Cardinal Müller is a heretic /Part 2/
20 April 2020
Ad B) Quotes and responses to Müller’s statements in his book “Catholic Dogmatics”
Cardinal Müller, who is regarded as strongly conservative today, wrote a textbook of dogmatics, which definitely is not conservative, at a time when he was not yet a bishop. The book was published in 1995 under the title of Katholische Dogmatik: Für Studium und Praxis der Theologie. Thereafter, it was published in many editions and translations and is still used for theological studies. Here, in Chapter 5, Section 3, Müller speaks about the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ in the sense of completely rejecting and denying it. Card. Müller has never repented of his heresies.
Quote: “Given that the synoptics cannot and do not want to record the Easter event in a graphic scenario, but rather testify to the revelatory event which is accessible only through faith…”
Response: To claim that “the revelatory event” of Christ after His resurrection was accessible only through faith is a lie. The apostles believed neither women nor even when Christ Himself appeared to them. So He ate in their presence and encouraged them to touch Him. Thomas did not believe the apostles for a whole week until he himself put his finger into the wounds of Christ. Therefore, to say that “the revelatory event (of Christ) is accessible only through faith” is completely at odds with reality. On the contrary, the unbelieving apostles faced the reality of the Risen Christ and spread this truth of our salvation as witnesses throughout the world.
If Müller claims that the Evangelists cannot record Christ’s resurrection graphically, he thus also claims that the Gospels do not give real facts but only their fictional reflections. He thus denies the veracity of the Gospels. If, as he goes on to say, they do not even want to record the facts, then what does Müller consider the Gospels to be? A pack of lies or myths?
Müller thus says that the apostles did not witness a real event – in other words, that they did not really encounter the Risen Lord. He degrades them to a kind of visionaries. This is Müller’s gross manipulation and deception. It is a heresy of relativism and modernism. Müller does not believe that Christ rose in the flesh. The Christian faith as presented by him has lost its meaning because he represents it in such a way that it has nothing to do with facts. According to his heretical conception, faith is only an inner subjective experience, independent of reality.
Quote: “The literary character of the Synoptic Easter Gospels must be taken into account. They do not want to be a protocol-like account of an externally imperceptible event by the witnesses involved.”
Response: The fact that the testimonies of the individual witnesses – Evangelists – are no protocol-like accounts does not change the reality of the resurrection. From their statements, we can create a protocol-like account using the same method as the examining magistrates do. From the findings and witness statements, we will compile a reliable picture of what and how happened in connection with Christ’s resurrection. This is what honest theologians actually do.
Müller uses an expression “an externally imperceptible event” thus demonstrating again that he considers the real presence of the Risen Jesus among the apostles to be only a private revelation which is externally imperceptible. This is a heresy. The Evangelists, on the contrary, testify to obvious facts.
Quote: “Rather, they (the apostles) want to testify to God’s saving work in Jesus with the help of literary devices already known from the Old Testament (such as the ‘scheme of revelation’) used to reproduce God’s revelation in word and deed.”
Response: This is blasphemy and denial of God’s revelation as such. The physical appearances of the Risen Christ are based on demonstrable facts, on historical events. Müller assumes the exactly opposite process. He claims that first there are ideas which the sacred author uses to create a story to demonstrate his thoughts. But this is a big delusion! If the physical appearances of the Risen Christ are not real, there is no true revelation of God in the Gospel or in the whole Scripture either.
Quote: “An increasing interest in the transfigured corporeality of the risen Lord can be seen in the individual stages of tradition and in the editing of the Easter story in Mk and in the related Gospels of Mt and Lk and finally in another line of tradition in Jn.”
Response: What exactly is “another line of tradition in Jn”? According to Müller, John was not much of a witness to Christ’s resurrection and only recorded another line of an evolving human tradition. Müller thus completely denied the credibility of the apostles – the eyewitnesses of Christ’s resurrection! However, the Apostle John testifies: “That which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have touched – this we proclaim.” (1Jn 1:1)
What does Müller mean by “editing”? Does it mean, in Müller’s view, that the apostles were no eyewitnesses but mere journalists engaged in editing a story? Such edited works, however, can by no means be the Word of God! Christianity à la Müller is thus built on shallow foundations, and the apostles and thousands of martyrs turn out to have died for these edited fictions.
Quote: “However, this is not evidence of an allegedly increasing reification or materialization of the resurrection faith, but an expression of delimitation against any docetistic or existentialist dilution of the Easter faith.”
Response: In other words, according to Müller, the Evangelists did not want to pass off their texts as a recording of facts but, on the other hand, if someone plainly stated that these were just pious reflections and dreams of unreality, they would disagree too. So in Müller’s view, the Gospel must be interpreted as a myth, but in such a way that he never openly says that it is a myth because this faithless exegete would thus lose influence and could no longer deceive his readers. Nobody cares about myths. They have no effect on people. Human life is affected by facts, by what happened, because if something happened once, it can happen a second time. If God really performed a miracle, He can do so again. If Christ was really raised from the dead, it means that we will be raised too. However, so-called “theologians” à la Müller do not like this idea. They need to produce some facts/non-facts which they themselves do not have to believe in but can use them as a means of manipulating “common believers”.
Quote: “The last level of reference for the Easter event is the Father-Son relationship that became visible in Jesus of Nazareth and its mediation in the Holy Spirit.”
Response: What does it mean? Müller thus proves once again that he placed the encounter of the apostles with the Risen Jesus on the level of private revelation, so he can easily add another level of reference to it. Müller shows Christianity in a light of a completely implausible fantasy.
Quote: “The Easter kerygma does not mean to refer to a biological curiosity…”
Response: On Good Friday, our Saviour suffered excruciating tortures and finally died on the cross for our salvation. By His glorious resurrection, He confirmed that He was not only true man but the Son of God. What an absurdity and gross blasphemy to degrade the resurrection to a “biological curiosity”! This is proof that theologians like Müller do not have a spark of reverence or relationship to the Lord Jesus Christ as their Saviour. What do these people want to tell us Christians? They do nothing but degrade, blaspheme and question the fundamental truths of the faith. Such theology is the death of Christianity! Such theologians are heretics, religious imposters and spiritual murderers.
Quote: “…but to testify in the light of this event to the eschatological self-communication of God in his divine name “Father, Son and Spirit” (Mt 28:19) and to make it accessible to all people in faith.”
Response: Müller makes manipulative statements again and purposefully avoids the essence, absurdly describing the resurrection of Christ as “self-communication of God”. The apostles were not called to testify “to the eschatological self-communication of God” but to preach repentance for the forgiveness of sins and salvation which is in Christ crucified and risen (Lk 24; Acts 2:32). The resurrection is clear evidence of Christ’s divinity and of the fact that His death for us was redemptive.
Quote: “The resurrection of Jesus and the revelation of the sonship of the Word of the Father in the redeemed human nature of Jesus of Nazareth is an event without any analogy or parallel.”
Response: This is a lie. There are many parallels to both Christ’s resurrection and the revelation of His divinity in His glorified human nature. The deity of Christ was not revealed only in His resurrection. The Lord Jesus proved His divinity by innumerable miracles performed both in the physical realm (healing and raising of the dead) and in the spiritual one (casting out demons, converting sinners). Among other things, these miracles prepared the disciples to be able to believe in His real resurrection. When Jesus stilled the storm on the sea, the disciples fell at His feet to worship Him, and said to one another: “Who can this be, that even the wind and the sea obey Him?” In the region of Caesarea Philippi, the divinity of the Word in the flesh was revealed to Peter, who confessed: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” On the Mount of Transfiguration, the glory of Christ’s divinity was manifested in His flesh. Finally, Christ’s resurrection was the culmination of all these miracles and the confirmation of His divinity. And if it was their culmination, it means that there is a certain resemblance between all the miracles of Christ, a certain common denominator, and that is the power of God, and also a certain common goal, and that is to bring people to the saving faith in the divinity of Christ.
(to be continued)
+ Elijah
Patriarch of the Byzantine Catholic Patriarchate
+ Methodius OSBMr + Timothy OSBMr
Secretary Bishops
Fr Wenceslas Fr David
Download: Cardinal Müller is a heretic /Part 2/ (20/4/2020)
