Author Topic: Does "baptism of desire" grant the grace of baptismspiritual rebirth? (Read 11544 times)

Ladislaus · « **Reply #45 on:** April 24, 2014, 07:41:34 PM »

Quote from: Nishant

Secondly, the word voto has a very specific meaning in Catholic theology before and after, also in the Council itself - it always referred to the reception of the sacramental effect, and never to a mere disposition, would you dispute this? - in this case the effect being the translation from the state of death to the state of grace. You need to prove both of these wrong, for your idea to work.

No, I don't see it that way. There's are specific canons in Trent which refer to the fact that cooperation of the will is necessary for justification. That's how the key passage in Trent is to be interpreted, the requirement that there be BOTH the Sacrament and the cooperation of the will, the votum. That doesn't mean that the Sacramental effect can be had with the votum ALONE in this case, just that the votum is required in addition to the Sacrament. I'll have to dig up the Trent Canons to show this particular emphasis.

Don't you think it odd that if Trent were teaching BoD that it was completely silent about BoB? Of course that's odd. If you read the passage that way, then you basically have to say that there can be no justification via BoB .... unless you reduce BoB to BoD. But most BoB theologians claim that it works differently, in a quasi ex opere operato manner. You take the canons in Trent regarding the need for cooperation of the will for the justification to happen in Baptism along with its silence in the key passage about BoB, and it's absolutely plain as day that Trent did not teach BoD.

Finally, if you take the "or" as a disjunctive "either ... or", you would have to say that justification can be had by Baptism without the votum ... which is condemned as heretical in the later canons.

Ladislaus · « **Reply #46 on:** April 24, 2014, 07:47:47 PM »

Quote from: Nishant

Thirdly, buried with Christ (cf. Col 2:11-12 for e.g.) always refers to water baptism in Scripture (you are "buried" when you are immersed or sprinkled with water, which is what baptism signifies, and what it effects) and Trent adopts it in the same sense. Trent's passage explains it is specifically talking of those who are "buried with Christ".

That's fine, but even justification via BoD (granting its existence) happens BY the Sacrament of Baptism. This is why you have that second part after the definition of spiritual rebirth, explaining that this rebirth happens by means of Baptism, reinforcing the necessity of the Sacraments. Trent teaches very clearly that justification must have as its instrumental cause the SACRAMENT of Baptism -- it makes no exceptions for BoD. Consequently it's still the Sacrament of Baptism that would be working through BoD. By adding the reference to Baptism Trent does NOT say that "the kind of rebirth that happens in the Sacrament of Baptism" leads to perfect innocent. Besides, if it doesn't then it cannot rightly be called "rebirth".

Honestly, it should be a simple thing to say that St. Thomas' speculation regarding how BoD works was just plain wrong.

Ladislaus · « **Reply #47 on:** April 24, 2014, 07:50:10 PM »

Quote from: Nishant

Fourthly, let's think this through. What is the status of a Catholic, say who has just recovered the grace of justification by penance? He is in the state of grace, yet secondary effects of sin, called debt of punishment, remain to be expiated in purgatory. This is the exactly analogous state of the person justified by baptism of desire. Justified and in the state of grace, with attachments remaining to be purified, which shows there is no incoherence in such a thing.

That reasoning is incorrect. Again, you keep making analogies between Baptism and Penance while ignoring the differences. NEVER has Penance been referred to as a "rebirth"; it's not. Baptism, however, IS a rebirth, and Trent teaches that justification cannot happen without rebirth, defining rebirth as the restoration to complete innocence.

Ladislaus · « **Reply #48 on:** April 24, 2014, 07:57:22 PM »

Quote from: Nishant

I understand you speculate that this may be the case, and I'm glad to know it, but Catholic teaching seems to me to preclude it. For theology on indulgences is clear is that only those in the state of grace can obtain the remission of temporal punishment, moreover that temporal punishment can be remitted only by meritorious works, not works done without faith in a natural state, and of course this only after the guilt has been forgiven. To be saved, it is necessary to have no attachment to sin, even venial sin, as the condition for gaining a plenary indulgence shows. In addition, since there is no particular work here to which it is attached, desire must supply for this, and therefore the intensity of contrition, as the Doctors teach, must be very great. Only then could a person receive the remission of all guilt and of all punishment. Martyrs for example, for they give to God the most perfect act of love, according to traditional teaching, will go straight to heaven even without water baptism, receiving the remission of the entirety of eternal and temporal punishment.

I suspect that there's a difference between the type of temporal punishment due to sin for the just and the temporal punishment one might receive in hell for sins. Actually, I suspect that the pain of sense in hell (which I refer only loosely to as "temporal" punishment) isn't temporal punishment at all but eternal punishment (temporal meaning ... for a certain time). So I may have mixed the terms, but it seems to me that naturally virtuous activities could mitigate the eternal sufferings of sense (so perhaps I should have referred to the pain of sense more generically). Again, I'm only speculating here. I just find it hard to imagine that two people who are damned for the same single sin (all else being equal) and differ only in that one did very little good in his life while the other did much (fed the hungry, clothed the naked, etc.) ... I find it difficult to imagine that the one would not suffer in less with both having committed exactly the same sin that led to their damnation.

So, for instance, I feel that an unbaptized martyr would enter into a veritable limbo-like state, for the suffering of senses in hell would be wiped away by this. This is as plausible as any other speculation regarding BoB.

Ambrose · « **Reply #49 on:** April 24, 2014, 11:37:29 PM »

Quote from: Alcuin

Quote from: Ambrose
To deny Baptism of Desire is heresy. For those that reject this de fide teaching of the Church, you place your soul in grave peril.

Is the de fide teaching limited to actual catechumens and martyrs?

The de fide teaching only applies to explicit Baptism of Desire. When the Holy Office explained this teaching in the 1949 letter, Suprema Haec Sacra, it referenced the Council of Trent as teaching explicit Baptism of Desire. It is for this reason that anyone who denies Baptism of Desire professes a heresy against the Faith.

Regarding implicit Baptism of Desire, the Holy Office corrects the Saint Benedict Center for this error against the Faith, but does not accuse them of heresy. The reason is that the Saint Benedict Center in its publication reviewed by the Holy Office had not denied Baptism of Desire itself, rather the Church's teaching on implicit Baptism of Desire.

Msgr. Fenton explains:

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The most important error contained in that article was a denial of the possibility of salvation for any man who had only an implicit desire to enter the Catholic Church. There was likewise bad teaching on the requisites for justification, as distinguished from the requisites for salvation. The first of these faults has been indicated in a previous issue of The American Ecclesiastical Review.[12]

The teaching on implicit Baptism of Desire must be believed as it is both authoritative teaching of the Pope's ordinary magisterium, (Mystici Corporis), and is also certain doctrine as this teaching is taught by the consensus of the theologians.

If a Catholic denies implicit Baptism of Desire as explained by the Holy Office letter, he would objectively commit a mortal sin, but would not be outside the Church.

Cantarella · « **Reply #50 on:** April 24, 2014, 11:58:10 PM »

Quote from: Ambrose

Quote from: Alcuin
Quote from: Ambrose
To deny Baptism of Desire is heresy. For those that reject this de fide teaching of the Church, you place your soul in grave peril.

Is the de fide teaching limited to actual catechumens and martyrs?

The de fide teaching only applies to explicit Baptism of Desire. When the Holy Office explained this teaching in the 1949 letter, Suprema Haec Sacra, it referenced the Council of Trent as teaching explicit Baptism of Desire. It is for this reason that anyone who denies Baptism of Desire professes a heresy against the Faith.

Regarding implicit Baptism of Desire, the Holy Office corrects the Saint Benedict Center for this error against the Faith, but does not accuse them of heresy. The reason is that the Saint Benedict Center in its publication reviewed by the Holy Office had not denied Baptism of Desire itself, rather the Church's teaching on implicit Baptism of Desire.

Msgr. Fenton explains:
Quote
The most important error contained in that article was a denial of the possibility of salvation for any man who had only an implicit desire to enter the Catholic Church. There was likewise bad teaching on the requisites for justification, as distinguished from the requisites for salvation. The first of these faults has been indicated in a previous issue of The American Ecclesiastical Review.[12]

The teaching on implicit Baptism of Desire must be believed as it is both authoritative teaching of the Pope's ordinary magisterium, (Mystici Corporis), and is also certain doctrine as this teaching is taught by the consensus of the theologians.

If a Catholic denies implicit Baptism of Desire as explained by the Holy Office letter, he would objectively commit a mortal sin, but would not be outside the Church.

The real heresy is your obstinate denial of the solemnly defined dogma that the Catholic Faith is necessary for salvation. You believe that non-Catholics can be saved without the Catholic Faith. If such a position is not a heresy, then nothing in the world is a heresy. Hello CMRI brainwash!.

Nishant · « **Reply #51 on:** April 25, 2014, 06:34:16 AM »

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I'll have to dig up the Trent Canons to show this particular emphasis.

Ladislaus, thanks for your reply. In my opinion, in the first place, you have to provide some kind of plausible expanation for why every single post-Tridentine teacher of the Faith missed this for centuries, only for Fr. Feeney, you and others to have come up with five centuries later. All authorities without exception read Trent in the way I'm going to defend, so the interpretation you propose is a novelty.

To answer it critically, from the Council texts itself,

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Compare: "verum etiam eorundem sacramentalem confessionem saltem in voto ... non quidem pro pœna æterna, quæ vel sacramento, vel sacramenti voto una cuм culpa remittitur" (but also the sacramental confession of the said sins, not indeed for the eternal punishment,—at least in desire ... which is, together with the guilt, remitted, either by the sacrament, or by the desire of the sacrament)

(this also answers the third point you made above)

And: "qui voto propositum illum cœlestem panem edentes ... "those to wit who eating in desire that heavenly bread"

With: "sine lavacro regenerationis, aut ejus voto" ... "without the laver of regeneration, or the desire thereof"

In every case, it is evident that voto always refers to the reception of the sacramental effect in desire and never to a disposition.

Secondly, if you're really going to claim, contrary to all this, that the intent of the Tridentine Fathers was otherwise, what is your explanation of Trent's Catechism, where it is written the intention to receive baptism, together with the repentance for past sins, suffices to avail adults to grace and righteousness? Surely you will not deny that this teaches a baptism of desire, especially seeing as it says makes it impossible to be washed in the salutary waters, is referring to the same danger as in the case of infants, i.e. death, and does not speak in the same way it would if it believed these to be eternally lost, as infants are, and as it did for them.

There is a third point, contrary to the view you've espoused here regarding the incomparability of catechumens and penitents, it is Pope St. Pius V's condemnation of Michael Baius' errors, "1031 31. Perfect and sincere charity, which is from a "pure heart and good conscience and a faith not feigned" [1 Tim. 1:5], can be in catechumens as well as in penitents without the remission of sins. 1032 32. That charity which is the fullness of the law is not always connected with the remission of sins." which theologians again have always understood to mean that charity in penitents or in catechumens cannot fail to avail the remission of sins.

Again, in Her Catechisms, the Church makes clear that those verses in Scripture when Our Lord promises to any man who loves Him truly the indwelling of the Holy Trinity, really mean any man, be he catechumen or penitent, saying that in either case love of God and contrition suffices for the remission of sins.

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Don't you think it odd that if Trent were teaching BoD that it was completely silent about BoB?

BoB, as theologians explain is the most perfect form of baptism of desire, because the most perfect act of love, as Jesus Himself said, is to give one's life for God. Martyrdom, says St. Alphonsus, does not act by as strict a causality as the sacraments. Baptism of blood was already unanimously recognized as Catholic teaching, not even the heretic Peter Abelard contested it, and it is again provided for in the Catechism, when it speaks of catechumens who face death due to unavoidable circuмstances before they can receive baptism, which includes them being killed.

I think if you had an appropriate view of the necessary horror of hell, you might be less inclined to say what you are saying. The least pain of even purgatory, it is unanimously taught, surpass all the pains of the present life. We will come back to this, but the slightest pain of sense in hell must necessarily exceed that, and the pain of loss common to all damned adults in its kind is even greater than the greatest pain of sense possible. Moreover, all the blessed in purgatory have the certitude of salvation, whereas all the unfortunate lost have the assurance of eternal reprobation, and the horrible despair necessarily concomitant with it.

Ladislaus · « **Reply #52 on:** April 25, 2014, 09:38:24 AM »

Quote from: Nishant

Ladislaus, thanks for your reply. In my opinion, in the first place, you have to provide some kind of plausible expanation for why every single post-Tridentine teacher of the Faith missed this for centuries, only for Fr. Feeney, you and others to have come up with five centuries later. All authorities without exception read Trent in the way I'm going to defend, so the interpretation you propose is a novelty.

Very few authorities even deal with this passage. God has allowed this to be misinterpreted, for without this notion of Baptism of Desire the crisis in faith that God has willed could not have come about.

None of you has yet attempted to address the substance of why I interpret Trent the way I do. Every single time I lay it out, it's ignored. You just rely upon the fact that others have interpreted it differently. I acknowledge that others have interpreted it differently. I acknowledge that I'm in the minority. Even Father Feeney didn't interpret this differently; he distinguished between justification and salvation. Now let's look at the substance of the argument.

If read your way, Trent condemns the popular theological explanation of Baptism of Blood (the notion that it acts quasi ex opere operato). Trent therefore reduces Baptism of Blood to Baptism of Desire. There's no getting around that. There can no longer said to be "Three Baptisms" but, rather, "Two Baptisms".

Also ignored: If you make the "or" in Trent disjunctive, "either ... or" , then you're saying that the Sacrament can justify without the will, the votum, which is explicitly condemned as heretical in the Canons of Trent.

That passage you cite on Penance only backs up my point. Notice the use of the "vel ... vel" (vel sacramento, vel sacramenti voto), which is an explicit "either ... or". No such construction is used in the Baptism passage.

And the biggest reason is the context of the passage.

By itself it can be ambiguous, read as conjunctive or as disjunctive. No one has addressed this either.

Bob says we cannot play baseball without a bat or a ball.

On the surface (if you didn't know anything about baseball), this could mean that either 1) that we need both in order to play or 2) we can play it with one OR the other. It's not inherently clear.

But what if I do this?

Bob says we cannot play baseball without a bat or a ball because we need a bat and a ball to play baseball.

Immediately disambiguated.

Same thing with Trent.

No one can be justified without Baptism or the desire for it.

Could be read either way.

But Trent immediately disambiguates in the following passage, just as in my baseball example.

No one can be justified without the laver or the will [votum] for it, since, as it is written, unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Ghost, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.

Notice the analogy. laver:water::will:Holy Ghost. Trent had just spent paragraphs talking about how the Holy Ghost acts to dispose the will in order to properly be justified in the Sacrament of Baptism.

If you could convince me that:

Bob says we cannot play baseball without a bat or a ball because we need a bat and a ball to play baseball.

means that we can play baseball with EITHER a bat OR a ball,

then you could convince me that

No one can be justified without the laver or the will [votum] for it, since, as it is written, unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Ghost, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.

means that we can be justified with EITHER the Sacrament OR the desire for it.

There's no disputing this. It's obvious. Those who interpreted it differently misunderstood it by drawing a bad analogy with Penance. St. Alphonsus also draws the bad analogy with Penance.

Ladislaus · « **Reply #53 on:** April 25, 2014, 09:49:51 AM »

Quote from: Nishant

BoB, as theologians explain is the most perfect form of baptism of desire, because the most perfect act of love, as Jesus Himself said, is to give one's life for God. Martyrdom, says St. Alphonsus, does not act by as strict a causality as the sacraments.

You're wrong on this. Look it up. BoD/BoB theologians distinguish the two, differentiating that BoD works ex opere operantis but that BoB works quasi ex opere operato. If you read Trent the way you do, one has to reject that explanation of BoB and do as you do, which is to reduce it for a form of BoD. Thus, no longer Three Baptisms, but Two. If you read Trent the way you claim it should be read, then you have to reject the popular explanation of BoB. Which is problematic because several of the Church Fathers who accepted BoB at the same time explicitly rejected BoD.

Ladislaus · « **Reply #54 on:** April 25, 2014, 09:51:57 AM »

Quote from: Nishant

I think if you had an appropriate view of the necessary horror of hell, you might be less inclined to say what you are saying.

You precisely underscore one of my major problems with the reasoning behind BoD, that YOU are motivated by a sense of it being unfair of God to not save people who have not committed actual sin. These considerations are what St. Augustine referred to as leading into a vortex of confusion. I follow the theology, not my own sentimentality or my presumption of what is fair or unfair for God to do.

Ladislaus · « **Reply #55 on:** April 25, 2014, 10:02:56 AM »

We've digressed of course from the main thread topic.

There's no doubt at all that the explanation of St. Thomas (followed by St. Alphonsus) that BoD does not remit all the temporal punishment due to sin MUST BE REJECTED as contrary to the teaching of Trent.

Trent teaches that there cannot be any justification without rebirth and then defines rebirth as a state in which the soul is returned to a state of perfect innocence and can enter directly into heaven without delay (as the term itself clearly denotes).

Why are you so loathe to say that St. Thomas got it wrong? After all, St. Thomas also got the Immaculate Conception wrong. Big deal. You can still hold to BoD, but you must reject one popular explanation for how it works.

I'll tell you why.

It's because it puts all of BoD on shaky ground. If St. Thomas got the explanation of BoD wrong, then his understanding of it appears to be flawed, and therefore the very concept of BoD loses the authority of St. Thomas. You'd rather promote a notion of "rebirth" that leaves the soul polluted by past sin than to reject St. Thomas' explanation of BoD.

Nishant · « **Reply #56 on:** April 25, 2014, 11:45:09 AM »

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Very few authorities even deal with this passage ... I acknowledge that others have interpreted it differently. I acknowledge that I'm in the minority.

We've seen St. Alphonsus and St. Robert cite it before, and these were members of the ecclesia docens. But beside them every single authority since Trent who cites this passage teaches it the way I defended, and not one the way you do.Theologians in general are intermediaries between the teaching Church and the Church taught, as Pius IX said, when they unanimously teach with universal and constant consent that a certain doctrine is a taught by the Church, in this case in Trent, the faithful or Church taught are bound to follow. This is a habitual rule of Faith all are obliged by, a manifestation of our subjection to the teaching Church, the ordinary and universal Magisterium.

Given that we don't agree on this, there might not be much point in going on, but I will reply for the sake of completion.

You didn't address the issue of Catechisms, even that of Trent, going against you, as well as the other statements such as that of Pope St. Pius V.

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If you make the "or" in Trent disjunctive, "either ... or" , then you're saying that the Sacrament can justify without the will ... Notice the use of the "vel ... vel" (vel sacramento, vel sacramenti voto), which is an explicit "either ... or"

First, you're ignoring the common use of voto to denote sacramental effect, and not a mere disposition. Secondly, applying your linguistic argument to the second case, that of penance, where you admit the "either ... or", is Trent then saying that "the sacrament can justify without the will"? According to your argument, it must be, because it says is effected by the sacrament, or by the desire of the sacrament, that is, by each individually.

But of course it is not. For it suffices to say the sacrament remits the guilt, because that is the effect caused by the sacrament, the proper disposition in receiving it being presumed and not needing to be expressly mentioned.

Again, I deny that the construction is different, it says, ""sine lavacro regenerationis, aut ejus voto" similar to how it says, "quæ vel sacramento, vel sacramenti voto", in each case adding a clause to show that desire can cause the sacramental effect. Desire as voto never refers to a disposition.

If Trent meant to teach as you do, there was no reason then to add "aut ejus voto", just as if Trent meant to teach the sacramental effect could not be realized by the desire for penance, there was no reason to add "vel sacramenti voto".

Trent interprets what Scripture means, Scripture doesn't interpret what Trent means. The passage in John 3:5, when taken together with other words of the Apostle and of the Lord in the Gospel, doesn't preclude the triune baptism but rather includes it. Jesus came not in Water only but in Water and Blood, says the Apostle. The Spirit, the water, and the blood are one, continues St. John, just as God is Three and One. Jesus explained this to St. Catherine of Sienna, but you don't recognize that.

Your analogy presumes what it needs to prove. I could say the correct analogy would be, "One cannot play baseball without a bat, or a substitute for a bat" which is more like the construction of the original statement, where what follows the or refers back to what precedes it, whereas a ball is something having nothing to do with a bat as such. Aut ejus voto means or the desire of the same, the same to which it refers back, just as vel sacramenti voto means or the desire of the sacrament.

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Those who interpreted it differently misunderstood it by drawing a bad analogy with Penance

A gratuitous assertion that isn't true for most. St. Robert for example wasn't speaking of penance at all, but of baptism and catechumens, and he asserts Trent teaches baptism is necessary in fact or in desire.

Nishant · « **Reply #57 on:** April 25, 2014, 11:49:34 AM »

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BoD/BoB theologians distinguish the two, differentiating that BoD works ex opere operantis but that BoB works quasi ex opere operato.

Yes, but you're misunderstanding what this means. I cited St. Alphonsus, and I say exactly what he and others do, if you show me otherwise, I will change my opinion immediately. Baptism of desire depends on the work of the working one, the degree and intensity of the contrition he has, whereas baptism of blood depends on the very work worked, which is why it bears a closer resemblance to the Passion, to the sacrament, and to Christ's work in it.

Theologians explain that baptism of desire is an act of love of God, but in the case of BOB, martyrdom itself is the act of love of God. It is the very work worked, and not the work of the working one, which is why it avails for infants, for instance. St. Alphonsus goes on to mention this example, saying those who deny it are at least temerarious. To be martyred for Christ is the greatest act of love.

You say you hold to theology whereas I hold to sentimentality, but I think the opposite is true. If the Church taught unbaptized martyrs go to hell and suffer sense pains, I would accept it, while you seem to struggle with the common teaching of the Saints and Doctors of the Church, including those who by divine privilege have experienced something of the latter, that the pains of hell even for naturally virtuous persons would surpass the pains of purgatory, the least of which surpass all the pains of the present life.

I respectfully answer you that you don't have the right to speculate against the commonly received teaching, nor to call teaching proposed to us as certain a speculation, nor does your opinion have anywhere nearly the same weight and authority as that of an approved theologian or Doctor of the Church, whereas even they would hesitate to speculate in opposition to what is universally taught in all Catholic schools. I cited the teaching of Saints and Doctors of the Church on purgatory and hell, and not my own.

I will close with two traditional proofs that justification happens by baptism of desire, and that the entirety of temporal punishment is not remitted by it. Perhaps to discontinue my participation in this discussion henceforth, however you choose to reply.

First is the example of Cornelius, whom Sts from Augustine through Thomas to Alphonsus and several others see as clearly having been justified in Scripture while yet a catechumen before being water baptized, showing there is no incoherence at all in such a thing. This is evident from St. Peter and St. Luke in Scripture, and it shows that the baptismal effect can be received in desire. The second is based on another thing St. Peter says about those who in the days of Noah were disobedient, and in purgatory until Christ came to release them, as various traditional sources have commented, which shows some of the just who converted in their last moments being chained in purgatory for a very long time.

I've mentioned that the Church understands the passages on love of God in Scripture to refer to both catechumens and penitents alike in Her catechisms, which itself suffices to show this is no speculation, but certain doctrine we are meant to receive and uphold. Contrition therefore according to the mind of the Church has the same effect in catechumens and in penitents, and the effect of contrition is taught in Trent.

Neil Obstat · « **Reply #58 on:** June 07, 2014, 11:58:04 AM »

.

Threads like this belong in their own sub-forum.

.

JoeZ · « **Reply #59 on:** June 07, 2014, 04:04:44 PM »

To Mr Neil Obstat:

If you would sir, please explain why in your syllogisms, your minor propositions start with the word but. I'm fearful that I'm missing a fuller meaning.

but |bət|
conjunction
1 used to introduce something contrasting with what has already been mentioned
• nevertheless; however : he stumbled but didn't fall | this is one principle, but it is not the only one.
• on the contrary; in contrast : I am clean but you are dirty | the problem is not that they are cutting down trees, but that they are doing it in a predatory way.
2 [with negative or in questions ] used to indicate the impossibility of anything other than what is being stated : one cannot but sympathize | there was nothing they could do but swallow their pride | they had no alternative but to follow.
3 used to introduce a response expressing a feeling such as surprise or anger : but that's an incredible saving! | but why?
4 used after an expression of apology for what one is about to say : I'm sorry, but I can't pay you.
5 [with negative ] archaic without its being the case that : it never rains but it pours.

Thank you for your time.
God bless all here,
JoeZ