scripture testifies: “The Son of Man must suffer many things, and be killed, and after three days rise again.” (Mk 8:31) In another place, Jesus says clearly: “I lay down My life that I may take it again. … I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again.” (Jn 10:17f) “Jesus died and rose again.” (1Thess 4:14)
St Gregory, brother of St Basil the Great, and some other Fathers, contemplate the resurrection on the basis of Christ’s divine person which remained united to both His soul and His body separated from each other by death. By the union of the divine nature, which remains present in each of the two parts, these parts reunite at the resurrection. The resurrection is above all a confirmation of the divinity of Jesus and of all that He has done and taught. All truths, even those that are least accessible to the human spirit, find their justification, because Christ, by His resurrection, has given the final proof of His divine authority, as He promised.
Jesus said: “When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am He.” (Jn 8:28) The resurrection of the Crucified proved that He really is the One who is “I am,” the Son of God and God Himself. St Paul said to the Jews that “what God promised to the fathers, this He has fulfilled to us their children by raising Jesus.”
The Paschal mystery contains two aspects: By His death Christ frees us from sin and by His resurrection He gives us access to a new life. Above all, this new life is justification that brings us back to God’s grace (Rom 4:25). Finally, Christ’s resurrection is the foundation and source of our future resurrection: “Christ is risen from the dead, and has become the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.” (1Cor 15:20-22)
The Jewish historian Flavius Josephus (37-100AD) described the events of Jesus’ life as follows: “About this time there lived Jesus, a wise man, if indeed one ought to call him a man. For he was one who performed startling deeds and was a teacher of such people as accept the truth gladly. He won over many Jews and many Greeks. He was the Christ. When Pilate, upon hearing him accused by men of the highest standing among us, had condemned him to be crucified, those who had in the first place come to love him did not give up their affection for him. On the third day he appeared to them restored to life, for the prophets of God had prophesied these and countless other marvellous things about him.”
“Many witnesses there are of the Saviour’s resurrection: the stone which was rolled away itself bears witness to the Resurrection, lying there to this day. Peter and John, and Thomas, and all the rest of the Apostles, some of whom ran to the sepulchre and saw the burial-clothes, in which He was wrapped before, lying there after the Resurrection. Others handled His hands and His feet, and beheld the prints of the nails… The linen clothes also were witnesses which were wrapped about Him, and which He left when He rose. And the soldiers, and the money given to them also…” (St Cyril of Jerusalem)
Christ continued to bear the five wounds on His glorified body. He urged the doubting Thomas to put his finger into the wounds in His hands and into His pierced side (Jn 20:27). “Christ preserved His wounds in order to show that He will not forget us even in the condition of His glory, because He has written our names on His holy hands with His own blood.” (St Bernard)
Without the reality of the resurrection, there is no forgiveness of sins and we have no hope of salvation. If we refuse to view Christ’s resurrection as God’s love for us and a perfect redemptive work, we are blasphemers and unbelievers who do not belong to the Church of Christ. What Jesus did for us when He died and rose again is the basic condition of salvation for every man.
The Redeemer rose from the dead to prove that He was God and that we too would rise from the dead. Christ is the first to rise from the dead (1Cor 15:20).
Christ did not appear in a dark night but in a bright day, not once but often, not in one place but in many places – in the garden near His tomb, in Emmaus, in the Upper Room in Jerusalem, at the Lake of Gennesaret, on the hills and on the mountain in Galilee, and finally on the Mount of Olives near Jerusalem. The apparitions did not last only a few moments but a longer time, for Christ long taught the apostles. They also asked Him many questions, and He answered them.
Thomas did not even believe the ten apostles (Jn 20:25). “To us, Thomas’s unbelief was more profitable than the belief of the other disciples.” (St Gregory the Great)
The apostles preached about the resurrection at all times: on the day of Pentecost, before the council, in the temple after the healing of a man lame from birth…
The resurrection of Christ as a historical event is one thing, and “resurrection with Christ” (Col 2:12) another. The mystery of resurrection with Christ requires faith, but this faith is the fruit of keeping Christ’s commandments, as Jesus says: “He who keeps My commandments, it is he who loves Me … and I will manifest Myself to him.” The condition for spiritual resurrection with Christ is to be spiritually crucified with Christ. Then it is true: “Christ lives in me.” Here we really need the faith that unites us to Christ and the grace of God that transforms us into Christ. By contrast, as for the acceptance of the reality of Christ’s physical resurrection, the Saviour did not make it a matter of our faith alone. His resurrection was confirmed by eyewitnesses who spoke to Him, touched Him, and He ate in their presence. Jesus appeared for 40 days, and if someone intentionally ignores this reality to his own detriment, he makes the apostles liars and deceivers. This is exactly what pseudo theologians like Müller do when they produce a patchwork of hypotheses denying the truth of Christ’s resurrection, which is the foundation of the whole Christian faith. The apostles, however, are reliable eyewitnesses who sealed their testimony with their blood!
+ Elijah
Patriarch of the Byzantine Catholic Patriarchate
+ Methodius OSBMr + Timothy OSBMr
Secretary Bishops
Fr Wenceslas Fr David
Download: Cardinal Müller is a heretic /Part 1/ (20/4/2020)
