Going beyond even Vatican II theology…
Novus Ordo Writer Claims Christ’s Incarnation Makes All People Children of God
Popular ‘Catholic’ writer with dangerous theology: Simcha Fisher
On Dec. 18, 2024, the Modernist Jesuit rag America published an article by Simcha Fisher that is, to put it mildly, theologically problematic.
Fisher’s name may seem familiar to long-time visitors of Novus Ordo Watch. Years ago she was a blogger for the conservative-leaning National Catholic Register. She, along with her colleagues Mark Shea and John-Paul Shimek, ended up getting fired from the Register for their online behavior and some not-so-conservative views.
In 2023, Fisher received our attention when she claimed that sins of sacrilege do not hurt Jesus Christ, only ourselves: “When we treat a consecrated Host, which is Jesus, with disrespect, we are only hurting ourselves”, she opined. We responded with a substantial rebuttal:
But, who is Simcha Fisher? On her personal blog, she describes herself thus:
I’m the author of The Sinner’s Guide to Natural Family Planning. I freelance here and there, blog for The Catholic Weekly, contribute articles and scripture reflections to America Magazine, write columns for Parable Magazine and Our Sunday Visitor, and speak around the country. … I won “Best Column” awards from the Catholic Press Association in 2018 and 2019, and third place in 2020 and some more that I will update at some point when I’m done making this marinade. Most Fridays, I just talk about food.
In other words, Simcha Fisher has some clout in Novus Ordo Land. She’s not a nobody.
Now this mother of ten has written an article about Divine Sonship the apostate Jesuits at America saw fit to publish:
On her personal blog, she published the same post under the title, “The bio-children of God”. That heading very much hints at the alarming thesis she advances in her write-up, which is that all human beings are God’s adopted children on account of the Incarnation of Jesus Christ.
Here is an excerpt of Fisher’s post which contains the most problematic points:
I am talking about everybody, now: Everybody who is an adopted child of God, which is all humankind. We are from the same rootstock as our Father, and we aren’t.
To be an adopted child of God means a lot of things. It means that by an act of will and an act of love, we are truly his children, his family, and he is truly our father. Adoption is a beautiful option, one could say. That is love, and it is real.
It also means there are things in us of unknown origin that will continue to assert themselves over time. Some of them are beautiful and some of them are ugly; some make us weak, and some make us strong; and all will have to be dealt with eventually, until the day we die. That is genetics, and it is also real.
And it means that, in the incarnation, there was a grafting, a strange one. It is the strangest thing that has ever happened.
In a human adoption, a child is grafted onto the rootstock of a family, and from that day forward that child is the same family, and is not. The new family asserts its love, but the old family asserts its genetics.
But in the adoption that came about at the incarnation, when God made us his children, it was the other way around: God, our origin, made himself one of us. The rootstock of Jesse put out a new shoot, who was Jesus, and who was devoured by evil but grew again, and it is the same tree but also not. Biology asserts itself backward: The root becomes like the graft.
So now we are not only the family of God because of an act of love but because he was born as one of us, we are now also biologically like God. We are genetically related to him because he became one of us. Biologically, we match. There is an immutable synchronicity there, waiting to be brought to light.
Maybe this is why it feels so important to see how we are connected to our ancestors. Maybe it is a way of seeking God. We are all the true children of God, in the most transcendental spiritual way, and also in the deepest, darkest, most biological details of our genetic roots. When we look to each other to see how we are the same, we are really looking for our Father, who was not always our Father but is now.
(Simcha Fisher, “What researching my ancestry taught me about being an adopted child of God”, America, Dec. 18, 2024; underlining added.)
Let’s break Fisher’s bizarre contention down into its individual components: What is being asserted is that (a) every person is (b) a child of God (c) on account of the Incarnation, i.e. on account of Christ having become man.
Just where the author gets these ideas in terms of the sources of revelation or the teaching of the Catholic Church, she does not say, although it definitely sounds like she has been heavily influenced by the Neo-Modernist Fr. Karl Rahner, S.J. (1904-1984). Simcha’s article is more of a stream-of-consciousness-like hodgepodge lacking any kind of documentation. It reads somewhat like a transcription of what came to her mind as a result of finding an old picture of her biological ancestors. If at least her mind were thoroughly grounded in Roman Catholic theology, this might not be so bad; but alas, decades of post-Vatican II belief and practice have left their mark on Mrs. Fisher.
For, indeed, no matter how you slice it, Fisher’s thesis is indefensible. Even if one takes the term “children of God” in a loose and natural sense of being God’s creatures, as St. Paul appears to do in Acts 17:28-29, it still does not save her theological claims; for even though in that sense it is true that all humans are God’s children, it is nevertheless not so on account of the Incarnation but on account of creation by God in His image and likeness (see Gen 1:26-27).
Further, even if we were to be extremely generous and say that by calling all men “children of God” Fisher merely means that all humans have been redeemed by Christ, this too could not salvage her thesis because, although indeed all of us have been redeemed by Christ, we were redeemed by His Passion and Death and not simply by His taking on a human nature.
With her theology, Fisher is going beyond even official Novus Ordo doctrine, which, although it has certainly increased emphasis on the Incarnation, does not claim that the Incarnation makes all people children of God. The so-called Second Vatican Council, for example, merely observed that “by His incarnation the Son of God has united Himself in some fashion with every man” (Gaudium et Spes, n. 22). Yes, in some fashion indeed — but not in the sense that all people are now children of God.
In what sense, then? The traditional Roman Catechism of the 16th century gives a clear answer:
…God condescended to assume the lowliness and frailty of our flesh in order to exalt man to the highest degree of dignity. This single reflection, that He who is true and perfect God became man, supplies sufficient proof of the exalted dignity conferred on the human race by the divine bounty; since we may now glory that the Son of God is bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh, a privilege not given to Angels, for nowhere, says the Apostle, doth he take hold of the Angels: but of the seed of Abraham he taketh hold.
(Catechism of the Council of Trent, Part I, Article III)
Clearly, human nature has been elevated by the Incarnation, but that is not what makes us children of God. Divine Adoption is a supernatural-spiritual matter, not a natural-biological one. The fact that Fisher does not know this (or at least does not believe it) is quite disturbing, and it shows that she is not grounded in Catholic theology. That American Jesuits would not find her ideas objectionable, is par for the course. (In fact, adherence to the Fisher thesis would explain why they don’t understand Lent.)
Nowhere in Fisher’s write-up do we see any mention of sin, grace, justification, or the soul. She appears to understand Divine Adoption in terms of being biologically related to the Incarnate Son of God rather than as what it truly is, a supernatural and spiritual work of grace in the individual soul: “No one can express the greatness of this work of divine grace in the souls of men. Wherefore, both in Holy Scripture and in the writings of the fathers, men are styled regenerated, new creatures, partakers of the Divine Nature, children of God, god-like, and similar epithets” (Pope Leo XIII, Encyclical Divinum Illud, n. 8).
The Council of Trent teaches very specifically how individuals can become the adopted children of God. Spoiler alert: Being biologically linked to the Son of God by sharing in the same human nature He took on, has nothing to do with it. Rather, it is through supernatural justification:
…[T]he justification of a sinner is … a translation from that state in which man is born a child of the first Adam to the state of grace and of the “adoption of the sons” [Rom 8:15] of God through the second Adam, Jesus Christ, our Savior; and this translation after the promulgation of the Gospel cannot be effected except through the laver of regeneration, or a desire for it, as it is written: “Unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God” [Jn 3:5].
(Council of Trent, Session VI, Chapter 4; Denz. 796; underlining added.)
It is the sanctifying grace of baptism that frees us from original and actual sin, regenerating the soul unto a new birth, one unto supernatural life. It is thus we become, in the truest sense of the word, supernatural children of God. As St. Paul instructed the Ephesians, we “were by nature children of wrath” (Eph 2:3); but by supernatural regeneration, we are “born again” (Jn 3:3; 3:5) as children of God: “For you are all the children of God by faith, in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as have been baptized in Christ, have put on Christ” (Gal 3:26-27).
It would be a grave mistake to think that once we have become children of God, we cannot lose that status. That is a popular error in post-Vatican II theology. Our adoption by God as His children is tied, not to the indelible sacramental character of baptism but to the sanctifying grace the sacrament confers (and which can be obtained also through an efficacious desire under certain conditions), which can be lost (and subsequently regained through absolution in confession or perfect contrition): “For the Spirit himself giveth testimony to our spirit, that we are the sons of God. And if sons, heirs also; heirs indeed of God, and joint heirs with Christ: yet so, if we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified with him” (Rom 8:16-17).
The Catholic Encyclopedia of 1907 explains this beautiful topic in greater depth:
- Supernatural Adoption (Catholic Encyclopedia)
Simcha Fisher’s thesis is so seriously flawed that not only does it contradict Sacred Scripture and Tradition and also the teaching of the Church on numerous points, it also quickly leads to apostasy. For if she were right in saying that all men are God’s adopted children on account of Christ having become incarnate, here is what would follow (among many other heretical things):
- It would mean Christ did not suffer His Passion and Death on the Cross, at least not in order to redeem us
- It would mean neither Faith, nor hope, nor charity are necessary for salvation
- It would mean baptism is not necessary for salvation, neither in fact nor in desire, and does not regenerate the soul
- It would mean all people will be saved on account of their humanity
- It would mean practicing the Catholic religion is a gigantic waste of time
These things obviously constitute a complete abandonment of the Catholic religion.
For more on this topic and related issues, please see:
As the Gospel according to St. John tells us in its very first chapter: The Incarnate Word “came unto his own, and his own received him not. But as many as received him, he gave them power to be made the sons of God, to them that believe in his name. Who are born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God” (Jn 1:11-13).
In her write-up, Fisher talks about what researching her ancestry taught her about being a child of God. But to understand the nature and effects of being God’s adopted son or daughter, she should have researched Catholic theology instead.
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