Our friend Nadieimportante, true to form, has been carrying on his crusade for the cause of water-only baptism ever since he appeared on this forum. In what was, I believe, his very first thread, he posted this quotation from 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)

This was the argument Nadie adduced in favor of his Feeneyite position. He then proceeded to ask this seminal question, in a font large enough to be read from the moon: “Can someone die by accident before God has accomplished what he has preordained?” Remember this quote and Nadie’s question, because they are going to form the basis of the following discussion. (You may wish also to observe, by the by, that the quote from St. Augustine says nothing directly against BoD whatsoever.)

I then responded to Nadie with the following counterargument.

I understand what you are saying, Nadie, and I agree with you that there is no question of God's will being thwarted by fate. That much is certain. It seems that St. Augustine, in the quoted passage, was chiefly concerned to settle that very point, and the involvement of BOD in the matter is largely accidental. The statement

1. No one whom God predestines [for Baptism] can be snatched away [from baptism].

is true only because the more general statement

2. No one whom God predestines [for X] can be snatched away [from X].

is true by definition. Using 'baptism' as an instance of 'X' neither adds nor subtracts any from the truth-value of the general statement. The BOD controversy is created by a separate question, viz. whether only those who have completed water-baptism may be saved. We know that this question is answered in the negative, since we are witness to several counterexamples in the following. Neither St. Dismas, nor any of the Old Testament Patriarchs, nor any of the Holy Innocents, were ever baptized with water. They were admitted into Heaven solely by divine fiat, but God has the power to do such things if He wants to. In these cases we say that they were "baptized" in their blood, or by their desire to be united to Christ. Note the presence of the scare-quotes in the previous sentence. The terms 'baptism of blood' and 'baptism of desire' are very unfortunate and probably ought to be dropped, since they merely confuse people and often lead to the very abuses you've listed above. However, the ideas of a martyrdom in lieu of water-baptism, or a spiritual union with Christ in lieu of water-baptism, being sufficient for salvation in certain circuмscribed cases, are not impossible ideas.

After I averred thus, our other friend, PereJoseph (whatever happened to him?), held forth with the following:

Excuse me, but this was under the old dispensation, prior to the beginning of the Catholic Church and the New Covenant.  Thus, any quibbling about the grace of baptism does not apply to the good thief, the Patriarchs, and the Holy Innocents.

Nadie then concurred with PereJoseph’s rebuttal, claiming that he had “correctly answered my examples.” I of course rejected that outright. I promised a future post explaining why I disagreed, which I never got around to writing at the time. However, the ongoing controversy has finally convinced me that the time is right for a general statement against Feeneyism. I wish to proceed by carefully examining the quotes and statements, offered up by Nadie and his coreligionists, for logical inconsistencies. To that end, let us look again at what PereJoseph said.

Excuse me, but this was under the old dispensation, prior to the beginning of the Catholic Church and the New Covenant.

This statement refutes absolutely nothing of what I’ve said, and in fact if we look at it attentively we see that it actually confirms it. The old dispensation was not salvific; at best it imparted a sort of ritual purity to those who upheld the law and performed the prescribed rites. The patriarchs of the Old Testament did not go to heaven when they died, for until the Sacrifice of Calvary heaven was closed to mankind. Instead they went to Sheol, the outermost rim of hell, or in other words the very limbo which the Feeneyites say does not exist. As per the Apostles’ Creed, Christ descended into this place during the three days that his body lay in the tomb; there he ministered to his elect and took them to heaven with him, without any of them being water-baptized. So what was it that justified the elect, for as we said before it could not have been the old covenant. The answer was given in the Book of Hebrews: Abraham lived by faith, and it was counted to him as righteousness. This statement was delivered in the course of a general argument condemning the works of the law as worthless, and therefore we know that it was not the law but Abraham’s faith that saved him, a faith which dimly discerned the day of the lord from afar. There you have a biblical foundation for the concept of implicit faith.

But furthermore, is it even consistent for a Feeneyite to talk about dispensations at all, and to distinguish between the old and the new? If he is going to lay great stress on denying “the power of chance in opposition to the power of God,” let him follow his reasoning to the utmost conclusions. No one can die by accident before God accomplishes what He has preordained, right? If so, then it stands to reason that God foreknows exactly the circuмstances of everyone’s death, and also of everyone’s birth (I would not argue with either one of these premises, of course). But since God foreknows the time of everyone’s birth, then He also foreknows who will be born “prior to the beginning of the Catholic Church and the New Covenant.” And if water-baptism is absolutely necessary for salvation, then God foreknows that those born before the New Covenant would not have access to baptism and would on that account be damned. But we know that there were some born before the New Covenant who were saved without being water-baptized, so it must be that God has established a means of salvation other than water-baptism, at least for a few. Therefore water-baptism cannot be absolutely necessary for salvation, and the Feeneyite position is wrong. Baptism of some kind is necessary for salvation, and water-baptism is the ordinary instance of baptism; but according to the preceding argument, there must be other instances of baptism as well. The Church acknowledges those instances, which for the time being have been customarily designated as Baptism of Blood and Baptism of Desire. They in no way remove the primacy of place given to water-baptism, but they safeguard water-baptism against becoming a legalistic monstrosity.

In keeping with the current theme, we can attempt to apply Feeneyite logic to other sacraments, and we will see that the situation is just as absurd in those cases. Is the sacrament of penance necessary for the forgiveness of mortal sins after baptism? Ordinarily yes, but an act of perfect contrition suffices as well when there is no priest to administer the sacrament. But the Feeneyite might be tempted to take Christ’s words “Whatever you bind shall be bound in heaven” just as crudely as he takes the words “you must be born again of water.” After all, God foreknows who will have access to a priest and who will not—nobody can snatch away His elect. However, this is not what the Church teaches. The priesthood was instituted so that its presence might be a means to salvation, not so that its absence should be an impassible barrier against it. Why would the Church teach remission of sin through perfect contrition, and not baptism of desire, when they both involve precisely the same problem and subject matter, namely the forgiveness of sins apart from the ordinary sacramental means?

Note: The foregoing argument should not be taken as complete. I have not yet adduced all the evidence, or teased out all the implications, or put it in a final and rigorous form. It should be taken as sketch-notes, as prolegomena for a general refutation of Feeneyism. What ought to be said now is that the Feeneyites equivocate between the sacrament of baptism and the sacramental effect of baptism, and that the arguments they introduce in favor of their position do not in fact prove what they claim they prove.

Waddayou? The Pope?

And a master logician to boot.