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Author Topic: Implicit BOD  (Read 18859 times)

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Offline DecemRationis

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Implicit BOD
« on: September 15, 2020, 08:27:08 AM »

Another thread or topic got sidetracked with a discussion of BOD. During that thread, Sean posted the following from St. Alphonsus on baptism of desire:



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"But baptism of desire is perfect conversion to God by contrition or love of God above all things accompanied by an explicit or implicit desire for true Baptism of water, the place of which it takes as to the remission of guilt, but not as to the impression of the [baptismal] character or as to the removal of all debt of punishment. It is called “of wind [flaminis] because it takes place by the impulse of the Holy Ghost Who is called a wind [flamen]. Now it is de fide that men are also saved by Baptism of desire, by virtue of the Canon Apostolicam De Presbytero Non Baptizato and the Council of Trent, Session 6, Chapter 4, where it is said that no one can be saved “without the laver of regeneration or the desire for it.”-    Moral Theology Book 6.

I underlined the part of the quote, "perfect conversion to God by contrition or love of God above all things," and "it is called 'of wind[flaminis] because it takes place by impulse of the Holy Ghost," and posed this question(s): 


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A relevant question: Isn't that how the Saints of the OT were justified before death?

Stated differently: weren't the OT saints justified by something meeting the definition of an "implicit" baptism of desire?


I disagree with St. Alphonsus regarding salvation by implicit BOD after the promulgation of the Gospel (i.e. under the New Covenant) and wanted to lay a foundation for a discussion on that point by getting some input on how the OT saints were justified. 

Stubborn responded to my question as follows:


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By worshiping God, believing in a redeemer to come and living a moral life.

I'll wait a bit and see if someone would also offer an opinion (or even better, quote some authority) on how the OT saints were justified.

Thanks,

DR

Offline Ladislaus

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Re: Implicit BOD
« Reply #1 on: September 15, 2020, 09:26:59 AM »
I think that two different considerations are typically conflated in this notion of "implicit" Baptism of Desire.

There's the idea of implicit desire for Baptism proper and then idea of implicit faith.

So, for instance, I am converted to the Church and want to become a Catholic, but I do not form the explicit intention "I desire to be Baptized."  One can see the DESIRE here to be implicit in the desire to become a Catholic.

Then there's the notion of implicit faith, which many have promoted.  "I am a well-meaning pagan who follow my lights regarding the natural law."

So this discussion gets confused the the degrees of "implicit"-ness, i.e. the degrees of separation from the explicit.

It's absolutely indisputed that supernatural faith is required for salvation.  Lots of modern BoDers focus on the "desire" (an act of the will) but ignore the intellectual requirements for salvation, as if one can will to have supernatural faith without believing anything.  What's at issue is what are the requirements to have supernatural faith.  Can faith be implicit in my desire to know God?  All theologians agree that SOME things must be explicitly believed, with the vast majority (and absolute unanimity before the year 1600) holding that explicit belief in the Holy Trinity and Incarnation were necessary for salvation.  In other words, no Jew, Muslim, or any kind of infidel can possibly be saved.

This was believed by all Catholics everywhere for the first 1600 years of Church history, meeting the criteria for infallible dogma based on the OUM.  Yet some Jesuits felt they were permitted to theorize that these were not necessary and that it was sufficient for supernatural faith just to believe in a God who rewards the good and punishes the wicked.  This was motivated by the desire to extend the possibility of salvation to infidels.

Of course, recent Novus Ordo developments hold that atheists can be saved without ANY explicit belief whatsoever.

I hold that Rewarder God theory is objectively heretical based on the teachings of the Ordinary Universal Magisterium.  Those who lived before Vatican II might be excused of formal heresy because the OUM had not clearly been defined, but this notion must now be rejected as absolutely heretical.


Re: Implicit BOD
« Reply #2 on: September 15, 2020, 10:04:50 AM »
You keeping digging a bigger hole in an attempt to justify yourself.

There was a time when salvation wasn't a thing? Please.

And to be saved, man always had to be justified by the grace of God.

Let's take this elsewhere. I'll start a new thread.

I'll end this here with: Father Cekada, pray for us.
There was no salvation until Christ died on the cross for our sins. 

So no, once again, the Old Testament Fathers were not saved by BOD. They were not saved at all until Christ descended into Hell and freed them. I haven't been able to find anywhere where the Church teaches who went into the Limbo of the Fathers and who was damned to Gehenna instead, other than vague references to the "righteous dead", but their salvation centuries after death had nothing to do with any sort of desire for a sacrament that didn't yet exist. 

Re: Implicit BOD
« Reply #3 on: September 15, 2020, 10:45:48 AM »
Lad, refresh my memory. What is the docuмent from Benedict XIV (?) in 1703 that ruled against the God that rewards principle the Jesuits were pushing?

Offline Ladislaus

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Re: Implicit BOD
« Reply #4 on: September 15, 2020, 11:19:22 AM »
Lad, refresh my memory. What is the docuмent from Benedict XIV (?) in 1703 that ruled against the God that rewards principle the Jesuits were pushing?

I need to dig it up again.  I posted it some time ago on a different thread but don't have it handy again.

One could argue that it's disciplinary, but there's doctrine embedded in it, saying that souls cannot be baptized without knowing explicitly the truths which are necessary by necessity of means for salvation.  So there's a doctrinal principle which holds that knowledge of the Holy Trinity and the Incarnation are necessary for salvation.