But I am going to stick by all authoritative teaching. Im not terribly surprised that certain theologians held the opinion that such a baptism could be valid. 2, qc. This one question demanded that I address the presuppositional question (Do I really have standing to judge for myself what Scriptures truth is?), the historical question (Is it really credible to think that the Church blew it by the start of the second century?), and obviously the authority questions. But if that is the case there is likewise no reason to suppose that I have been preserved from error. On your # 36 all of the beliefs you have listed were settled in the Church many, many centuries ago. First, thanks to all for your responses. Im not sure what the unwarranted inference is that you say Ive made. Rom., 1878). The Church, following St. Thomas Aquinas, maintains that God has bound Himself to the sacraments, but He is not bound by the sacraments (cf. He asserted that there are seven sacraments and that a sacrament is not merely a visible sign of invisible grace (after Augustine of Hippo) but also the cause of the grace it signifies.. 184-85). ), the form of the Sacraments can appear a bit like that. Orthodox: What's the Difference? As I mentioned earlier: according to the tradition of Roman Catholicism the Pope is the head of the Universal Church, the Vicar of Christ on earth; whereas according to the Eastern Orthodox churches he is simply the first among equals. I just see it as being a narrower position than that which is warranted by Scripture. Its a fact that I dont think anyone can deny. His friends, comparing their move to what they learned from Lewis,makes for fascinating reading. That is, I cant harmonize the teaching that the verbal enunciation of the Trinitarian formula is indispensable to salvation with the overall tenor of the New Testament. As for St Basil, my point was this: just as you have proposed that the formula of Matt 28 be understood loosely as with reference to the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, while allowing the into the name of Jesus Christ in Acts potentially to function as an actual formula, so St Basil, with much of the Tradition, recognizes Matt 28 to be a formula in the strict sense (for this was how, de facto, all orthodox Christians had baptized from the time of the Apostles, as witnessed by the Didache) while the formulation of Acts is to be taken in the looser sense. I certainly do not claim that it is an Evangelical eccentricity. And, no, Borg would not use the term at all. Some of them are very radical interpretations. I have been a lurker on this website for a while and this is now my first post. Baptism is the sacrament of faith, i.e., faith in the Holy Trinity as revealed in Christ, and it is in the name (not in a purely nominal sense, but in a deeper, biblical sense of the word) of the Persons of the Trinity that we are baptized. Yes, I was indeed confusing the concept of authoritative Magisterial teaching with that of unanimity of belief. >The works of Peter Lombard include: (1) Commentaries on the Psalms and St. Paul which have come down to us in quite a number of manuscripts. The form of the sacrament of Baptism is the words: I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. The reason that this is the required English translation is that these are the semantic equivalents in our language to the words given by Christ, in Aramaic (most likely), and subsequently recorded in Greek, etc. Lewis was almost Catholic in his practice but held back. Mar 17th, 2012 | By Fred Noltie | Category: Blog Posts In answer to this question we must say "It depends." Some folks think that Catholic acceptance of any Protestant Baptism at all is a Vatican II novelty. To look at it from a different perspective, you would presumably claim that the Catholic in Roman Catholic means universal. ), The fact, by the way, that Lateran IV upheld the basic orthodoxy of the Lombard by no means amounts to subscription to all of his opinions. We can find authoritative teaching about the sacraments in general, but we have also to understand the Churchs teaching on the sacraments individually, so better to evaluate the question of validity, and how intent enters into the question, on a case by case basis. In that same treatise, he argues that his opponents err in arguing only from scripture, without submitting their reading to the living tradition of the Church, and in so doing they fundamentally distort the Gospel (see De Spiritu Sancto 27.66). Understanding the validity of baptism - Today's Catholic An Old Testament reference may be a helpful starting point. Baptism - Wikipedia St. Thomas Aquinas on the Relation of Faith to the Church, A Response to Steven Nemess Why Remain Protestant?, Casey Chalk Discusses TULIP on the Creedal Catholic Podcast, Alister McGraths Conversion on Justification, The Catholic Feminine Part IV Mary & the Church. The fact that you do not consider Sacred Tradition to be as authoritative as the word of God does not make it any less so. Your letter noted his opposition to Mary and to recognizing communion as a sacrificial meal. There may well be some stereotyping here; but it seems unlikely that figures such as Hugh of St. Victor and Peter Lombard would engage in foolish speculations whose result (according to Catholic teaching) could be the damnation of souls. The Ephesians had never heard of the Holy Spirit. is also admissible. See comment #7 and comment #15 in Hello Bryan, or other readers. By the early 60s, he had already joined the Catholic Church. The doctrines outlined in that book do constitute the central core of the faith, or at least a hefty part of it, though I do not believe them to be exhaustive of essential Christian teaching. At the same time, when you say that there can be no doubt that Borg is sincere (#51, towards the end), I must object. Lewis used the term). overtime. And in view of a) Pauls repeated emphasis on faith (without an accompanying mention of baptism) as resulting in justification, and b)Johns numerous citations of Jesus saying that belief saves, (confers eternal life, etc. But there are still those who would dispute the Churchs right to teach as She was taught. It might very well be more difficult to judge of validity with respect to other sacraments, even very difficult in special cases, but such hard to judge cases should not be taken as paradigmatic, and in any event judgment is reserved for a higher court than private speculation. Moreover, given the quote on justification which Frank provided from Kreefts relatively recent Catholic Christianity, I dont think that its very likely that he had a change of heart on Trent between his college days and when you heard him speak only to then re-embrace Trent while writing Catholic Christianity! ;-). Thanks. Thus it would seem that the Catholic claim that the Anglican ordinal suffers from a defect of intent must be something other than theological differences on the effects of ordination. Protestant baptism - does it matter who does the baptizing? Answer: The Catholic Church does not recognize Mormon baptism as valid because, although Mormons and Catholics use the same words, those words have completely unrelated meanings for each religion. (4) Around 560, Pope Pelagius I denies the validity of baptism in the name of Christ alone this is what St Thomas cites in the sed contra of his article on the form of baptism. >if the Trinitarian formula was not reckoned as the standard, St Paul would not have asked the follow-up question that he did (Then how were you baptized?, verse 3) because the baptismal formula would have implied nothing about whether they had heard of the Holy Spirit. Yes you have the Bible, but it is that which gives witness to the Church. Or do you mean something else? Id also find it hard to imagine that people who view Scripture as inerrant, as the Word of God whose authority is absolute, would nevertheless deny the doctrines of the virgin birth and the bodily resurrection. The Churchs Teaching on Salvation and Christs Redemption, Vol. Youre the first Anglican Ive known of to deny the formulas necessity. Great generosity of heart is important, but so is truth. The only information I wondered about was related to this business of form. As Fred said, some variation in the words used does not invalidate a baptism. Yet obviously! Things should probably be wrapped up at this point (though naturally, Ill be happy to read any further observations which you may have). But certainly valid. (Augustine taught it in his earlier works, though he later seems to have repudiated it; more important, Thomas Aquinas explicitly taught it.) But he would certainly agree with Baptists on what he regarded as the essentials of the Christian faith. Presumably, the following represents your position: The authority of the Roman Catholic Church -the belief that She is the one, true Church founded by Jesus Christ, even in the face of the Orthodox churches claims to the contrary- is self-evident. The second question: provided for in the answer to the first. And yet, thats precisely what youve done in this case. and what about the my brother part he added, is that okay? It would seem I am no expert! My name wasnt mentioned in the formula. >Peter Lombard wrote commentaries on the Psalms and the Pauline epistles; however, his most famous work by far was Libri Quatuor Sententiarum, or the Four Books of Sentences, which became the standard textbook of theology at the medieval universities. This being the case, its clear that some variation in the words used does not invalidate a baptism. There is a great deal more that he wrote, responding to various considerations between 1945 and 1963. Im particularly looking forward to reading the Knox: all ecclesiastical issues aside, it will be exciting to read a book to which C.S. You say that you rejoice in the fact that Anglicans and Protestants havent thrown every major doctrine overboard. It was when I was looking over the Churchs shoulder that I found scripture properly understood and found it compelling. Having heard these things, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus [Acts 19:1b-5]. First, St Ambroses On the Holy Spirit, where the passage in question occurs, is based on the treatise of the same name by St Basil of Caesarea, and that passage seems to be an extension of St Basils argument that I cited way back when in comment #24, in which the equivalence between in the name of Jesus Christ (/the Lord Jesus) and the invocation of Trinity refers to an equivalence of faith intended to be expressed, not to an equality of ritual validity. Therefore they had not received Trinitarian Baptism. Now you will give word for the one who is being baptized to fast for one or two days beforehand. With those particular Churches that have retained apostolic succession and thus a full set of valid sacraments (Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Assyrian Church of the East), and yet have not maintained full communion with the bishop of Rome, nonetheless in the Catholic Churchs judgment the communion that Catholics share with them is so profound that it lacks little to attain the fullness that would permit a common celebration of the Lords Eucharist (Catechism of the Catholic Church 838, quoting a discourse of Pope Paul VI). Ultimately, John, this will have to remain an open question for you as long as you retain ultimate interpretive authority over the text. The new translation of the Mass has the priest saying chalice instead of cup and, indeed, the words are in English rather than Latin. It has genuinely saved our marriage. John S., it does look indeed like my invocation of Tradition and what it means has taken us outside the thread. One of the issues he discussed was justification -whether it is by faith alone or faith and works. :-). The Roman Catholic Church however, looks upon non-Christian marriages as valid (for instance a Jewish, Muslim or Indian marriage). He might have ended up in an orthodox Anglican communion, certainly orthodox in relation to the positions he accepted. However if there is a disagreement in the traditions of baptism as seen in Church Tradition as apposed to possible formulas that *might* be found in Scripture , I would think that the Church Traditions would be the correct way to go. International Center of Photography. A google search showed that the name of this audio set has been changed to Its the Gospel Truth! And take your time, I have been thinking about this for a long time, and I can wait for good answers if need be. >De Sacramentis Christian Fidei (c. 1134), his masterpiece and most extensive work, a dogmatic synthesis similar to, but more perfect than the Introductio ad Theologiam of Abelard (c. 1118). Second, and by way of confession, the fact that St. Hugh writes, If you should say Christ, you have designated God the Father by whom the Son was anointed and the Son himself who was anointed and the Holy Spirit with whom He was anointed. Thanks for your kind words and your conversation. Nothing in the Tradition is inspired, though under certain conditions (ecumenical councils, ex cathedra papal definitions on faith and morals, unanimity of universal ordinary magisterium) the Church can speak infallibly, producing inerrant and irreformable statements. No way. St. Thomas addresses this question in the Summa Theologica, IIIa,Q 66, A 6. Fred Noltie advised going to your priest or bishop, and that, no doubt, is a good idea. I mean, the resurrected Jesus is walking through locked doors and making himself unrecognizable to his friends (Mary Magdalene, the disciples on the road to Emmaus), and so forth. Baptism in the name of Jesus -if (as I mentioned) done in a context of Trinitarian faith- also would have implied belief in both the Father and the Holy Spirit, just as baptism using the Trinitarian formula would have. If one is coming into the Church, one of the questions that the Priest will ask is about Baptism, if they have been baptized, what was the matter and form used etc In fact, all of us at CTC fully recognize that these matters must be addressed on a pastoral level by those duly appointed by the Church to handle such matters. But maybe St Thomas was right. Heres an except from a letter he wrote to one H. Lyman Stebbens on May 8, 1945: What is most certain is the vast mass of doctrine which I find agreed on by Scripture, the Fathers, the Middle Ages, modern R.C.s, modern Protestants. But if youd prefer to go into more detail, do email me at [email protected]. But at the very least, would you consider this analogy? Aye yay yay. (2) Close examination of the two letters pertinent to Pope St Stephens position shows quite clearly whats going on. The Catechism of the Catholic Church states: The ordinary ministers of baptism are the bishop and priest and, in the Latin Church, also the deacon. Are Protestant Baptisms Valid? Thanks for continuing the dialogue. And of course both cant be right. Source: newadvent.org. I think its an eloquently argued, if imperfect and in some respects incomplete, attempt to open minds to the reasonableness of Christian faith. The traditional way of reading the Acts 8 question is that the reception of the Spirit referred to here is the one received by the laying on of hands in confirmation. As I indicated in my response to JJ, the form of the sacrament involves more than the shape and sound of the words, but also semantics, or meaning. (I realize that Ive said that earlier.) Theology isnt about creating technicalities that God is out to catch you on. Henceforth he is called the Magister Sententiarum, or simply the Magister. Craig, youre right about Peter Kreeft. Check. I was married, at age not-quite-20, with no slightest conception of religion, of what marriage was, etc. Which is why I cant agree that Tradition speaks with one voice. Not so with the second part of the form. You are preferring your impression of the overall tenor of the New Testament to the full weight of the tradition. (8) In 748, Pope St Zachary, confirming the findings of a local synod, insists on the Trinitarian formula. John, a slight correction to my above comment: actually, Kreefts discovery of the Council of Trent on Trent came just a bit earlier than I had understood in the late 1950s. Understanding the invalid baptism controversy: A guide for Catholics (7) Ditto for Pope St Gregory III in 739. Youve reminded me of a question I ask in another post: If I believe X about doctrine A (which cannot be a matter of indifference) and the Church (however you define it I dont think it matters at this point) teaches Y about it such that X and Y are mutually exclusive, who is right? I was just speculating about the possiblity that the variation, if sufficient to raise doubts about the intention of the person performing the baptism, would invalidate it precisely because it called the intention into question. Unless I simply overlooked it in an earlier comment, your stipulation of belief in biblical inerrancy for putative believers who deny the Virgin Birth and the Bodily Resurrection is new, and rather changes the face of our debate, for biblical inerrancy and (a much stickier issue) the precise meaning of inerrancy, are not things we know from the text of the Bible itself, but from the witness of the Church (obviously, this is especially the case for the New Testament, which didnt take its final shape until the fourth century). I also agree that the excerpt you cited from his Catholic Christianity sounds like Trent, not Wittenberg. That is to say if the first baptism was not proper then the second would be proper. The basics of why Catholicism over Orthodoxy include the following (if I thought long enough, there are probably more, and some of these overlap): Each of the apparent anomalies is pretty easily explicable when considered in light of the rest of the data. Baptism is given at the age of reason. If the doctrines taught in Mere Christianity dont constitute the central core of the faith, but are only a partial listing and explication of a larger number of doctrines -all of which must be believed for salvation- how spiritually beneficial can the book be? (By the way, Warfields argument is too cute by half. With the Catholic Church, I recognize a wide range in the levels of authority exercised by the Church under varying conditions. No more, no less. I see a non sequitur here. The Catholic Church has judged Anglican orders to be invalid because of a defect of *form* in the 1552 Ordinal, specifically in the form used for ordaining a bishop. In addition to his pastoral responsibilities, he also serves the broader church as a . The Church has, I think, said that these baptisms are not valid (although I suppose the person being baptised, if he or she died, might be considered to have received baptism of desire, if the baptism was undergone in good faith). Similarly, as I mentioned above, the Anglican communion, insofar as it understands itself as bound by the Book of Common Prayer, also considers the Trinitarian formula to be an essential part of baptism. (1) According to a letter from Firmilian to Cyprian in 256, Pope St Stephen said that the name of Christ conduces greatly to faith and to the sanctification of baptism, so that whoever has been baptized anywhere in the name of Christ, at once obtains the grace of Christ. But I would stand by this revised version of my claim: the authority of the Roman Catholic Church does not have more inherent plausibility than does the veracity of core beliefs common to, and distinctive of, Evangelicals. Reply to the first question: in the negative, because despite the error about the effects of baptism, the intention of doing what the Church does is not excluded. According to the teaching of St. Paul, which draws an analogy with the death and Resurrection of Jesus, baptism is death to a former life . But thats not an excuse not to correct the errors that can be corrected. Ive poked around a little more, and Ive found this claim on a few (unofficial) documents for RCIA instructors: An affirmative decision has been granted in one case involving Baptism in the Apostolic Church. So form is related to intention, though it is not reducible to intention. He wasnt contradicting what Jesus taught him. FWIW, Christopher Derrick wrote an excellent book about Lewis called C.S.Lewis and the Church of Rome. Thanks for the dialogue. Nelson, and John S. -Ill take Nelsons points in order. Perhaps we should regard its reliability as around halfway between the Catholic Encyclopedia and Wikipedia! So we see that if Protestants baptize with water using the correct words (I baptize you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit), the baptism is considered to be valid, and this is no novelty of Vatican II. Youre right, of course, to point out that its precise _meaning_ is a sticky issue. Regarding your second paragraph, if Basil is not arguing _for_ the Trinitarian formula but _from_ its universal acceptance as normative against those who denied the full divinity of the Holy Spirit -then Im with him! Regarding Borglook, Im not interested in investing a bunch of time and energy defending the sincerity of a guy who denies the literal truth of doctrines that I agree with you in seeing as central to orthodox Christian faith. I agree with you that discerning between the claims of the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Churches is the most difficult, but throwing up your hands and falling back on Protestantism (even the self-acclaimed via media of Anglicanism) only makes matters much, much worse. 1 Good question. Does the Anglican ordinal have a defect of intent because of theological differences on the effects of ordination, as determined by external statements of belief by the Anglican reformers? (This represents, among other things, the Lutheran position.) catholicism - Would a person baptized by a Biblical Unitarian church be In this case, the intention to do what the Church does is simply the intention to baptize. Rebaptism - Wikipedia 2), and the decretals (obj. Thanks. In short, he interprets Baptism in the name of Jesus (only) as a special dispensation given to the early Church. (5) Peter Lombards treatment is aimed at harmonization, and while he succeeds at showing that the Acts verses, even taken as a formula, do not necessarily contradict the dominical instruction, he fails by not taking the mass of traditional precedent into account. Who said: In Johns baptism. Tips on formatting can be found here. I can not think of one single doctrine of the Church that some Protestant church has not changed to suite themselves in the past 500 years. (6) Hugh of St Victor is speculating on the possibility of the validity of an unintentionally deficient formula if the faith intended to be expressed by that formula is Trinitarian. None of that makes the acceptance of Mere Christianity surprising. While this rule applies to nearly 100% of cases, there are circumstances where a Protestant baptism is not valid. John S., Im evidently confused in the ecclesiology department (which, admittedly, is nothing new). [paragraph] The Roman Church where it differs from this universal tradition and specially from apostolic Xtianity I reject. : I went to the store today may or may not be true, but, in the absence of any other information, its prima facie plausible)? Pope Leos statement (quoted in the post) affirms a presumption of validity, but of course in individual circumstances a presumption may prove to be incorrect. To administer the sacraments with a conditional intention, which makes their effect contingent upon a future event, is to confer them invalidly. Thanks for the info from the Catholic Encyclopedia. 2 Church-state relations Such heavy leaning of the formula would not make sense of St Basil thought it was optional, or that Christian baptism could validly be conferred without it. If a baptism is valid, then it is recognized as having been done using the correct form, matter, and structure that is needed for the sacrament. They all recognized him for his insights and it was his insights that drove them to pursue the course that they did. For example: Is the Bishop of Rome a)the Vicar of Christ on earth, or b)simply the first among equals? I did use the word inerrant in #38, but not only was it in passing, it was in a completely different context (explaining the relationship between Scripture and Tradition). 3 variety of spirituality As Fred indicated earlier, there is some acceptable variation of the correct form, but this does not extend to the names of the Persons. There is every sign here that we should see quotation marks around the Trinitarian formula. This came a couple of years after a priest in Michigan, by watching the video recording of his own baptism, discovered that the deacon who performed it did so improperly, thereby rending his baptism . I cannot go into more detail just now, given time constraints and present level of understanding (I will look into the matter though). As a general rule, Protestant Baptisms are valid. So the next and obvious question is: what is the matter and form of Baptism? I must therefore reject their _claim_: tho this does not mean rejecting particular things they say.. The Church has determined that the Mormons do not mean the same thing as the Catholic Church by the words Father, Son, Holy Spirit. The external evidence in this case is the professed faith of the Mormon church.

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