February 25, 2010

  • Question 237 - Is water always and absolutely necessary for Baptism?

    Robert,

    You wrote that , although the Church hasn’t defined what Trent means, She has understood “OR” in the exclusive sense because the CCC referenced Trent by a footnote. On geocentricity one can likewise say that, with John Paul II’s apology to Galileo, the Church has decided that heliocentricity is correct. CCC’s 1257’s footnote 60 lists Trent with merely the council’s year and Denzinger 1618 which doesn’t relate to Trent nor Baptism. Seems that Trent is referenced to provide authenticity to the novelty of the next sentence’s truism implying that Baptism is necessary only for those who have heard the Gospel and asked for it. If it is as you conclude that we are left with only the exclusive sense, how then can any sacrament be valid if one doesn’t desire it but received it anyway? As far out as it now seems I can at least hope that for Here sake the Church will soon affirm the infallibility of Pope Paul V’s 1616 decree and also declare True Faith and Baptism “absolutely” necessary for salvation.

    Warren Goddard

    R. Sungenis: Warren, allow me to respond to some of your points.

    Regarding Trent’s use of “or” in reference to Baptism, I not only mentioned that the CCC referenced Trent in its footnote, I also gave three additional paragraphs from the CCC to defend the exclusive interpretation of “or.” Now, you may not regard the CCC as an infallible document (and neither do I) but my argument didn’t rest on the CCC’s infallibility but on the fact that it was the Church’s only and most recent official statement as to the meaning of “or.” I also said that unless this interpretation officially changes in the future (but which is not likely) then the CCC will remain as our only official statement on the meaning of “or.” Hence, the burden is on those who interpret “or” differently than the CCC.

    Second, in order to safely reject the CCC’s official opinion on “or,” you would need to provide an interpretation of “or” from some previous official document which says that “or” is to be understood inclusively. To my knowledge, there is no such official document. All we have heard from the St. Benedict Center is ipse dixit interpretations that “or” must be inclusive based on what the St. Benedict Center believes was the traditional interpretation of “or.” But this only begs the question, since they are using as proof the very thing they are trying to prove. Moreover, they also ignore evidence from tradition that “or” was interpreted in the exclusive sense (e.g., Aquinas).

    Third, your analogy with heliocentrism and John Paul II is, I believe, mixing apples and oranges. John Paul II’s speech to the PAS in 1992 was by no means an authoritative statement of the Church’s official stand on heliocentrism. It was merely John Paul II’s unofficial opinion, and in a speech written by someone else (Cardinal Poupard). The speech itself made no definitive statement on whether heliocentrism or geocentrism was the correct cosmology, and was satisfied to say that the whole thing was a “misunderstanding” based on our knowledge of relativity. Not so with the CCC on Baptism. The statements showing that “or” is exclusive and not inclusive are official and definitive, and are not contradicted by any previous statement officially released by the Vatican on this subject.

    You ask: “If it is as you conclude that we are left with only the exclusive sense, how then can any sacrament be valid if one doesn’t desire it but received it anyway?”

    The answer is, a sacrament is never valid if one does not desire it but receives it anyway, but that is not the specific issue being discussed when Trent uses “or” in Chapter 4 of Session 6. Trent was concerned with times in which water was not available, not with whether one who received water did not also have the desire to be baptized. Trent already assumed that the person receiving the water also had the desire to be baptized. Hence, the answer to Chapter 4’s specific question is: the desire for the water will suffice in instances in which the water is not available.

    This is the crux of the whole issue. The St. Benedict Center has wrongly concluded that Trent adds “the desire thereof” in order to fill in the contingency of faith. But Trent and the Church’s other official documents have already stated that faith (e.g., the “desire”) must be present when the individual is baptized, otherwise the Baptism is not effective. Having already covered the issue of the necessity of faith at Baptism, when Trent then comes to Chapter 4 it is now dealing with another issue, that is, the issue of whether water itself is absolutely necessary if no water is available. The answer is no.  The need for water is not absolute. The desire for the water can suffice in cases where water is not immediately available.

    Trent’s answer to that specific question is very wise. In a religion that preaches the infinite mercy of God above and beyond the material world, how could such a religion base an individual’s salvation – an individual who has already shown his faith in God and desire to do what He requires – purely on whether he received material water or not? This reduces salvation to a mechanical process. Granted, in the normal flow of things, God requires water to be the vehicle of his grace, but when water is not available the mercy of God allows the desire for water to suffice for the express purpose of showing that salvation is not a mechanical process but is, indeed, the result of a willing heart that wants to submit to Him but does not have all the required accouterments to do so. THAT is the religion of Catholicism. Catholicism is not some rigid and unforgiving machine that won’t produce the desired product unless one puts in the proper coinage. That kind of rigidity and uncompromising legalism is exactly the kind of religion that Jesus rejected. It is the world’s religions that live by legalistic rigidity, not Catholicism. As the CCC says, God is greater than his sacraments and thus He will allow exceptions to the rule. As Jesus said for the Sabbath so we can apply it to Baptism: Baptism was made for man, not man for Baptism.

    God be with you.

    Robert Sungenis