Author Topic: Pope Innocent II on Baptism of Desire (Read 5118 times)

Cantarella · « **Reply #30 on:** December 01, 2014, 07:36:47 PM »

Quote from: Nado

Quote from: Ladislaus
Again, Nado doesn't understand Sacramental theology. SACRAMENTS (unlike BoD) work ex opere operato. In those who have reached the age of reason, there's required the cooperation of the will, so that the Sacrament does not confer its grace unless the cooperation is present. That is the solemn teaching of Trent. And that IMO is all that Trent is teaching in the famous "or desire for it" phrase, but that's a side issue. In infants, however, who merely lack the ability to cooperate with the will, the Church supplies the requisite dispositions for Baptism, since, again, the grace is conferred ex opere operato.

Yes, I know there is a difference between the Sacrament itself, and baptism of desire. That is why your MAJORITY/MINORITY claim applies to one and not the other.

My point about mentioning that a baptized infant doesn't actually have explicit faith himself, is to show not only that souls have gone to heaven without explicitly believing themselves in the truths of the Faith, but that you were forced to not be satisfied with the literal meaning of some of the quotes you give about explicit faith. You realize that distinctions must be made, and other things need to be referenced to qualify Church teaching....which is good, because that is what we must do....not oppose Catholic quote with other Catholic quotes.

Why is it so incredibly difficult for Nado to comprehend that the Church has explicitly made the distinction between babes and adults? Only willful ignorance could possibly be the answer.

Is the Church teaching that in the case of infants, the Act of Faith is supplied by the parents and godparents since they cannot profess their personal faith in Christ yet. But the Act of Faith (supplied by the parents) is still necessary requirement for the validity of Baptism. Children should only be brought to the church for Baptism when their parents have every intention of raising those children in a practicing Catholic household.

The Athanasian creed teaches that everyone above the age of reason must have a knowledge and belief in the mysteries of the Trinity and Incarnation to be saved. No exceptions. This creed eliminates the theory of invincible ignorance / salvation via implicit desire of non-Catholics, which really, is what these pelagians obsess about.

Ladislaus · « **Reply #31 on:** December 02, 2014, 11:34:38 AM »

Quote from: Nado

Now, are you saying the Holy Office was Pelagian that allowed the offering of Mass for Jews with indication of good-will in their error?

Are you accusing theologian Joseph Pohle (the author of Pelagianism in the Catholic Encyclopedia) of being a Pelagian heretic for saying what I am saying

Are you calling Pius IX a Pelagian for insisting we don't put limits on ignorance?

You persist, in bad will, to misinterpret Pius IX, despite the abundance of evidence to the contrary.

As for the Holy Office and Pohle, repost their quotes and I will give you my take on them. I can't find them offhand, but I'm sure that you have these embossed in gold letters hanging from your dining-room wall ... along with

There is no salvation outside the Church,

when interpreted according to the mind of the Church means

There is salvation outside the Church

Ladislaus · « **Reply #32 on:** December 02, 2014, 12:01:46 PM »

Quote from: Nado

Quote from: Ladislaus
Quote from: Nado
Now, are you saying the Holy Office was Pelagian that allowed the offering of Mass for Jews with indication of good-will in their error?

Are you accusing theologian Joseph Pohle (the author of Pelagianism in the Catholic Encyclopedia) of being a Pelagian heretic for saying what I am saying

Are you calling Pius IX a Pelagian for insisting we don't put limits on ignorance?

You persist, in bad will, to misinterpret Pius IX, despite the abundance of evidence to the contrary.

As for the Holy Office and Pohle, repost their quotes and I will give you my take on them. I can't find them offhand, but I'm sure that you have these embossed in gold letters hanging from your dining-room wall ... along with

There is no salvation outside the Church,

when interpreted according to the mind of the Church means

There is salvation outside the Church

This post of yours proves you either have a horrible memory, or you really don't read what you reply to.

Yes, pardon me for not having committed both those citations to memory verbatim and for wanting to address what they actually said rather than going from memory. What, are you too lazy to repost them? I tried searching but couldn't find them. In the time that it took you to post that snarky comment, you could have posted the citation.

Ladislaus · « **Reply #33 on:** December 02, 2014, 07:05:21 PM »

Quote from: Nishant

Dear Ladislaus, I consider Trent, its Catechism and St. Pius V's condemnation of Michael Baius' to be the strongest evidence of the doctrine of BOD. But this letter isn't unimportant, it establishes what salvation by true implicit desire would look like.

I'll come back to you and will stop wasting my time with the bad-willed Nadette. I'm done with her. She's an outright Pelagian and doesn't have the same faith that I do.

Nishant, I've actually TRIED to read Trent as teaching BoD but just can't do it. I'll explain why sometime tomorrow. Yes, clearly, Trent would be the strongest evidence. I don't read the Baius stuff the same way you do; I think that Baius was teaching something altogether different than a rejection of BoD. This "Innocent" letter has very little authority, and St. Alphonsus was clearly mistaken in citing it as evidence of BoD being de fide. The majority of theologians who do NOT consider BoD de fide seem to agree.

With that said, BoD is the least of my worries. In principle, I could be convinced of it in 30 seconds with the right argument. Father Feeney was the same way. In fact, Father Feeney didn't adopt his BoD opinion until much later in the game. Father Feeney was being attacked for simply teaching EENS and teaching that people had to have Catholic faith in order to be saved.

Ladislaus · « **Reply #34 on:** December 03, 2014, 07:25:21 PM »

So, Nishant, yes, I agree that the "Priest Not Baptized" would show an "implicit" Baptism of Desire as understood by St. Alphonsus. I've long ago distinguished between types of "implicit" Baptism of Desire. There's implicit and then there's implicit.

Implicit 1: I want to be a Catholic but do not consciously think "I want to be Baptized."

Implicit 2: I'm a good guy who wants to do whatever The Great Thumb wants me to do, which therefore implicitly includes Baptism.

APS · « **Reply #35 on:** December 08, 2014, 06:02:43 AM »

Quote from: Ladislaus

Actually, this quote is highly problematic for Baptism of Desire.

Evidently this priest never knew that he was unbaptized. Really the only thing you can figure is that this priest died and that, after he died, someone looked around and couldn't find a baptismal record. In point of fact, if anyone knew before he died that he was unbaptized, then a) he would not have been allowed to function as a priest and b) someone would have baptized him. This is a very strange set of circuмstances. Presumably before he was ordained to the priesthood, someone would have checked his baptismal records.

Now, since this priest evidently didn't know he wasn't baptized, he couldn't even really have a Baptism of Desire.

Pope Innocent here, in this letter, is actually speaking about "Baptism of Faith", not "Baptism of Desire" ... saying that the mechanism is the mere possession of supernatural faith without any votum. Consequently, where does the Sacrament come into play? It doesn't. Pope Innocent's "Baptism of Faith" actually contradicts Trent's teaching regarding the necessity of the Sacraments for salvation. This idea that the desire was implicit in just thinking he was Catholic is plain silly. Nor does Innocent mention this anywhere at all in this letter. He simply thinks that there's some "Baptism of Faith" mechanism at play, without any relationship to the Sacrament of Baptism.

Not to mention that this letter's authorship and authenticity are both disputed, and that he wrote it to a single bishop in the capacity of a private theologian and was not addressing this authoritatively to the universal Church.. In a similar letter, the same Innocent proposes the error that the Consecration at Mass would be valid if the priest merely thought but did not actually utter the words of consecration, something for which St. Thomas attacked him.

And clearly St. Alphonsus was greatly mistaken in adducing this as "evidence" for BoD being de fide. Of course that was before a definition of infallibility, but in retrospect this letter doesn't even come CLOSE to meeting the notes of infallibility.

At the end of the day, this letter means exactly nothing.

And, Innocent relies on the authority of St. Augustine (who later rejected BoD) and St. Ambrose (who's Valentinian oration is highly ambiguous). There's just nothing here.

And, as the final nail in the coffin, how can Innocent POSSIBLY know that this priest would have gone to heaven? He "assert(s) without hesitation" that the priest would have gone to heaven. He has ABSOLUTELY NO WAY OF KNOWING THAT regardless. Even if there would be such a thing as BoD in a hypothetical sense, there's absolutely zero guarantee of this and absolutely no way of knowing whether this "priest" would have had the dispositions necessary for BoD to be in play. At best he could have said there was a possibility that he could have gone to heaven.

Not to mention that it shows grave ignorance on the part of Innocence that he doesn't even bother to mention the issue that all the priest's Masses were invalid and that he was no priest at all given his lack of Baptism.

Can you quote st Augustine when he says that I do bit believe in baptism of desire anymore? Because centuries before Feeney's birth other theologians still state that Augustine taught it and say it is a catholic teaching. I do not think the valentinian address is ambiguous because no one seemed confused by it. Every theologian I have ever read on it interprets it the same way. When did all this confusion enter into this question?

Ladislaus · « **Reply #36 on:** December 08, 2014, 08:53:45 AM »

Quote from: APS

Can you quote st Augustine when he says that I do bit believe in baptism of desire anymore? Because centuries before Feeney's birth other theologians still state that Augustine taught it and say it is a catholic teaching.

This article is well worth the read:
http://catholicism.org/baptism-of-desire-its-origin-and-abandonment-in-the-thought-of-saint-augustine.html

Be patient, since sometimes the website has issues loading this page and you get an error. Just try again.

You have to realize that access to texts was much more limited before the Printing Press. Some of St. Augustine's texts would disappear for all intents and purposes for centuries from certain parts of the world.

Even Karl "Anonymous Christian" Rahner had the honesty to admit that St. Augustine eventually rejected the idea ... despite the fact that he would want to find evidence there. What's funny is that we reject "Anonymous Christian" by Rahner because Rahner was a "modernist" and yet 99% of all Traditional Catholics believe in Rahner's "Anonymous Christian" theology.

Quote

I do not think the valentinian address is ambiguous because no one seemed confused by it. Every theologian I have ever read on it interprets it the same way. When did all this confusion enter into this question?

I believe that the above link also addresses Valentinian. St. Ambrose elsewhere can be quoted as unambiguously rejecting Baptism of Desire even for catechumens. He did, however, believe in Baptism of Blood. One speculation was that St. Ambrosed hoped that Valentinian's death would qualify under BoB because he may have been killed by Arians for opposing Arianism. Why would the Christians in St. Ambrose's church have been weeping bitterly at the news if they solidly believed in BoD? Answer: they wouldn't have.

But another thing you have to remember is that those were before the days of the internet and twitter. It probably took weeks and months before all the information could reliably make it around. Details would not have been available or would have been very sketchy. Was there a servant of Valentinian's near him at the time who could have administered Baptism as Valentinian lay dying? Who knows?

Cantarella · « **Reply #37 on:** December 08, 2014, 11:02:06 AM »

Quote from: APS

Quote from: Ladislaus
Actually, this quote is highly problematic for Baptism of Desire.

Evidently this priest never knew that he was unbaptized. Really the only thing you can figure is that this priest died and that, after he died, someone looked around and couldn't find a baptismal record. In point of fact, if anyone knew before he died that he was unbaptized, then a) he would not have been allowed to function as a priest and b) someone would have baptized him. This is a very strange set of circuмstances. Presumably before he was ordained to the priesthood, someone would have checked his baptismal records.

Now, since this priest evidently didn't know he wasn't baptized, he couldn't even really have a Baptism of Desire.

Pope Innocent here, in this letter, is actually speaking about "Baptism of Faith", not "Baptism of Desire" ... saying that the mechanism is the mere possession of supernatural faith without any votum. Consequently, where does the Sacrament come into play? It doesn't. Pope Innocent's "Baptism of Faith" actually contradicts Trent's teaching regarding the necessity of the Sacraments for salvation. This idea that the desire was implicit in just thinking he was Catholic is plain silly. Nor does Innocent mention this anywhere at all in this letter. He simply thinks that there's some "Baptism of Faith" mechanism at play, without any relationship to the Sacrament of Baptism.

Not to mention that this letter's authorship and authenticity are both disputed, and that he wrote it to a single bishop in the capacity of a private theologian and was not addressing this authoritatively to the universal Church.. In a similar letter, the same Innocent proposes the error that the Consecration at Mass would be valid if the priest merely thought but did not actually utter the words of consecration, something for which St. Thomas attacked him.

And clearly St. Alphonsus was greatly mistaken in adducing this as "evidence" for BoD being de fide. Of course that was before a definition of infallibility, but in retrospect this letter doesn't even come CLOSE to meeting the notes of infallibility.

At the end of the day, this letter means exactly nothing.

And, Innocent relies on the authority of St. Augustine (who later rejected BoD) and St. Ambrose (who's Valentinian oration is highly ambiguous). There's just nothing here.

And, as the final nail in the coffin, how can Innocent POSSIBLY know that this priest would have gone to heaven? He "assert(s) without hesitation" that the priest would have gone to heaven. He has ABSOLUTELY NO WAY OF KNOWING THAT regardless. Even if there would be such a thing as BoD in a hypothetical sense, there's absolutely zero guarantee of this and absolutely no way of knowing whether this "priest" would have had the dispositions necessary for BoD to be in play. At best he could have said there was a possibility that he could have gone to heaven.

Not to mention that it shows grave ignorance on the part of Innocence that he doesn't even bother to mention the issue that all the priest's Masses were invalid and that he was no priest at all given his lack of Baptism.

Can you quote st Augustine when he says that I do bit believe in baptism of desire anymore? Because centuries before Feeney's birth other theologians still state that Augustine taught it and say it is a catholic teaching. I do not think the valentinian address is ambiguous because no one seemed confused by it. Every theologian I have ever read on it interprets it the same way. When did all this confusion enter into this question?

Quote from: St. Augustine

"How many rascals are saved by being baptized on their deathbeds? And how many sincere catechumens die unbaptized, and are thus lost forever!

There was a favorable opinion on BOD (for catechumens only), in St. Augustine’s earlier writings, but in his latter works it is clear that his final conviction was the absolute necessity of sacramental baptism by water for salvation. His refutation of the Pelagians, who denied original sin and the necessity of baptism for infants, led him to see the flaws in his earlier opinion (favorable on BOD for catechumens) and change his earlier position.

St. Augustine teaches that there are no accidents in the eyes of God, and God is all powerful. Therefore, if a man is among the predestined, the elect, God will get him whatever he needs before he dies, which first and foremost is sacramental Baptism by water.

Quote

St. Augustine: “If you wish to be a Catholic, do not venture to believe, to say, or to teach that ‘they whom the Lord has predestinated for baptism can be snatched away from his predestination, or die before that has been accomplished in them which the Almighty has predestined.’ There is in such a dogma more power than I can tell assigned to chances in opposition to the power of God, by the occurrence of which casualties that which He has predestinated is not permitted to come to pass. It is hardly necessary to spend time or earnest words in cautioning the man who takes up with this error against the absolute vortex of confusion into which it will absorb him, when I shall sufficiently meet the case if I briefly warn the prudent man who is ready to receive correction against the threatening mischief.” (On the Soul and Its Origin 3, 13)

Quote

St. Augustine: “Not one of the elect and predestined perishes, regardless of his age at death. Never be it said that a man predestined to life would be permitted to end his life without the sacrament of the Mediator. Because, of these men, Our Lord says: ‘This is the will of the Father, that I should lose nothing of what he has given me.’” (Against Julian 5, 4)

Ladislaus · « **Reply #38 on:** December 08, 2014, 01:23:31 PM »

In his earlier days, St. Augustine himself had a slightly-Pelagian bent, with a favorable view of the "free will" being able to attain anything on its own; that's due to his background in the Greco-Roman philosophical schools that had little emphasis on the notion of Original Sin and no concept whatsoever of the supernatural. As he matured in the faith, he thought otherwise.

From the article I linked to above:

Quote

Early on in his writings, Augustine laid great emphasis on the natural power of the will under the influence of actual graces but, as yet, unaided by sanctifying grace. Later, in his battle against the Pelagians, he put all the emphasis on grace, which no man can merit. Even the most virtuous of unbaptized believers, he would later argue, could not merit the gift of grace that comes with the sacrament. God will call whom He will. More on this further on. For now, I would like to quote from Augustine the Theologian by Eugene Teselle, where the author makes a most revealing insight that could explain why the African doctor favored a baptism in desire, at least at one point after his conversion: “Augustine asserts that nothing is more within the power of the will than the will itself, so that whoever wishes to love rightly and honorably, can achieve it simply by willing it; the velle is already the habere.” (Teselle cites Augustine’s De Libero Arbitrio. I, 12, 26, & 13, 29 as a source for his assertion.)

Ladislaus · « **Reply #39 on:** December 08, 2014, 08:17:15 PM »

Quote from: Nado

The Feeneyites here are noticeably, now, avoiding my posts....because they are have a crisis handling the truth of them.

:roll-laugh1: :roll-laugh1: :roll-laugh1: :roll-laugh1: :roll-laugh1:

No, we've decided to stop wasting our time and casting pearls before a heretical swine such as yourself. You are not of good will and are not searching the truth. There have been numerous defenders of BoD who are easily head and shoulders above you; you discredit the position.

On this particular thread, furthermore, one might note that you tried to derail the point Nishant was making, so I was simply ignoring your off-topic trolling and trying to answer Nishant's question.

Ladislaus · « **Reply #40 on:** December 10, 2014, 01:59:13 PM »

Quote from: Nado

Not of good-will. Not of good-will.

....because they can't find their way out of their paper bag.

No, just explaining why I'm not going to spend any significant amount of time replying to you. You have made up your mind and are not seeking the truth. Therefore the discussion is pointless at best and a waste of everyone's time. Nishant is the only person on CI here who believes in BoD with whom it's worth discussing the issue.

Nishant has been very articulate and posted at length refuting your errors, but you are the one who has refused to make any reply to him.