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GEORGIA BULLETIN, THURSDAY, APRIL 18, 1968
3
AN ELEMENT OF PROTEST
The 95 Theses Of Father Anselm
FATHER Anselm checks one of his 95 theses to find an answer to a question in an interview. The
priest's theological speculations were published in Continuum, an independent quarterly.
By CHRIS ECKL
Father Anselm Atkins O.C.S.O., a
young Trappist priest at the Monastery
of the Holy Spirit at Conyers, has issued
95 theses for public discussion-just as
Martin Luther did 450 years ago.
The 95 theses, published in the
winter issue of Continuum, an
independent quarterly, take a
questioning look at the basic teachings
and tradition of the Catholic Church.
What are the purposes of the theses?
“I drew them up to stimulate discussion
and thought. They are theological
speculations and express part of my
critical attitude toward some of the
things in the Church.” He said there was
an element of protest in picking the
number 95.
Father Anselm, 34, a priest since
1962, works as a designer in the
stained-glass shop at the monastery and
as a forester. He is studying for a Ph.D.
in literature and theology at Emory
University. He also does cartoons for
Jubilee magazine under the signature of
Tyng, his middle name.
Following are some of the theses he
presented and his comments on them:
“The organic constitution of the Church is
not immutable; but Christian society, just as
human society, is subject to perpetual
evolution. The dogmas, die sacraments, the
hierarchy, as far as pertains both to the
notion and to the reality, are nothing but
interpretations and the evolution of the
Christian intelligence, which have increased
and perfected the little germ latent in the
Gospel.
“A certain segment of our theologians are
going in this direction, “Father Anselm said,
“but they’re moving so fast they don’t have a
substantial defense. What they are doing is
sending out feelers and in the future we will
have to move in behind them and go carefully
into things.”
* * *
Theologians who are moving toward
this thesis in their writings are Daniel
Callahan, Leslie Dewart, Rosemary
Reuther and Eugene Fontinell S.J.
Asked if he thought traditional ideas
on transubstantiation_ 4ii4 the Trinity
will change, Father Anselm replied:
“Yes. But this is a touchy thing for
theologians because we don’t know how
or what it will involve. It might be'
totally different in a certain sense, and
it might not be.
He then referred to Thesis 49 which
says:
“The Church never historically “fell”
because it was never lily-pure. Yet the term is
appropriate, since it expresses our sense of the
present condition of the Church. And it must
be insisted that the needs of radical and
immediate reform~in ways which the
institution is not able even to conceive as
possible, let alone immediately
n ecessary-cannot be met by continual
re-affirmation of the lines laid down in the
past. The only historical route open to us now
is that of dialectical negation.”
**»
Father Anselm said this refers to the
development of doctrine in the Church.
“The development of doctrine could be
based on negation of a doctrine instead
of just adding on to it,” he said.
In his speculations, Father Anselm
implies, for example, the development
could be the negation of the doctrine of
the Immaculate Conception. He said the
negation concept should be argued and
criticized by theologians.
Discussing another thesis, No. 74,
Father Anselm said it touches on the
problem of how doctrine expresses
religious truth. He wrote:
“If anything is symbolical, doctrine is. A
doctrine is based on religious experience and
is only a paraphrase of the intuition of the
man who had the 'experience. Paraphrase,
moreover, can go on indefinitely without ever
attaining or correctly representing the original
intuition. When a paraphrase fully replaces the
experience, or when it is taken as the only
proper expression of the experience, it
becomes heresy.”
*»*
“This is something that theologians
are just beginning to get into asfar as I
can see,” the priest commented.
“Things we say now will be immature
and will have to be changed. It is
necessary to explore the problem of
language that doctrine is put into, and
it’s more than just better expressing the
doctrine.
“Traditional teaching has had
continuity, but there have been a lot of
big changes that we don’t notice. Dan
Callahan is interested in a very empirical
form of theology which takes into
account sociology, psychology,
comparative religion and brings itself
more into contact with' branches of
modern knowledge.”
Asked why the Church lagged behind
modern thought, Father Anselm said,
“Modem thought has attacked the
Church, so she takes a defensive
attitude. By taking the position of being
in possession of all truth, the Church
negates what others say instead of
making use of what they say. For
example, there have been very few
Catholic theologians or philosophers
who have made constructive use of
Kant, whose philosophy came out about
200 years ago.” Another thesis says:
***
“It has taken some doctrines many
centuries to work their way into the position
of ‘official teaching.’ Then presto: everyone
has to accept them immediately, totally, but
it took work to get them to the top; why
shouldn’t it take work to filter them back
down to the bottom? Or why should the
bottom have to accept them so readily, when
the magisterium itself agreed to them only
after laborious theological and political
processes? If the apotheosis of theological
opinion is such a laborious affair for the
angels, why shouldn’t the common believer be
allowed a little skeptical inertia of his own?
“In this I am implying that it seems
funny that theologians could grind these
things out at such pained effort,
hesitate, go back and then the faithful
are not allowed to do the same thing.
Because something has been decided by
the theologians doesn’t mean that it is
any easier for the people to assent to it
or understand it.”
* **
“When the Great Church repudiates her
claim to infallibility, the result will not
necessarily be pandemonium. The jostling
schools of theology will control one another,
criticizing, correcting, sifting, interacting,
reaching here and there a partial agreement.
Persuasion will be the intellectually binding
force in the fallible church--not formulas and
decrees. Assent, when it occurs, will be real.”
“I can live without infallibility, but
this does not deny that the Spirit does
not guide the Church. I don’t think the
average Catholic is prepared to do
without infallibility, but the younger
people seem to be able to do without it.
They are more at ease in situations that
are undefined and unclear.”
Father Anselm said he thought the
Church has used the doctrine of
infallibility more than it should have.
He said he was very excited about
the tone of the post-Vatican II Church.
“It is exciting because there are so many
new avenues open for us to explore in
theology. The chances are opening for
the Church to bring its theology in
closer accord with modern man’s
thought. People have to see the value of
things that modern man has learned in
all branches of knowledge.”
Asked what some of his fellow
monks thought of his theological
speculations, Father Anselm replied,
“They accuse me of being a comic-book
theologian.” His Comment was marked
with a wide smile.
Best Wishes for the New Year
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