Unreconstructed Modernism at Catholica: Fr. Dresser and Dr. Elmer on (or rather, against) Original Sin and the Redemption

http://www.catholica.com.au/forum/index.php?mode=thread&id=36347

The notorious The Rev. Fr. Peter Dresser had the following things to say in a thread-starter at the similarly-notorious Catholica Australia forum (quoted in full, italics in the original, with emphasis added (bold type) by me to the most salient parts):

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Original Sin (Main Forum)
by Peter Dresser , Kandos, Tuesday, November 03, 2009, 11:58 (7 days ago)

Tom Lee's manuscript once again raises the question of Original Sin...and so just a couple of my own thoughts on the subject.

The initiates in the early Church were adults and Baptism was the end result of long preparation and planning. Later on the children of the initiates began to be baptised with them and later on infants by themselves. My own readings suggest that Augustine and others struggled to make some kind of theological sense regarding the baptism of infans who obviously had not be instructed or discipled in any way...because the injunction of Jesus was that his followers should firstly be disciples before being baptised (see Matthew 28:19).It was during this time that the idea arose that Baptism made infants children of God by somehow removing a barrier to this relationship, viz. some kind of sin. And so we had the doctrine of Original Sin and Chapters one and two of Genesis were revisited to give some kind of scriptural basis to this doctrine.

The Doctrine of Original Sin as stated in the latest Catechism of the Catholic Church and as expressed in doctrinal documents makes absolutely no sense scientifically. We are led to believe that in some way Adam and Eve once lived in some kind of preternatural existence and did something wrong and were cut off from God's friendship. And in one of the greatest tantrums of all time God drove them from the garden of Eden. And in a strangelyconvoluted way God then devised that having closed the gates of paradise to men and women, he would then sacrifice his Son to reopen them! This gave rise to the fall and redemption theology that saw Jesus as the only perfect sacrifice to atone for violence done against a perfect God. So Calvary was seen as the price of atonement and, certainly to anyone searching for meaning, such thinking unfortunately raises the question of a rather strange God, a rather bizarre God who seeks the painful death of his Son to expiate some injury cause him. A rather small and petty God who thinks like the most miserable of any miserable human being. A revengeful God in complete contradiction to the liberating, healing, forgiving and freeing God that Jesus himself spoke about.

I made the point that Original Sin makes no sense in the scientific world we live in. By suggesting that it was because of a disdemeanour committed by Adam and Eve that death came into the world ignores the fact that our world has been evolving for millions of years and our universe for something like 16 billion years with all the death and all the chaos that goes with this evolutionary process. Men and women did not fall from any kind of preternatural existence. They are the result of an evolutionary process! And so it seems to me that it is not possible for the Doctrine of Original Sin and our cosmologiclall world outlook to coexist.

So in what way is Jesus our saviour? Many today would readily accept that Jesus is our saviour but not so much that he died on the cross; it was more how he died on the cross that was a saving moment for us. It was his darkest hour and in that darkest hour he placed himself in the hands of his God with great hope and trust. His cry from the cross "My God , My God, Why have you forsaken me?" are in fact the opening words of Psalm 22, a Psalm which talks about faith and hope and trust in God. He died freely and humanly. He died with hope. He was teaching us a saving lesson. Indeed the whole life of Jesus was salvific. He showwed us in his own life the freeing, forgiving, healing and liberating spirit of God. He saved us by embracing life with all its joys, hopes, griefs and anxieties. He saved us by his great example of living with faith and hope in God and that the various quarries and valleys and pits of life can be filled with the good soil of a freeing and healing God. He saved us by telling us about tis good and gracious God. He saved us by fulfilling the prophecy of Isaiah:

"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favour" (Luke 4: 18-19).

Nowhere in his dealings with people is there the slightest hint of the original sin mentality. Just the opposite I would have imagined.

It is pleasing to note that the Sacrament of Baptism once again is taking its place preeminently as a Sacrament of Christian Initiation and that any reference to Original Sin has been relegated to a passing mention in an optional prayer. Limbo was only ever a theological opinion. As I understand, it is no longer even that!

Let me turn to that beautiful statement at the opening of the Letter to the Ephesians:

"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, just as he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him in love." (Ephesians 1:3-4)

This entire opening passage could have as its theme Original Blessing and one tries in vain to find any substantiation for an Original Sin. Indeed if one considers the question of God's dealingsa with the human race, the notion of an inherited sin seems very difficult to reconcile with any convincing view of God's goodness, mercy and justice. The concept of original sin is not only alien to Jewish tradition; it is not found in any of the writings of the Old Testament and is certainly not in chapters one to three of Genesis. Briefly, the idea of original blessing is far more ancient and more biblical a doctrine than original sin; the Council of Trent never said what original sin means' Augustine mixed his doctrine of original sin up with his peculiar notions about sexuality; whatever is said of original sin, it is far less hallowed and original than are love and desire, the Creator's love for creation and our parents' love, and doctrine is not the basis of faith or its starting point. Creation is the basis of trust which is the biblical meaning of Faith. In any case, doctrine is for people, not people for doctrine, and much pain and sin have come about because of an exaggerated emphasis on the doctrine of original sin. Jesus does not redeem us from original sin. Rather he enhances our lives, lives so richly blessed before the foundation of the world.

Just a couple of thoughts...

Peter

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Just a couple of thoughts indeed! With this ‘couple of thoughts’ Fr. Dresser is attacking the very foundations of salvation history, and hence of the Catholic Faith itself. The Roman Catechism teaches that the Passion of Our Lord was four things: a redemption, a satisfaction, a sacrifice, and an example. But from Fr. Dresser’s Pelagian/Modernist perspective, it is really only an example: “He was teaching us a saving lesson”. For Fr. Dresser, it clearly wasn’t a redemption—“Jesus does not redeem us from original sin”—and with the following sentence he seeks to expunge from the Deposit of Faith the satisfactory and sacrificial aspects of the Passion: “[The teaching that mankind was excluded from Paradise, a teaching which Fr. Dresser rejects] gave rise to the fall and redemption theology that saw Jesus as the only perfect sacrifice to atone for violence done against a perfect God.” (It’s interesting that Fr. Dresser rejects even the sacrificial aspect of the Passion, because sometimes one finds that Modernists will at least say that the Passion was a sacrifice of some sort, an offering ‘in solidarity with the suffering of mankind’, or some such. Apparently that doesn’t go far enough for Fr. Dresser.)

Presumably, then, since Christ simply “enhances our lives”, it is not absolutely necessary for salvation that we be united to Him and His Passion; rather (so Fr. Dresser’s reasoning would go), Christ’s example is just a helpful—but not indispensable—demonstration of “faith and hope and trust in God”. Hence I described Fr. Dresser’s thinking as Pelagian, and it is obviously Modernist too—as Fr. Dresser says, “doctrine is for people, not people for doctrine”, which is a statement of one of the fundamental principles of Modernism, the principle that doctrine is valuable only insofar as it expresses the religious experience (arising internally from ‘religious sentiment’) of the believer (to the extent that a Modernist can even be called a believer); the corollary of this principle, of course, is that other important Modernist tenet, the tenet of the evolution—not development—of doctrine, since doctrine (which is, according to Modernists like Fr. Dresser, “for people, not people for doctrine”) must constantly change with the changing religious experience of the passing generations in order always to be well-adapted to expressing that religious experience. So presumably Fr. Dresser wouldn’t begrudge people in more ‘primitive’ times adhering to the ‘fall and redemption myth’, but naturally this is unsuitable for the prevailing ‘scientific’ and ‘evolutionary’ perspective, and so must be replaced. (And in the future, when a new perspective predominates, the doctrine will have to evolve again.)

I remember a commenter at the Cath Pews discussion board last year describing St. Pius X’s brilliant encyclical Pascendi Domenici Gregis as a ‘line-up of straw men’, yet more than a century after its promulgation, it remains as relevant as ever, exposing all the errors—not ‘straw men’ at all—of the Peter Dressers and Ian Elmers (we’ll see what Dr. Elmer has to say in a moment) which (the errors, that is) make up ‘the synthesis of all heresies’, Modernism.

Now Fr. Dresser’s ravings were predictable enough, both as to their content and the frankness with which they were stated. But I expected more subtlety from Australian Catholic University ‘teacher of the teachers’ Dr. Ian Elmer. And so I was surprised initially at the tone—though not the content—of his comment, which began with almost slavish agreement with Fr. Dresser (no added emphasis; the whole thing is worth reading):

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Re-imagining Original Sin
by Ian Elmer, 'Brisbane, Australia', Tuesday, November 03, 2009, 14:34 (6 days ago) @ Peter Dresser

Hi Peter,

Thanks for a great post; and one with which I heartily agree. One other issue that I feel is often forgotten when we focus on Jesus’ death as saving us from sin is the actual message of Jesus. All-too-often Jesus’ moral and ethical principles are seen simply as an “add on” to the salvific events of Easter. I believe that you have hit the nail on the head with your reflections here; and I would say further. We should probably reverse the normal understanding of the relationship between Christ’s death and Christ’s ministry and see Christ’s death as the result of his revolutionary program and Christ’s resurrection as a vindication of his teachings.

Jesus did not die for our sins, or because we had to be ransomed back from Satan, he died because sinful people could not or would not accept his teachings. God raised Jesus from the dead as a divine vindication, or we might call it an imprimatur, on the Jesus message.

I think that we might similarly return to the story of the man and woman in the garden and rediscover its true meaning...and even find that there still is a place for original sin.

The story of the Man and Woman in the Garden is a very ancient story that is meant to “explain” human suffering and limitation. It is not meant to be read literally – that God punished our first parents for their sin. Rather, this story “explains” that when relationships break down (i.e. relationships between god and humans, men and women, humans and nature) things go awry. Humans try to be “like gods”, men dominate women, humans misuse and destroy the earth; and, as a result, we have societies that are beset by crime, immorality, and manmade disasters (like global warming).

In this view, the doctrine of original sin retains a strong mythic quality that continues to speak to human inadequacy and limitation – inadequacies and limitations that can, if unchecked by recourse to God, lead to sin, depravity and tragedy. The concept of original sin evolved out of our shared experience of being limited humans as well as our shared experience of being totally dependent upon God for redemption and salvation from those limitations. As such, I think that the doctrine of Original Sin is far too valuable to simply discard; but we do need to reimage it – which brings us back to the death and resurrection of Jesus.

Surely the life, death and resurrection of Jesus were not simply a “fix-it”, a last-minute attempt by God to rectify what we humans had stuffed up. Even Thomists understand that, since God knows everything within the divine being, God knows the whole of creation; every cause and its effect derives from the “First Cause” (God) and is, therefore, an emanation of the divine will. God makes provision for our needs in advance.

Following this line of thought, we may return to the original issue of Jesus’ death on the cross. Given the Divine omniscience and omnipotence, God must have already factored in the death of Jesus and shaped all of human history in advance to bring it to a climax in the resurrection of the Christ. As noted above, through the resurrection, God places a divine imprimatur on the message of love and self-sacrifice taught and, ultimately, lived by Jesus – “even unto death on a cross” (as Paul puts it so eloquently in Carmen Christi in Philippians). The death becomes a symbolic illustration of the message, and the resurrection acts as divine confirmation.

In this sense all of creation and human history have been woven into a tapestry awaiting the final defining thread found in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. To that tapestry we add our own meagre colours as we conform our lives to the pattern traced by Jesus and are accordingly liberated from the fundamental limitations of human sinfulness (in the broad sense explained above).

Thanks again, Peter, for your thought-provoking post.

Godspeed,

Ian

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So Dr. Elmer begins with all but unqualified agreement—“one with which I heartily agree”, “I believe that you have hit the nail on the head with your reflections here”. Clearly he agrees that the Passion was no true redemption—“Jesus did not die for our sins, or because we had to be ransomed back from Satan”—and, remarkably, he goes even further than Fr. Dresser: whereas Fr. Dresser sees the Passion as a lesson in itself, Dr. Elmer “reverse[s] the normal understanding of the relationship between Christ’s death and Christ’s ministry” so that the Crucifixion is just the sort of ‘unintended consequence’ of Christ’s other lessons.

So Dr. Elmer begins boldly, but then that ol’ Elmer subtlety resurfaces: “I think that we might […] even find that there still is a place for original sin.” So this is the Modernist tactic of retaining the terms of a doctrine but completely and blatantly abandoning its substance: no longer is original sin concerned with how “God punished our first parents for their sin. Rather, this story “explains” that when relationships break down (i.e. relationships between god and humans, men and women, humans and nature) things go awry.” There is no place for Divine retribution in his perspective, but he can make room to accommodate global warming!

Earlier I described Fr. Dresser’s views as Pelagian and Modernist; Dr. Elmer’s theology here is just as Modernist—or perhaps even more so—but he takes a step back from Fr. Dresser’s Pelagianism:

In this view [the one which Dr. Elmer is proposing], the doctrine of original sin retains a strong mythic quality that continues to speak to human inadequacy and limitation – inadequacies and limitations that can, if unchecked by recourse to God, lead to sin, depravity and tragedy. The concept of original sin evolved out of our shared experience of being limited humans as well as our shared experience of being totally dependent upon God for redemption and salvation from those limitations.

So we have an explicit statement of the Modernist principles of the primacy of experience and the evolution of doctrine—“[t]he concept of original sin evolved out of our shared experience …”—and an implicit re-statement of Fr. Dresser’s Modernist notion that “doctrine is for people, not people for doctrine”—Dr. Elmer says that “[his heretical] doctrine of original sin retains a strong mythic quality that continues to speak to human inadequacy and limitation”, as, of course, it must if it is to have any value for a Modernist. But I say that Dr. Elmer distances himself from Fr. Dresser’s Pelagianism insofar as he acknowledges that humans are “totally dependent upon God for redemption and salvation from [their] limitations”.

Dr. Elmer’s invocation of Thomism is also rather strange. He says that “Even Thomists understand that, since God knows everything within the divine being, God knows the whole of creation; every cause and its effect derives from the “First Cause” (God)”. But we must be clear that, since evil is a deprivation, it is caused by good things (each efficient cause has existence and is therefore, at least inasmuch as it has existence, a good thing), but indirectly. Furthermore, when Dr. Elmer says that “every cause and its effect derives from the “First Cause” (God) and is, therefore, an emanation of the divine will” (my emphasis), that sounds more like Pantheism—the heresy according to which everything is supposed to be an emanation of the Divine Essence—than Thomism.

And towards the end of his comment, as though we weren’t already clear enough as to where Dr. Elmer stands, he says that “[t]he death [of Christ] becomes a symbolic illustration of the message, and the resurrection acts as divine confirmation.” So there we have it: symbolic original sin, symbolic atonement, … and, therefore, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass just a symbolic sacrifice? This brings me to my penultimate point: what does the Dresser/Elmer doctrine of (symbolic) original sin and Christ’s (symbolic) Sacrifice imply for the theology of the Mass? The implications are spelled out succinctly in the Society of St. Pius X’s excellent The Problem of the Liturgical Reform, and though that work is brief, I cannot hope to do it justice here. Suffice to say that the Novus Ordo Missæ is the liturgical accommodation of this warped theology; it would be impossible to accommodate it in the Traditional Latin Mass, but in the New Mass, the Mass becomes a memorial banquet from whose texts are expunged all but the faintest trace of the doctrine of the Mass as a true propitiatory sacrifice offered in satisfaction of the debt of justice acquired by sin. For the Mass is either one and the same Sacrifice as the Sacrifice of Calvary, differing only in the manner of offering, or it is not. If it is not substantially the same Sacrifice, then it is just symbolic. But even if it is the same Sacrifice, but the Cross-Sacrifice was symbolic, then the Mass-Sacrifice is symbolic too, and will have no propitiatory value, so either way, in the Elmer/Dresser view, we can only end up with the Mass as a symbolic, non-propitiatory sacrifice. Msgr. Lefebvre was right to say that, though the New Mass is not heretical in itself, it comes from heresy and it leads to heresy.

My last point is this: muddled and heretical though the Dresser/Elmer theology is, Fr. Dresser’s ravings at least have the virtue (typographical errors notwithstanding) of showing why Catholics should have nothing to do with Darwinism:

I made the point that Original Sin makes no sense in the scientific world we live in. By suggesting that it was because of a disdemeanour committed by Adam and Eve that death came into the world ignores the fact that our world has been evolving for millions of years and our universe for something like 16 billion years with all the death and all the chaos that goes with this evolutionary process. Men and women did not fall from any kind of preternatural existence. They are the result of an evolutionary process! And so it seems to me that it is not possible for the Doctrine of Original Sin and our cosmologiclall world outlook to coexist.

It seems that way to me too, Father. It’s just that I reject that man is the product of Darwinian evolution and retain the true doctrine of original sin, whereas you do the converse, privileging speculative theory over Divinely-revealed and -protected truth.

Reginaldvs Cantvar
Feast of St. Martin of Tours, Bishop, Confessor, A.D. 2009