Author Topic: Effects of the Heresy of Denying Baptism of Desire (Read 34034 times)

Ladislaus · « **Reply #185 on:** May 13, 2014, 11:00:17 AM »

Quote from: Lover of Truth

Quote from: Ladislaus
Quote from: Lover of Truth
It is based on the constant infallible teaching of the Church ...

No it's not. You can find more Church Fathers who explicitly reject BoD than those who accept it. In fact, you can find only one Church Father who clearly teaches it, St. Augustine, and St. Augustine CLEARLY indicates with his language that it's an exercise in speculative theology and then later VERY FORCEFULLY retracts BoD and makes some of the strongest Anti-BOD statements that can be found in any of the Church Fathers.

I know you to be sincere my friend but on this issue you are surely misguided. Or do you believe the encyclicals by Pius XI and XII that touched on the issue were not authoritative and infallible?

I am not aware of any encyclicals of either Pius XI or Pius XII that teach BoD. There was of course Suprema Haec and I question both its authenticity and its authority.

I have studied this subject for years. I used to believe in BoD for catechumens because I thought that the Church Fathers taught it and because I thought that Trent taught it. But in actually going back and doing the research, I find that this is simply not the case. If Trent taught it, then obviously it's de fide, and I read Trent at a time when I believed in BoD for catechumens. I read the entire treatise on justification in Latin and found ... to my surprise, actually ... that Trent was clearly not intending to teach BoD.

This will be the one of the first issues that will need to be authoritatively settled by the Church when the smoke of the V2 apostasy clears.

Lover of Truth · « **Reply #186 on:** May 13, 2014, 11:06:58 AM »

Quote from: Ladislaus

Quote from: Lover of Truth
My statement does not completely undermine the necessity of the Sacrament of Baptism. When one is baptized with water it is God Who cleanses the soul of Original Sin. Do you affirm or deny this?

If you read my post above, I already explicitly affirm this. You're using this, however, to argue that the Sacrament of Baptism isn't a necessary INSTRUMENTAL CAUSE BY WHICH God does the cleansing, i.e. that God cleanses directly, without the Sacrament of Baptism as an intermediary ... which is denying Trent's teaching on the NECESSITY of Baptism. Your previous argument has been to characterize the necessity as a necessity of precept, but that flies in the face of all the theologians who teach about that subject.

The Sacrament of Baptism is the instrumental cause of God cleansing the soul of Original Sin but it admits of exceptions.

Show me where Trent teaches the opposite of what it seems to teach. Even Father Feeney would disagree with you. Are you aware that he admitted desire for the sacrament can justify a person based upon his reading of Trent. He read it in Latin and understood what it said. This is why most "Feeneyites" disagree with him. They do not believe "baptism of desire" does anything.

Ladislaus · « **Reply #187 on:** May 13, 2014, 11:08:40 AM »

Quote from: Lover of Truth

Can you at least admit that BOD is not predicated on the idea that it is impossible for God to work a miracle to baptize someone with water? If not can you supply the source that teaches the contrary?

But that's where the idea was originally hatched. BoB was first developed because people saw some catechumens getting martyred, whereas there were veritable scuмbuckets who got baptized on their deathbeds after living lives of sin. Then BoD came along for the same reasons. This was admitted even by St. Augustine, that the idea was founded upon people questioning whether this was "fair". There's no evidence that this was revealed or you would have all the Church Fathers unanimously teaching it. But against St. Augustine you can find about 4 or 5 Fathers who very forcefully reject BoD (some accept BoB but then reject BoD). St. Robert Bellarmine admits that the Church Fathers were divided on this issue.

That's why I question your statement that BoD has been the "constant teaching of the Church"; there's just no actual evidence for that.

There are two ways in which something can be said to be revealed.

1) directly revealed, as indicated by a unanimous consent of the Church Fathers (no such evidence exists)

2) implicitly and necessarily derived from other revealed dogmas (I have seen no syllogism which derives BoD from other revealed dogmas)

Consequently, I see no evidence for this to be de fide. I see it as little more than a piece of speculative theology, based on various emotional reasons (as I outlined above), that the Church has allowed and tolerated and even endorsed (but never definitely taught or defined).

Yet I see also that BoD was extended gradually beyond catechumens to various heretics and schismatics, and then even to infidels and pagans. And it's this idea which has been exploited to lead to the modern V2 ecclesiology and to religious indifferentism.

Ladislaus · « **Reply #188 on:** May 13, 2014, 11:10:03 AM »

Quote from: Lover of Truth

Show me where Trent teaches the opposite of what it seems to teach.

I've posted my explanation for why Trent doesn't teach BoD probably about a dozen times on the myriad different threads. I don't feel like typing out the whole thing again, so I'll look it up and perhaps we could start a separate thread dedicated to that question.

Cantarella · « **Reply #189 on:** May 13, 2014, 11:18:06 AM »

Quote from: Ladislaus

This will be the one of the first issues that will need to be authoritatively settled by the Church when the smoke of the V2 apostasy clears.

Upon re examination of the so called Baptism of Desire and its devastating effects on the EENS salutary dogma, a Papal solemn condemnation of it once and for all, even for cathechumens, will serve the purpose.

The denial of EENS via BOD ( or better said last minute Act of Contrition for an unbaptized person) has been the main devilish weapon Modernism has brought against the Faith. We should have listened to Fr. Feeney.