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kencando
Guest
No human being can ever be God, and Jesus was a human being. It is as simple as that." quote
He has it backwards! No human can be God that’s true, but God made the world and created man. He can become man.
He has it backwards! No human can be God that’s true, but God made the world and created man. He can become man.
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Shirley_Bite
Guest
The book has been pulled from the above link. Please look at peterdresser.wordpress.com/ for an explanation. The priest says he definitely believes in the divinity of Jesus and the virginity of His mother. Has anyone read the book? Is this explanation plausible?
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Jesus_N_Cherie
Guest
Hold on, please, hold on for just a minute. I belong to the Catholic Charasmatic Movement in Southern USA, and we are EXTREMELY loyal to Rome!!! We are very reverant to the Eucharist, praying the Rosary, Eucharistic Adoration, Benediction, Divine Mercy…agreeing to all of the things talked about and preached about by Father Groschell, Father Pacwa, Mother Angelica, Popes JPII and Benedict XVI, and definitely Fr. Corapi.i’ve never been to a qld catholic church but i have a few protestant friends in qld who attend a lot of charismatic catholic ventures because it’s ‘unifying the church’apparently catholicism in qld is very ‘protestant’ like… im glad i dont live there!! i hope it gets back on track for your sake!!
The Charasmatic Movement is a wonderful thing…and wholly Roman Catholic. We are not liberal. We are not into anything like heresy or calling for politics in the Church…as in making women priests because women are equal to men. You won’t find that in the true Charasmatic Movement. We love to be in constant communication with Jesus and the Holy Spirit, through the intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Yes, we stand up for 15 minutes to an hour before Mass sometimes just singing and praising Jesus. We lay hands on each other and pray. Sometimes there is a word that God wishes to share with us…never anything that cannot be backed up in Scripture and Catholic Tradition.
The idea of Catholic Charasmatic Movement to me is sort of comparable to the different orders of the religious. Some are cloistered, some are out there in the streets among the needy. All are equal in dignity and love. All serve a unique purpose within the Church. Well, there are the Traditionalists in the Church who desire only the Latin or Extraordinary form of the Holy Mass. And then there are those who desire the Ordinary Form of the Holy Mass. Some are very spiritual in a more introverted way, some are very spiritual in an extroverted way. Both are beautiful and witness to the love and glory of God. So it is with the Catholic Charasmatic Movement.
I am not accepting that anything that believes, teaches or even accepts heresy…as is the case with this thread…is even remotely Catholic, not to even mention Catholic Charasmatic. That would be a total contradiction.
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japhy
Guest
I’ve got a copy from the web before it was taken offline.
He says he believes in the Divinity of Jesus Christ, the Virgin Birth, and the Resurrection. But what he means is he believes in something he calls the Divinity of Jesus Christ, something he calls the Virgin Birth, and something he calls the Resurrection. He says that “such phrases as Son of God and Virgin Birth and Resurrection”, when treated literally, do “considerable harm to these doctrines and intolerable violence to our collective intelligences.”
Here’s what he believes about the “divinity”:
The conclusion arrived at [by Church Councils] was that Jesus was a divine person but having both a divine and a human nature. So he was God in person according to the teaching of the Church. … [But] No human being can ever be God. And Jesus was a human being. … It would have been much better and certainly much healthier had the Arians had their way in the days of those early Church Councils. … Certainly today among many theologians the conclusion has been arrived at which is fundamentally closer to an Arian way of thinking. …
[T]o suggest that God’s divine manifestation is limited to a single human person does neither God nor Jesus a great deal of justice. Jesus is one of a number of avatars to have been born and lived throughout the ages and who will continue to be born and live. …
I am quite sure that although [Jesus] felt an extremely close intimacy with a God whom he called Abba, he himself would never have thought of himself as God or a god. A prophet perhaps – but never a god. … [M]illions of Christians take the Scriptures and perhaps Church Councils too literally. … [T]he Gospel writers and other writers of the New Testament were speaking a kind of religious truth rather than historical truth. … The miracle is not that Jesus was God; the miracle was that Jesus could be so humanly beautiful that people actually came to see him as God! …
n using this title [the Son of God] when referring to Jesus, we are using language analogously or metaphorically and most definitely not literally. Jesus was a man, a human person. God is God and does not have divine children except in a metaphorical sense. In that sense we are all God’s children. The fact must remain however that Jesus was not God because God is big. Real big.
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japhy
Guest
Here’s what he believes about the virginity of Mary.
*f Jesus were divine, it must follow as a corollary that his mother, Mary, was the mother of God. And that is exactly what the Eastern Catholic Church stance was. Mary was in fact the Theotokos – the bearer or mother of God. Now to take this literally as it was originally intended is absolute lunacy. Mary did not give birth to God; she gave birth to the human person Jesus. A human couple cannot give birth to God! But because the early Church saw Jesus as a divine person, God, the notion of virgin birth had to be introduced in order to explain this phenomenon. And what an overzealous and violent attempt it was. Mary was proclaimed to have been a virgin before, during and after the birth of her son. This really affronts one’s intelligence because it is simply not possible! Not even the traditional God can do something that is logically impossible. And it is logically impossible to be a mother and remain a virgin. …
It is up to us to rectify their mistake – not by removing the term Theotokos but by making some religious sense of it. Not by taking away Mary’s virginity but by making some religious sense of it. Mary is to be regarded as a virgin incidentally only in relationship to the birth of the man Jesus. … The notion of virgin birth was introduced to explain the fact that Jesus was literally the Son of God. It was God who placed the seed within Mary’s womb – otherwise Jesus would have been the human baby of Mary and Joseph. … Mary is not literally a virgin. Moreover it is highly likely that Mary was the mother of perhaps six other children.*
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japhy
Guest
And here’s what he believes about the resurrection:
It is important that we do not accept resurrection in a literal sense as being a resuscitation – and Jesus literally coming alive and dancing on the tomb! Those who insist on interpreting Jesus’ resurrection as his physical restoration have perhaps never considered the difficulties raised by such a view. Sadly, for many and perhaps most Christians the resurrection is simply the reversal of the death of Jesus. Jesus somehow resumed his corpse and physically emerged from the tomb. It is the meaning and significance of resurrection that are the important issues. In practical terms the resurrection means that “the community (of the Church) lives in the awareness that the dead Jesus is alive and with his community.” In other words the focus or locus of resurrection was in the minds and hearts of the followers of Jesus. For the disciples to have reached the conviction that God raised Jesus from the dead, some process of conversion, a growing faith must have preceded this point. The Kerygma or the teaching proclamation of the early church was that Jesus was alive and well but this assertion does not rely on evidence about an empty tomb.
He almost gets it. The resurrection of Jesus was not mere resuscitation or reversal of death. It was passing through death and coming to a fuller, glorified life. That life includes a physical body which has become supernatural.
But that makes no sense to Fr. Dresser. It insults his intelligence.
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japhy
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Fr. Dresser fails to see the Rosary as a prayer which calls to mind the mysteries of Jesus Christ (in his life, passion, death, resurrection, and ascension): “The main Sunday liturgical focus for the Christian is the Eucharist when people gather together to remember the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. Yet I find that people are gathering first of all to recite the Rosary! The sole reason Christians gather on Sundays should be for the celebration of the Eucharist. The Rosary or any other prayers for that matter should be prayed on another occasion.” Certainly if people are praying the Rosary instead of going to Mass, there’s a problem. But if people prepare for the Mass with the Rosary, there is no problem.
What does the “redeeming sacrifice” of Christ on the cross mean to Fr. Dresser? “Jesus was not sent to redeem us from some kind of fall. He was certainly a saviour; but his death on the cross should not be seen as a terrible sacrifice for our sin. … [T]he sacrifice on Calvary was indeed a real sacrifice, a total giving of oneself to God. And in a sense it was a redeeming sacrifice not only for Jesus but for us as well. But it was not a redeeming action in the literal sense of saving us from the snares of the devil and opening up the gates of heaven for us.”
Fr. Dresser redefines the dogmas of the faith but retains their names and terminology: “The tradition takes on a new embellishment. No need to change any of the words – just some aspects of their meaning! Jesus is still our redeemer, he is the divine Son of God and the Virgin Mary is his mother. Jesus rose from the dead and is now with his Father in Heaven and through Him, with Him and in Him we are one with our God.” But he doesn’t mean any of those terms in the Catholic sense.
He calls “the basic myth of Christianity” the teaching of the Church whereby “Jesus [is] a divine emissary who came to rescue the victims of the fall from the results of their original sin” and says that “[t]he interpretation of the cross of Calvary as the moment of divine sacrifice when the ransom for sin was paid [is] inoperative.”
In conclusion, he believes that “the concepts of … miracle, and divine intervention as explanations of anything, [can] no longer be offered with any intellectual integrity.”
What does the “redeeming sacrifice” of Christ on the cross mean to Fr. Dresser? “Jesus was not sent to redeem us from some kind of fall. He was certainly a saviour; but his death on the cross should not be seen as a terrible sacrifice for our sin. … [T]he sacrifice on Calvary was indeed a real sacrifice, a total giving of oneself to God. And in a sense it was a redeeming sacrifice not only for Jesus but for us as well. But it was not a redeeming action in the literal sense of saving us from the snares of the devil and opening up the gates of heaven for us.”
Fr. Dresser redefines the dogmas of the faith but retains their names and terminology: “The tradition takes on a new embellishment. No need to change any of the words – just some aspects of their meaning! Jesus is still our redeemer, he is the divine Son of God and the Virgin Mary is his mother. Jesus rose from the dead and is now with his Father in Heaven and through Him, with Him and in Him we are one with our God.” But he doesn’t mean any of those terms in the Catholic sense.
He calls “the basic myth of Christianity” the teaching of the Church whereby “Jesus [is] a divine emissary who came to rescue the victims of the fall from the results of their original sin” and says that “[t]he interpretation of the cross of Calvary as the moment of divine sacrifice when the ransom for sin was paid [is] inoperative.”
In conclusion, he believes that “the concepts of … miracle, and divine intervention as explanations of anything, [can] no longer be offered with any intellectual integrity.”
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anon5216
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Umm, hate to burst your bubble, but multiple aspects of the Divine and direct incarnations into human form were part of Hinduism long before the Jews even knew how to read and write.
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thebigbang
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What the hell does he think he’s talking about?! Jesus is the Son Of God! Any denial of that is blasphemy!
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Saintlucy
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I read his apology letter. It holds no water with me. The guy is either a heretic or he’s spouting some Jungian psychobabble. He needs to go away from his parish and really have a think about what he’s written.
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PJM
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"I will (NOT) Love, honor and serve… pass the collection basket?
This is not the 1st. Peter, and likely he will not be the last.
Ignore and pray for him.
PJM m.c.
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PJM
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Ok, I’ll bite. So how did Jesus become human without being God, if Mary is His Mother and the Holy Spirit (God) is the father
Seems like a bit of common sense is missing, and not only a shortage of Faith!God bless, PJM m.c.
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Neil_Anthony
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Hmmm so he’s drawing a distinction between his “creedal beliefs” and his “ideas”. Perhaps he was just throwing ideas around for consideration? But it doesn’t sound that way in the quotes from his book.
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japhy
Guest
His book makes it sound like he’s explaining Catholic dogmas about God, Jesus, and Mary in simplistic terms that even Winnie the Pooh could understand. But he says in his apology: “The manuscript is not easy to read and so I can readily appreciate that many people have found its content confusing and indeed even “heretical”. Unfortunately people have not appreciated that my explorative theology is not a credal statement. I also employed a jargon in the process which has made the document even more confusing for so many. My sole intention was to make our beautiful Catholic religion and its beliefs more meaningful in our contemporary world. I am distressed that I have caused pain and anguish instead.”
He insists that the Church never meant to teach that Jesus is actually, really, literally God. He insists that his interpretation of that dogma (and several others) is the correct one, the one which Scripture affirms and the Church meant. He’s got the knowledge, the gnosis.
Like I said before, he believes in something called the “Divinity of Jesus”, but he certainly doesn’t believe in the Divinity of Jesus.
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johnnydigit
Guest
EXCOMMUNICADO!
i believe the Mass is still valid despite the state of the soul of the priest.
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Fone_Bone_2001
Guest
Transformer is right; you simply misunderstood him.
a) He wasn’t claiming that Christianity alone has a concept of the divine incarnating into a temporal/human form; rather, he was appealing to - although he did not explicitly describe - the aspects and context of Christ’s Incarnation which make Christianity’s perspective unique.
b) The various incarnations in the Hindu religion, as I suspect from your post that you probably already know, are part of a completely different theological and philosophical system and culture than the Judeo-Christian worldview. Any attempt to equate the respective roles that incarnation plays in each is beyond simplistic.
You are correct and the poster to whom you were responding wrong. It would be a heresy known as Donatism to claim that any Mass celebrated by this heretic priest (and he certainly is that) is invalid simply because of his (clearly) erroneous teachings.
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Fone_Bone_2001
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That he retains the terminology but redefines it fascinates me. That is exactly what the moderate Arians (as opposed to the radical Arians) did after Nicea. I appreciate Fr. Dresser’s humility (in that post apologizing for scandal) and his attempts not to violate orthodoxy, but we must still acknowledge in the end that, sadly, these views are nonetheless objectively heretical.
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agb70
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I do not understand his explanation about wanting to emphasize the human nature of Jesus and Mary. That’s a poor excuse for writing such grave and scandalous things. I hope that priests are more careful since a lot of people look up to them for guidance in understanding our religion. Such writings only serve to confuse and dismay Catholics.
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