Author Topic: Baptism of blood for infants. (Read 14742 times)

Vladimir · « **Reply #40 on:** March 17, 2010, 08:53:26 PM »

http://www.saintsworks.net/books/St.%20Alphonsus%20Maria%20de%20Liguori%20-%20Complete%20Works%20-%209%20-%20Victories%20of%20the%20Martyrs.pdf

Look on page 291.

Caminus · « **Reply #41 on:** March 17, 2010, 09:00:16 PM »

Caminus · « **Reply #42 on:** March 18, 2010, 12:49:06 AM »

Quote

No one can be killed "for Christ" the way that the Holy Innocents were. There will never again be another historical situation where babies are slaughtered in case one of them might be the Savior. Even if the Antichrist goes around slaughtering babies like Herod they will be killed for Satan, not for Christ.

By this strange rationale, no one at all could be a martyr. No one dies for the faith because the executioner "thinks they are the Savior." If the death of anyone, young or old, is brought about (material cause) by the hatred of the Faith, they die a martyr and receive immediately the Beatific Vision after death given that they have received the most perfect form of baptism, laying down their life for the love of Jesus Christ. That is the entire Gospel in summary.

You know, I think all these silly opinions denying BoD/BoB stem ultimately from a misunderstanding of the sacraments themselves. Some people seem to think that the sacraments are made for God, not man. The necessity of the sacraments themselves is perversely turned towards God Himself as if He is constrained by His own law.

Ladislaus · « **Reply #43 on:** March 18, 2010, 01:25:59 PM »

So there appears to be a lot of theological churn on this subject.

But, lest we forget the original subject of this thread, if we accept the conclusion forwarded in your citation, that circuмcision remits sin and confers grace, then the Holy Innocents would have been justified by circuмcision and are therefore not examples of BoB. Game-Set-Match. You chased me down this rabbit trail, having forgotten the original disagreement, to end up actually backing up my original position. Initially, when I argued that the Holy Innocents were not an example of BoB because they were justified according to the mechanisms of the old dispensation, you denounced this as a false "cliche" argument. Now you have proven my original point. Much obliged. :good-shot:

And, if you posit that those in the Limbo of the Fathers had the theological virtues but could not enter heaven, then you're actually backing the Father Feeney position.

Now, back to the new argument, if circuмcision conferred grace and was an OT baptism-equivalent, then what happened to the poor baby girls? In other words, the circuмcision conferring grace thing does not make sense to me at all. I do not believe that circuмcision worked ex opere operato at all, but was a foreshadowing and type of Baptism, and the ex opere operantis attitudes of those complying with the law fostered the dispositions necessary to eventually be justified and put them into a pre-justification state, a state awaiting justification itself in Limbo.

Ladislaus · « **Reply #44 on:** March 18, 2010, 01:58:51 PM »

Quote from: Raoul76

It began with Tertullian in the form of baptism of blood, and has just as much of a link to the Apostles as the Immaculate Conception, which was never expressly stated in Scripture. On the contrary, lines like "All men have sinned" were used against the Immaculate Conception for a long time.

I personally am absolutely convicted that there is a baptism of desire, and if I were Pope I'd make it dogma straightaway that anyone who expresses a specific will to join the Catholic Church may, not will, be saved despite not attaining water baptism. I would then forbid anyone to speculate beyond that under pain of automatic excommunication.

Thank God, then, that you're not the Pope

.

You cannot make dogma something that has not been revealed. Something can be revealed in two ways: 1) directly revealed by Christ to the Apostles or 2) implicitly contained in other revealed dogmas.

So the Immaculate Conception was an example of the latter by the way (at least in terms of the Church's ability to discern it as having been revealed).

Now here's where the Church Fathers fit in. If we see a unanimous consensus among the Church Fathers, it points to the fact that it was revealed to the Apostles. If all the Fathers scattered across the world essentially believed the same thing, you could reasonably trace it back to their common roots, i.e. to Christ and the Apostles. Remember that communication was not instantaneous back then. Other than that, the Church Fathers were not inspired or infallible. So the fact that about a half dozen Fathers held BoB as supplying for Baptism falls short of demonstrating that this was revealed. And the fact that there are only about half a dozen almost suggests the opposite, that it was NOT revealed.

So that leaves us with deriving BoB implicitly from some other revealed dogma. I have seen nothing to demonstrate this either.

So I don't think that Church will ever define BoB or BoD as dogma. At most She'll leave it as an opinion that may be held, or She could condemn it as error or heresy if in fact She comes to the awareness that it contradicts other dogma regarding the necessity of Baptism. Or else, if She determines that speculation regarding BoB has in fact undermined EENS, she could simply declare it unlawful to speculate beyond the fact that Baptism is necessary for salvation.