Fr. Ryan Erlenbush is a prolific teacher of heresy and doctrinal error. He uses his blog, The New Theological Movement, to spread his false teachings throughout the world:

1. He claims that the Sacrament of Reconciliation is not valid, if the penitent does not resolve to do the particular penance assigned by his confessor. This false and heretical teaching about the Sacrament of Reconciliation endangers souls because someone might mistakenly think that he is not forgiven, despite contrition and confession with absolution.

2. He claims that most non-baptized children — which would obviously include the children of Jewish, Muslim, Mormon, and other non-Christian families — commit a mortal sin as their first rational act, about the age of seven.

3. He claims that children who die without Baptism are sent forever to the Limbo of Hell. He also claims that they are very happy and perfectly fulfilled there (even though they are in Hell). His claim is heresy because Tradition, Scripture, and the Magisterium have always taught that Hell is a place of eternal punishment.

4. He claims that original sin is passed on to each successive generation only through the father, not through the mother.

5. He claims that all wealthy persons are thieves who are guilty of mortal sin.

6. Is Jesus the Way, the Truth, and the Life? Fr. Ryan claims that Jesus is only the Way in His human nature, and only the Truth and the Life in His Divine Nature.

7. He makes the absurd claim that: “The Father or the Holy Spirit could have become incarnate. The Son could have become incarnate in more than one human nature. The Father, Son and Holy Spirit could have all become incarnate in the same human nature, or in multiple human natures.”

To the contrary, I say that God cannot do evil, cannot contradict Himself, and cannot behave in a foolish and capricious manner. It would be foolish and capricious for the three Persons of the Trinity to become incarnate in multiple human natures.

8. On the subject of miracles, Fr. Ryan does not believe that “nothing is impossible to God”. He claims that after the Resurrection, Jesus could not instantly transfer himself, by a miracle, from one place to another, but He could only walk or run really fast instead. He also claims that God cannot cause a body or a soul to be present in more than one place at the same time, and that the body and soul of Jesus is only in Heaven, hence his heretical error on the Eucharist:

9. He claims that Jesus is neither physically present, nor locally present, in the Eucharist.

10. He teaches grave errors on the Sacrament of Anointing of the Sick.

11. Fr. Ryan claims that when Jesus said to the Canaanite woman: “It is not right to take the food of the children and throw it to the dogs.” that our Lord was calling her a dog, making an accusation, engaging in name-calling, and deliberately humiliating her “with this most demeaning term”. He even terms the exchange in these words: “The divine insult — ‘You are a dog’ ”

12. Fr. Ryan claims that everyone who dies unrepentant from even one venial sin is sent to Hell. This heretical claim is an open rejection of several different magisterial teachings on sin and salvation.

Fr. Ryan Erlenbush teaches many other errors on matters of faith, morals, and salvation through his blog. See the full list of his errors here: The heresies and doctrinal errors taught by Fr. Ryan Erlenbush

In his most recent post, Fr. Erlenbush repeats a set of errors found in several of his past posts on the knowledge of Christ.

My lengthy articles on this topic:
1st reply to Fr. Erlenbush on the knowledge of Christ
2nd reply to Fr. Erlenbush on the knowledge of Christ
3rd reply to Fr. Erlenbush on the knowledge of Christ
4th reply to Fr. Erlenbush on the knowledge of Christ

Here I will give only a brief reply to the errors in his most recent post. Fr. Ryan says:

In fact, it is a condemned heresy to say that Jesus, in his human intellect, did not know the exact moment of the second coming – this heresy, called “Agnoeticism” was condemned by Pope St. Gregory the Great.

First, the source of this claim is a private letter written by Pope Gregory; it is not a document of the Magisterium, and so its contents are not, in and of themselves, the teaching of the Magisterium.

Second, in that letter, the Pope does not equate Nestorianism or agnoeticism with whether or not Christ knew, at the time he spoke to the disciples in Mark 13:32, the exact day and hour of His Return for the general Resurrection.

[Mark]
{13:32} But concerning that day or hour, no one knows, neither the Angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.

Third, the Pope cites the opinion of Augustine about the proper interpretation of that verse, but he does not say that an incorrect interpretation would be a heresy of any kind.

Fourth, the agnoetic heresy, which claimed that Jesus had positive ignorance (that Jesus was unable to know various truths), does not speak to the point as to whether Christ willed to know, at the time, that particular point of knowledge, the exact day and hour of His Return. For the human mind of Christ is finite, and therefore, even though he could know anything that he willed to know, he could not understand all truths in one act, as His Divine Nature does. For on the knowledge of Christ, the Church teaches this: “As such, this knowledge could not in itself be unlimited: it was exercised in the historical conditions of his existence in space and time.” (CCC, n. 472).

It is not that Jesus was unable to know the exact day and hour of His Return, but He did not will to call it to His human mind at that point, because it was not something He chose to teach or reveal.

“If anyone says that the one Jesus Christ who is both true Son of God and true Son of man did not know the future or the day of the Last Judgment and that he could know only as much as the divinity, dwelling in him as in another, revealed to him, anathema sit.” (Pope Vigilius, Constitutum I of 14 May 553)

The one Person Jesus Christ, who has two natures, human and Divine, knows all things, including the future and the day of Judgment. And His human mind did not know ONLY those things that His Divine Nature willed to reveal to Him. For Jesus has two wills. Whatever His human will chose to know, He knew. But this does not imply that He would ever will to know everything fact about Creation all at once.

When Jesus was speaking to the disciples about the end times (Mk 13), was He calling to mind the details of every patent that would ever be filed at the U.S. Patent Office? Was he calling to mind every joke that would ever be told by every comedian? Was He calling to mind every detail of every sin that would ever be committed? Certainly not. The human mind of Jesus does not know all things in one act, and so He must choose what He wishes to call to mind at any particular time.

Jesus can call to mind any fact at any time, but, at the time that he spoke in Mark 13:32, He did not choose to call to mind the exact day and hour of His Return, for that truth is not a part of the Divine Revelation that He chose to give to the Church. He could have called it to mind, but it was irrelevant to His purpose at the time, so He did not. Therefore, Jesus asserted, in a restricted sense, that even the Son does not know (i.e. did not will to know at that point) the exact day and hour of His return for Judgment.

Moreover, since the human mind of Jesus is finite, it cannot contain infinite knowledge. So, for example, Jesus cannot call to mind every future word, thought, and deed — all at the same time — of every created person. Since created persons continue to live forever after the Resurrection, the number of their words, thoughts, and deeds is infinite. Jesus can call to mind a subset of those acts, but not all of them all at once.

The following proposition is condemned: “The natural meaning of the Gospel texts cannot be reconciled with what our theologians teach about the consciousness and the infallible knowledge of Jesus Christ.” (Pope Pius X, Lamentabili of 1907)

The knowledge of Jesus is infallible. That does not speak to the point about the manner of His knowing.

The following proposition is condemned: “A critic cannot assert that Christ’s knowledge was unlimited, unless by making the hypothesis, which is historically inconceivable and morally repugnant, that Christ as man had God’s knowledge and yet was unwilling to communicate so much knowledge to his disciples and posterity.” (Pope Pius X, Lamentabili of 1907)

The Pope did not mean that Jesus’ knowledge was, in every sense, unlimited. He meant that the knowledge of Christ’s Divine Nature is entirely unlimited, and that His human nature could know whatever he willed to know, though not a full comprehension of the Divine Nature itself. This does not imply the presupposition of Fr. Ryan, that Christ’s human mind could know all things all at once, as if His human knowledge were not exercised in the historical conditions of His existence in space and time.

The following proposition is rejected: “The opinion cannot be declared certain, which holds that the soul of Christ was ignorant of nothing but from the beginning knew in the Word everything, past, present and future, that is to say everything which God knows with the ‘knowledge of vision’.” (Pope Benedict XV, Decree of the Holy Office of 1918)

A decree of the Holy Office (the CDF) is not a papal decree or a papal teaching, so this is not the teaching of Pope Benedict XV. And notice that the CDF calls the idea in question a theological “opinion”, not a dogma whose rejection would be a heresy. In any case, the assertion is true that Christ had no ignorance at all, but could know whatever He willed to know. But this does not prove Fr. Ryan’s implied claim that Jesus held all knowledge in his human mind all at once (other than comprehension of the Divine Nature).

The following proposition is rejected: “The recent opinion of some about the limited knowledge of the soul of Christ is not to be less favoured in Catholic schools than the ancient opinion about his universal knowledge.” (Pope Benedict XV, Decree of the Holy Office of 1918)

Again, this is a decree of the CDF, not a papal document. Again, the decree calls the matter in question “opinion”. The decree implies that the opinion about limits on the knowledge of Christ should be “less favoured” than the other opinion. But this proves that a difference of opinion on this subject is not necessarily heresy.

Finally, let me make one point perfectly clear. My position is that the finite human nature of Christ was able to know anything that He willed to know, except a full comprehension of the Divine Nature. However, He was not able to know all things all at once, but rather He chose which truths to call to mind at any time. This was necessary because Jesus, in His human nature, is like us in all things but sin. So His human mind is finite, and his human knowledge could not in itself be unlimited: it was exercised in the historical conditions of his existence in space and time, just as the Church teaches.

But the position of Fr. Ryan Erlenbush on the knowledge of Christ is a distortion of Catholic teaching.

by
Ronald L. Conte Jr.
Roman Catholic theologian and
translator of the Catholic Public Domain Version of the Bible.