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In this episode Trent appears on the Trad Men podcast to talk all about the sacrament of baptism and how to answer common questions and objections related to it.
Welcome to the Council Of Trent podcast, a production of Catholic Answers.
Mark:
Tell me about form and matter and why do they matter? And I’m going to go to a more recent story out of the archdiocese of Phoenix that I think we all know about now. The priest who is saying, “We baptize you in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Is the Catholic church being pedantic here, Trent? At the end of the day, isn’t this just sort of a nice ceremony that you have for your babies and then you have some people over to the house afterwards? Or is it bigger than that?
Trent Horn:
Right. The catechism of the Council of Trent says that every sacrament consists of two things, matter, which is called the element and form, which is commonly called the word. You have the matter, which is the stuff that constitutes the sacrament, the stuff that you are using to communicate sanctifying grace and then you have the form, which would be usually it would be the formula that is used, so that is uttered so that the sacrament is valid. And so there are different formulas that are the form for baptism. Now in the Western church, that would be, I baptize you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. In the Eastern church, the formula is in the passive form, the servant of God, Trent, is baptized in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.
Trent Horn:
But I think that somebody will say, “Oh, what does it really matter?” You’re always going to have a case where if you say, “Oh, it’s only off by a little bit so it’s okay to try to say, oh, that’s not a big deal.” When people say this, I would ask them, well, when does it become a big deal to you? Are you just going to say the words don’t matter whatsoever? Because eventually if you change them so much, you are not performing the act of baptism that Jesus Christ wants for the church.
Trent Horn:
To give an extreme example, the church recognizes the validity of most Protestant baptisms if they use the right formula and the right intentions. We don’t recognize the Mormon baptism as being valid, even though they have the right matter, they use water and the form sounds like it’s correct. I baptize in the name of the Father, of the Son, of the Holy Spirit. But in Mormonism, the terms Father, Son and Holy Spirit are so different from what they really are. The father is an exalted man who lives somewhere in this universe, the Son and Spirit are preexisting beings, then we’re all preexisting. They’re not eternal. They’re not fully divine so it’s not valid. We have to make sure the baptism we are doing, is this what Christ gave us? If you change it enough, it’s not anymore.
Trent Horn:
To give another example, so I’ll talk about the I we here in a sec, but for people who think that’s not a big deal, I would ask them, okay, do you think that this is valid? Or at least it’s a big deal to do this? When people say, “I baptize you in the name of the creator, the redeemer and the sanctifier.” The CDF has said those are not valid. And I think a lot of people would say, “Okay yeah, that is a little bit different. You’re trying to really undermine the Trinity. You’re trying to undermine God’s revelation of himself.” They would see, okay, then what’s the big deal with I we?
Trent Horn:
Well, what the CDF has taught, has released on this issue is that we have to remember that baptism is not just a man pouring water, hoping God will do something. It is Christ who baptizes. Now the minister of the baptism, Christ can work through anyone to baptize. That’s what’s great about the sacred baptism. The ordinary minister is a priest or a deacon or a priest in the Eastern church. But in an emergency, anybody, even in a non-Catholic could baptize, if they intend to do what the church intends but ultimately in every baptism.
Mark:
Male or female?
Trent Horn:
Yes, anyone. And even an atheist could baptize. If he had a friend who wanted to get baptized and the guy’s dying and he says, “Baptize me.” It’d be like, okay, here’s what you say and I’m trying to do what the church would do. That would be valid and licit in an emergency because this is a universal sacrament so Christ has providentially made it that it’s universal. If you think about it, human beings cannot survive without water so it’s not an unfair request that we be poured or sprinkled with water. If you’ve got people you’re going to have water nearby. You just will, otherwise you wouldn’t have people. And so you can perform the sacrament but it is always Christ who is baptizing us. It is Christ who is doing it.
Trent Horn:
And so oftentimes when a priest does it, a priest stands in the person of Christ so it’s even more fitting when a priest does it, that Christ does it, but it could be anyone. The point is, it’s Christ who’s doing it. I baptize you. When we say we though, it becomes not just Christ working through the minister, it’s suddenly everybody doing it, but everybody is not doing it. Only one person is pouring or immersing the individual and so it becomes a community approval rather than Christ cleansing the person of original sin. And so that’s why the church has said that that’s not valid. And that’s why it’s so important when people perform the sacraments, especially priests, just do what the liturgical rubrics say. Just do what they say and you won’t have any problems.
Jason:
Well Trent, I do have a question on the idea that anybody can baptize, male, female, atheist, believer or whatever the case may be and you mentioned that the person is acting in persona Christi. I could see somebody coming back.
Trent Horn:
Well, I wouldn’t use it the way you phrased it.
Jason:
Oh, did I phrase it bad?
Trent Horn:
Well, not that you phrase it badly. It’s just, I would say it is Christ that baptizes us but canon law is very clear, only priests act in persona Christi.
Jason:
Okay. Okay. Well that was.
Trent Horn:
Yeah. I see what you’re saying here. It’s like, well, wait a minute. I wouldn’t use that technical formulation. I would say that it is Christ who is baptizing and they are working through the minister but it is only those who have the sacrament of holy orders, specifically those who are presbyters or episcopus, priests, who are in persona Christi. That would be the ordinary minister, priest or a deacon, even though according to canon law, deacons are not in the person of Christ. But ordinary do that.
Trent Horn:
But if you’re in an emergency, you’re at the hospital, the baby’s born but they’re not breathing, mom or dad could do that. Now here’s the thing, you could do an emergency baptism at home and it’s not really an emergency, you’re overreacting and that might be unlawful. You shouldn’t do that. You should have a priest do it or a deacon but it would still be valid if you did that. If it was a true emergency or necessity, it would be both valid and licit. It would be completely lawful to do. But you’re right, that’s why when I say that it is Christ who’s baptizing, we can’t jump from that to, anyone who baptizes in persona Christi only priest are.
Jason:
Okay. Well that was a very good way to clear up what I could see being a contradiction. The way you phrased it, that it’s not a contradiction in the theology of it. I do want to go back to the matter about it. And I apologize, I was having issues with Riverside here when y’all were talking about baptismal, so if I repeat something apologies. But you also just mentioned a minute ago about the forms of baptism. You can do immersion, infusion or dispersion, Pouring or sprinkling. And it seems like in the early church, it was pretty consistent that immersion from what we know, I guess, it seems like that immersion was the normal form. And I know there are questions about the jailer and how was he baptized and whatnot.
Jason:
But I guess my question is the church teaches that immersion is the fuller sign because best represents the death or the burial with Christ and then the rise into new life. But growing up in a Protestant sect that did take baptism very seriously, you’ll hear fundamentalists say all the time that immersion is the only valid form and that any other form is not valid. I guess my question to you is to those people that say immersion is the only way, why is it not? And why was there an evolution or change to accept the other forms of baptism?
Trent Horn:
Right. The catechism says in paragraph 1239, “Baptism is performed in the most expressive way by triple immersion in the baptismal water. However, from ancient times it has also been conferred by pouring the water three times over the candidate’s head.” You’re right, it’s the most expressive form but other forms are certainly valid. And the question of their validity, those who would say that, “Well, it has to be immersion.” I would say, well that’s not what scripture teaches. In fact, scripture does not give an instruction for how baptisms are to be carried out. That’s something we receive more through sacred tradition, the Didache, which is a first century catechism, it shows the thinking of the early church during this first century. And it says in chapter seven, it gives the baptismal formula. And it says to do this in living water, like in a river. If you have not living water in other water, if you cannot in cold and warm, if you have not either, pour out water thrice upon the head.
Trent Horn:
Even here, you see a preference for things like baptism in a river, for example, or somewhere you can immerse someone in a bath but it recognizes it’s not always possible. In Acts chapter 2, it says that 3,000 people were added after Peter’s speech to the church that day but in the city of Jerusalem, you wouldn’t have had necessarily a large enough water supply or area to massively baptize people in full immersion. It was probably done through pouring or even sprinkling.
Trent Horn:
But I think when we look at the evidence from the church, immersion is preferred but the other forms are recognized as valid. And the church has come to see that there are prudential reasons for allowing these other forms. One would be, there are areas where maybe water is scarce and so you don’t have as much to do large amounts of immersion. In many cases, baptism of infants, I know that there are some priests, our third child was baptized in the Byzantine church, so he did full immersion. I know there are priests or deacons who would be very hesitant to fully immerse an infant and would find it very difficult to baptize under those circumstances. That’s another prudential reason that I think has allowed the variety in the way the application is done.
Jason:
Okay. And a follow up to that. Would you say that those that hold to the immersion because of the word baptiso are, I guess for lack of better terms, abusing the word?
Trent Horn:
Yeah, I think that they’re committing an etymological fallacy when they say that, okay baptism has to mean this because that is the meaning of the word immerse. But as I said before, even the Greek word baptiso does not imply full immersion of the body. It’s used in scripture to refer to the immersion of only parts of the body, like the hands that you’re washing. I would say that many of them are making an improper lexical argument.
Mark:
Let’s get down into the weeds of baptism here for just a minute because we know that the church teaches that a sacrament is not just a sort of elaborate ceremony or some type of symbolic thing, although it uses symbols but the sacrament actually has the effect of doing the thing that it symbolizes. And so when we come to baptism, my understanding is that baptism removes original sin from us. And I was baptized when I was less than a year old and I still have this weird, unnatural attraction to evil, Trent. What happened? Did it not take? Did something not go right? What happened?
Trent Horn:
Right. The catechism talks about the different effects that baptism has. It says in paragraph 1263, “By baptism, all sins are forgiven, as well as all punishment for sin.” If someone is baptized, then there is, as the council of Trent says, “There is nothing that will impede or hinder their entrance into Heaven.” However, baptism does not take away other fallen aspects of our human nature. Now that’s just an element of human nature. For example, Jesus was sinless for example but he was capable of dying because he had a fully human nature. That would not have its full restoration until Jesus rose from the dead and had his glorified physical body.
Trent Horn:
The catechism says in paragraph 1264, that even after all our sins are forgiven in baptism, it says, “Yet certain temporal consequences of sin remain in the baptized, such as suffering, illness, death, and frailties inherent in life as weakness of character and so on, as well as an inclination to sin that tradition calls concupiscence or metaphorically, the tinder for sin.” We still have elements of our fallen human nature that we struggle with but in baptism, we are given the grace to better struggle against those frailties because we are now adopted sons and daughters of God.
Mark:
It’s necessary for salvation but just because you’re baptized doesn’t mean you are quote unquote, saved, correct?
Trent Horn:
Well, let me put it, it depends. I’m glad you added quote unquote there. When you are baptized, you receive an indelible mark as an adoptive child of God. That is something that can never change. Moreover, after being baptized, you are definitely saved at the moment after baptism. As I said, at that moment, there would be nothing that would prevent you from entering into Heaven. However, the fact that you were baptized at one point does not prevent you from committing a mortal sin and destroying charity in one’s heart and the virtue, what you’ve achieved through baptism there. Yes, if you’re baptized, you are definitely saved at that moment the baptism is completed, but you still have temporal effects of sin that you may struggle with. And if you lose the struggle and commit a mortal sin, you would be not in God’s friendship anymore but because you have that enduring, indelible mark from baptism, you are able to be reconciled to God through things like the sacrament of penance.
Mark:
I got you.
Jason:
A follow up question to that. One of the questions I was going to ask you was about the indelible mark. It’s a term that’s frequently used and I don’t know that a lot of us actually understand what it means or what it looks like outside of it leaves a permanent mark. Would you be able to speak more detail about what it means to have an indelible mark?
Trent Horn:
Yeah. Well, I think the best thing to do here is just to go with what a catechism tells us about that. In paragraph 1272 it says, “Incorporated into Christ by baptism, the baptized person is configured to Christ. Baptism seals the Christian with the indelible spiritual mark or character.” In Greek, that probably comes from the word karaktu. We see this in Hebrews 1:3, it talks about Christ being the indelible stamp or mark of the father, that he represents the father. And that would harken back to in the ancient world, if a king wrote a letter and he had a courier take it, he would take his royal ring and place it into the wax, sealing the letter and it left a character or a stamp so that you knew this letter was signed truly by the king. Left that character, that stamp, karaktu, the mark.
Trent Horn:
And so that’s what we’re talking about here, an indelible, spiritual mark. Not a physical mark but one on our soul. And it says, “No sin can erase this mark, even if sin prevents baptism from bearing the fruits of salvation, given once for all baptism cannot be repeated.” It means our soul has changed and configured to Christ as an adopted child of God and so nothing we do can undo that moment but it could prevent us from having spiritual fruits of salvation being born later. And we could die outside of God’s friendship but we would always have that mark on our soul. That is something that would never change.
Mark:
I’m baptized as an infant and then later on in adulthood, I convert to Islam. That’s not like, okay, well, let’s take that indelible mark away because you’re no longer a member of the church. It doesn’t work like that. Once you’re baptized, you are baptized.
Trent Horn:
It doesn’t.
Mark:
And that’s the way it is.
Trent Horn:
And that’s the important element for saying that baptism is not repeated. It’s not like if you became Muslim, we’d have to baptize you all over again. That was a controversy in the early church about, well, if someone commits apostacy and leaves the faith, do they have to be baptized again? And the answer is no, it leaves an indelible mark. And that’s one of three sacraments that does leave an indelible mark, along with the sacrament of confirmation and the sacrament to holy orders. If you died apart from God’s friendship and went to Hell, you would always have the mark of baptism on your soul. If you’re a priest who went to hell, you would still be a priest, you would always have that mark upon your soul, which would probably make Hell even worse, bearing that for all eternity.
Mark:
Sure. And going back to the issue of, and we talked a little bit about this in terms of the indelible mark and things like that, oh gosh, now I totally forgot my question. I had it, man. It was right here and then I got so into the triple saying.
Trent Horn:
It’s not indelible. It’s not an indelible memory. It can go away.
Mark:
Especially if it’s mine. Let’s see, I had, oh yeah. Well, I did want to get into a little bit about the question about baptizing infants versus baptizing somebody of the age of reason and how much does the intention of the baptized play into? Now we’ve sort of covered this already because when Christ baptizes you, you are baptized and there isn’t much of a I accept part of the baptism, at least I don’t see that as a part of the ritual. Alexa wants to talk to me. Alexa, be quiet. Now I told her. In terms of the debate about infant baptism versus those who are fully of the age of reason, weight in here and tell me what you think.
Trent Horn:
Well, the church teaches that faith is always accompanied with baptism, though it may not be the faith of the person being baptized. The majority of people who are Catholic were baptized as infants. The New Testament does not explicitly describe the baptism of infants. It does talk about the baptism of households. And in the early church, we don’t see descriptions of infant baptism early on but we also don’t see descriptions of, because sometimes people will say this, “Well, you don’t see infants being baptized in the earliest church fathers’ descriptions of that.” That’s true. But you also don’t see descriptions of children because I would ask many Protestant churches that believe in credo baptism, the baptism of believers, I would ask, “When should a child be baptized?” And they’d probably say, “The age of reason, 7, 8, 12, 13, even before that.” I’m sure many Protestant churches that believe in credo baptism would be fine with a seven or an eight year old going to do an altar call and then being baptized. Yet, we don’t see descriptions of baptisms of seven or eight year old children in the early church, either.
Trent Horn:
Rather, what we have are disputes about whether children should be baptized. By the time of the third century, you see disputes about whether you should wait eight days after birth, which is when you would normally do circumcision or do it immediately. And the church says, “No, do it immediately. It’s important.” And origin telling us the ecclesial writer origin in third century telling us that baptism was something that was given over by the apostles. What we see then is, we see the point being is that baptism is necessary because it saves us from original sin. It’s necessary for entrance into Heaven, so clearly you want to baptize infants. The church recognizes this, that faith is a part of it. Even if you’re not an adult with faith seeking baptism, the parents of the child have faith and the faith is the parents’ faith on behalf of the child to seek baptism for them.
Trent Horn:
That is why the church’s code of canon law says that baptism can only be given if there is a well founded hope the child will be brought up in the Catholic faith. If the parents are only doing this to please grandma, then the code of canon law says baptism is to be delayed or postponed until there is at least, it doesn’t have to be automatic but a well founded hope the child will be raised in the Catholic faith and that the baptism is done to seek faith on behalf of the child. I don’t know if I got everything in your question in that reply.
Mark:
Yeah, that makes sense. And that sort of leads me to the other question that when I forgot, now I remembered. Is it unethical, good idea, bad idea, let’s say I have a friend who man, we’re in a war zone. We’re in the military together and this guy is a buddy of mine but he’s an evangelical Protestant but man, I love this guy and I want the best for him. In spite of he may not have the faith but I want the best for him so if he’s ever about to draw his last breath and I’m there, I’m just going to go ahead and baptize him. Even if he probably wouldn’t like, well, let’s say he is a Protestant, that’s a bad idea. Let’s say he’s a Muslim.
Trent Horn:
Yeah, or an atheist.
Mark:
If he was a Protestant, he probably already is baptized or an atheist.
Trent Horn:
An unbaptized atheist.
Mark:
Great example.
Trent Horn:
Yeah, so this is interesting.
Mark:
Is that a bad thing to do? Or am I on the right track? Or what do you think?
Trent Horn:
I would say that it’s not permissible and this is something the church has actually wrestled with quite a while. St. Thomas Aquinas talks about this in the Summa. And in that context, it would’ve been, what should we do for Jewish people that live among us who refuse to be baptized? And some people may say, “Well for their own good, just baptize them against their will because they don’t know what’s best for them and they need to be saved.” And Aquinas says no, that faith is a free gift that people are able to freely choose God or reject God. Aquinas said that forced baptisms are actually invalid. Not just that they’re impermissible but if you baptize someone against their will, then no baptism has taken place because if the person is capable of rebelling against that or not consenting, I’ll qualify my terms here shortly, then it would not be valid.
Trent Horn:
In that case, if someone says, “I don’t want to be baptized,” and then you do it anyways, it’s invalid. And I would say that would also be the case for adults that it’s not just the presence of rebellion but the absence of consent would also make it invalid. If you have your friend who is dying and he’s unconscious but alive, it would not be permissible for you to baptize him. It would only be permissible if you had been given some clue that he would have wanted to be baptized at some point. But if he never expressed that desire, then you would assume that he would not want to be baptized and you would have to treat it as such. That it would be against his will even if he had never said, “Don’t baptize me.” It’s presumed tacitly to be against his will because he never sought out baptism. As an adult, he could have asked you or asked a priest to baptize him and he chose not to. And so we have to presume any baptism you would perform and be against his will.
Trent Horn:
The trickier thing that arises is in the case of children. What do you do if you have a seven year old child who comes to you and says, “I want to be baptized,” and the parents prohibit it? Well, Aquinas also deals with this and he says that, here we have to respect the natural law that God has given. And according to the natural law, children are under the authority and dominion of their parents. And so as a result, it would be impermissible and invalid for you. Well, I don’t know if the validity would take here. I’d have to look into it a little bit more.
Trent Horn:
I don’t think it would be valid. It would definitely be impermissible for you to baptize this child because in the next case I’ll bring up, it makes me question whether it’s valid or not. I know it would be impermissible because you would be going against the natural law and the idea that children are under the custody of their parents, the parents get to decide what their religious upbringing will be. And so well this will carry on. And this is just a case of normalcy, a healthy child asking for baptism, parents say no, it would be impermissible and probably invalid I think in that case.
Trent Horn:
Then we get to the more difficult case, which would be, what do you do if you have a child who is in danger of death and the parents don’t seek baptism for the child? Now here would be in my understanding that the child is in a dangerous situation, is for the good of their soul, it’s an unusual situation. And so in this case, for example, a nurse could baptize a dying child of parents who did not seek baptism because it’s an exceptional case and the child has no opportunity in the future. Because in the other case of a healthy child, that child could grow up and maybe choose to accept it or choose to reject it on their own terms. But if you have a case where you have an infant who is dying in a hospital, Catholic hospital and a nurse, he’s about to die and the nurse would be allowed, oh this is where it gets interesting. Let me see, I got to parcel all this together.
Trent Horn:
The church has thought about this stuff because it really does happen. And these are all cases that have really happened. You have to decide. And so what the church I believe is taught in this circumstance is that it is permissible to baptize a dying child against the parents’ wishes but it is not obligatory. You don’t sin if you do it and you don’t sin if you don’t do it either. And so that’s I think the verdict the church has reached in that particular case. That’s when it comes to consent, we have to break it down in these various layers.
Jason:
I just hope I never find myself in that situation.
Trent Horn:
Well, the church has also said, I believe in canon law, that if a child is abandoned, say they’re abandoned on someone’s doorstep and you don’t know what to do with them. They are to be, I think conditionally baptized, even if it’s possible they were baptized before. If the parents cannot be reached, then you would conditionally baptize them. But baptism is so important so the church has really tried to think this through. In canon law, I believe the term they use is foundlings. What do you do with a founding?
Mark:
Interesting.
Trent Horn:
Which of course interesting during the middle ages and not that long ago, really even in 18th, 19th century, it’s not that uncommon someone gives birth unexpectedly, an unintended pregnancy, they don’t want to care for the child. They leave the child on someone’s doorstep or leave it at a church. What do you do?
Mark:
It’s still the case in fire departments and I believe police department.
Trent Horn:
Safe Haven laws, correct.
Mark:
Branches as well, there’s a safe haven. Yeah, absolutely.
Trent Horn:
And so you would treat the child as a founding.
Mark:
And the thing about the Catholic church is it’s a 2,000 year old institution. I don’t know that there are any other 2,000 year old institutions. The thing is, is if it could have happened, it’s happened. And so the Catholic church has had to deal with it at this point. And I get that a lot from a why is the Catholic church so in the weeds with all these technicalities of little things like this? And why? Because it’s happened.
Trent Horn:
Because something has happened to require the rule.
Mark:
I guarantee you. Yeah, absolutely. Let’s talk a little bit about baptism by desire. Because that’s something I’ve gotten wrong in thinking about it and I’m sure other people think they know what that is but maybe we don’t. Tell us what is baptism by desire? When does it apply? And maybe more importantly, when is it not happening? Does that make sense?
Trent Horn:
Yeah. There’s times where it’s definitely happening and others where we may not be as sure. Paragraph 1258 of the catechism says, “The church has always held the firm conviction that those who suffer death for the sake of the faith without having received baptism are baptized by their death for and with Christ.” If you are an unbaptized martyr, that’s called baptism of blood. And it says, “Baptism of blood, like the desire for baptism, brings about the fruits of baptism without being a sacrament.” In paragraph 1259 it says, “Catechumens who die before their baptism, their explicit desire to receive it, together with repentance for their sins and charity, assures them the salvation they were not able to receive through the sacrament.”
Trent Horn:
Here we see the trend, and this has very been very long understood, those who explicitly desire baptism but die before receiving it, canon law says they are to be given a Christian funeral and Christian burial. That they are presumed to have received assurance of receiving the grace of baptism because of their explicit desire to receive it. This desire for baptism has also been applied in different cases. It’s been applied in the case of perhaps people who are ignorant of God, could they be saved? Paragraph 1260 of the catechism says, “If people who are ignorant of God or Christ are saved, it may be suppose such persons would’ve desired baptism explicitly, if they had known its necessity.” If somebody is saved and doesn’t know the church, it could be the case God knows that if they had been told about baptism, they would’ve sought it and so that may apply there.
Trent Horn:
And then children who die without baptism, that’s a whole different question, right there. A whole different topic to get into. But one theory, at least for whether children who can be saved, who are not baptized is that if the parents had desired baptism for the child, that the child could, and I think this is highly plausible, especially for if you’re Catholic and you have a miscarriage or a stillbirth. When I was baptized, I was 17. If I would’ve had assurance of salvation because I explicitly desired baptism for myself and didn’t get it, then the fact that I explicitly desired baptism for my child and I am the one who needs to desire it, not the child.
Trent Horn:
The child doesn’t have to desire it when they’re baptized. I just have to. If I have that for them and they die without receiving it, I think it’s very plausible it would apply in that case and a child who has died, at least of Catholic parents or Christian parents, would have a similar baptism of desire. But some people may place it, I don’t know what you mean by, they might get it wrong here or there but it’s there’s firm and then others where it’s more speculative where we apply it.
Jason:
We had here recently, actually we had Michael Lofton on the show and had a really good discussion on the unbaptized babies. What happens to them if they die. And this whole idea of baptism of desire, this concept was actually very new to me because I know when I was going through the conversion process into the church, I’d been baptized when I was 12, 13 and so I didn’t need to go through that but I did wonder about the catechumens, what happens if they die between now? Because that was one of my questions. What happens if they die between now and Easter when they’re baptized because the church does teach that baptism is necessary because the catechism says that the church does not know of any means other than baptism that assures entry into the eternal beatitude.
Trent Horn:
Beatific vision.
Jason:
Beatitude. The beatific vision. That baptism of desire, I know for me was new and it wasn’t necessarily an easy one to accept on its surface but once you get into the weeds of it and you start talking about it, it does make sense.
Mark:
Yeah. There’s nuance to everything, I think. There’s a very famous portion of the New Testament where Jesus tells you if your eye has an occasion to sin, pluck it out. Well, there’s some nuance to that and there’s we’re going to go into how the church interprets things like that.
Trent Horn:
And I think it’s important to remember that you’re right, that this is what the church teaches in paragraph 1257. The church does not know of any means other than baptism that assures entry into eternal beatitude. But then it also has at the end of that, God has bound salvation to the sacrament of baptism but he himself is not bound by the sacraments. And so that’s always important to remember that because God is omnipotent, he can save anyone however he chooses but that doesn’t give us a license to presume that he will. We are to carry out the ordinary commands he gives and it’s up to God in his sovereign will if he’s going to make any kind of exceptions to that in a particular individual’s salvation.
Mark:
And I’ve always thought when we talk about necessity of baptism, where you have to define to whom applies the necessity. And the necessity applies to us. There’s nothing that God needs from us. If you wanted a blueberry pie, I’m going to need blueberries because without the blueberries, I just can’t do it. No matter how much I’d love to make you a blueberry pie, without the blueberries, no blueberry pie because we need those. God is under no such necessity. He’s a fully sufficient being. And if it were the case that God simply no matter how much he wants to, can’t save you without baptism, then we really can’t talk about the immaculate conception. That would be a very difficult thing to happen.
Mark:
Which leads me to an interesting question that people may or may not know the answer to. And if you do, I’d love to chime in. Our Lord went through the baptism ceremony, even though obviously he did not need to be baptized because he had no sins. We look at Mary as sort of pre-saved by virtue of her immaculate conception. Is there any tradition in the church that she went through the baptism ceremony at some point? Or does the church just not speak on that at all? I’ve just always been curious about it.
Trent Horn:
Yeah, I’m not aware of a tradition and there may be a very late one describing it but I’m not aware of that. I think that the sacramental graces or anything that Mary received would’ve been given to her in her conception or what she might have received at Pentecost along with the other apostles. What’s interesting there is that the New Testament also does not describe the baptism of the apostles either but it doesn’t describe them being baptized. Though I think it’d be something safe to assume.
Mark:
That’s a good point.
Trent Horn:
Because they had been given the sacrament of holy orders. They had been ordained the first priests of the new covenant and so it would be obviously safe to assume that they had been baptized during some point in Jesus’ ministry. It’s not an iron clad proof but it’s that they had received baptism prior to the Last Supper. But that’s another interesting element here, that not all these details are described, even if we think that we would expect them. I’m not aware of other narratives or accounts relating to the baptisms of these individuals.
Mark:
And it almost doesn’t make a difference one way or the other. Our lady is obvious. But it’s just one of those curious things.
Trent Horn:
It wouldn’t surprise.
Mark:
I sit around and think about.
Trent Horn:
And it wouldn’t surprise me if she did. There is a slight parallel in the Gospel of Luke that it says after the time of Jesus’ birth, that Mary and Jesus, Mary and her child underwent the right of purification, even though they had not committed any sins, obviously to warrant that. They still underwent that Jewish purifying rite.
Jason:
Back to the script, what I was saying is I don’t want to necessarily proof text, scripture but when I read scriptures like Acts 2:38, Acts 22:16, First Peter 3:21, they all talk about baptism. It’s for the remission of sins, washes away your sins. It saves you. You got Mark 16:16 and several others that speak of the importance of baptism. Now, when you speak to people that believe in faith only, they’re usually pretty quick to bring up scriptures in Romans or other writings that Paul had, that talk about faith that saves you. And they almost act like it cancels out all the baptism scriptures. What would your response be to these people? Do they have a misunderstanding of the context in which Paul was writing about faith saves you?
Trent Horn:
Well, they do and then that would be a very long digression. I think a short thing that I would say to them is that even if you believe we are justified by faith alone, that doesn’t mean that you should reject the belief that baptism saves us. This was essentially the argument from Martin Luther and Lutherans believe in baptismal regeneration. That Luther in arguing with other Protestants said, “You’re right. We are not saved by works.” And then he said, “But baptism is not our work, it’s God’s work that saves us.” And so that is how he replied. He said, “Yeah, the argument might be like this for a Protestant, we’re saved by faith alone. Baptism saves us or baptism is a work, therefore we’re not saved by baptism.” Well, all that proves that baptism is just not a human work of any kind.
Trent Horn:
Baptism is something that we accept and as Catholics, especially infant baptism, we would say, “Look, you don’t do anything there. It’s no work involved. It’s done to you.” And so there’s no work, there’s no work or merit or faith that merits the initial grace of salvation. We’re saved by grace alone and we merely accept it and then choose whether we’re going to cooperate with it for the rest of our lives. I think what you could say to them is look, even someone like Luther would say, “Fine justify by faith alone but baptism is not a work that we do. It is a work that God does in us.” And I cover that more in detail in my book Case for Catholicism. But I think it’s important to bring up that when Protestants reject this, they’re not just rejecting a Catholic view, this is something Catholics, Orthodox and many Protestants also share.
Mark:
You probably say that I would guess about all seven sacraments is really something that they’re all God’s work. And that’s a great argument. I’d never thought about it like that before. We’re going to wrap up here. We got about five minutes left. I just want to keep it to a tight hour. But I do have a question about godparents and I’m of this personal belief that as good of buddies as you might be with the Lutheran guy at work and you’re just, I want him to be the godparent of my child or whatever. And the Lutheran buddy at work may be a great guy.
Mark:
I’ve been of this opinion that that is a very serious thing you’re asking somebody to do. And it’s a serious responsibility that you take when you become a godparent or a confirmation sponsor, that if this individual begins to either lose the faith, stray away from the church, that you have an affirmative duty to at least offer guidance or ultimately you can’t take away that person’s freedom because that’s given by God so they’re free to either reject or embrace our Lord. Do you think that this idea of how we choose godparents is done a little willy nilly nowadays? Or does it really matter?
Trent Horn:
No, sometimes it is. We have to be careful. We do have to remember of course, that godparents primarily serve as witnesses to the baptism so that there is an enduring record of its validity but they also are important in providing a spiritual upbringing and an example to the child. And so that’s why it’s important to have a Catholic godparent. Now this might not always be the case. For example, you might have a relative who is a faithful Catholic, who is married to a non-Catholic and you might ask both of them to be involved in being the godparents. What the church teaches in canon law, I want to say it’s paragraph 874. It talks about how you can have two godparents. Can you have a non-Catholic godparent? If they are Eastern, an Eastern Orthodox, yes. Provided that there is also a Catholic godparent, a sponsor.
Trent Horn:
You always have to have at least one Catholic involved, male, female, one of them has got to be Catholic. The other can be a godparent if they’re Eastern Orthodox. If they are not from one of the Eastern churches, it says that they can be a, I think it’s a Christian witness. We allow the participation of someone from these ecclesial communities, like a Lutheran or Anglican, what have you. You Could have, you got to have at least one Catholic and there, they would not be a godparent actually but they would be a Christian witness to the baptism. But you’re right, that if you serve as this important witness to the child and you’d want to be living that out in your own life. I would say that prudentially, one should always strive for two faithful Catholics as godparents, unless there’s a grave reason otherwise.
Mark:
And if you’re somebody’s godfather and that person asks you to commit a murder on the day of your daughter’s wedding, you have to do that.
Trent Horn:
The day of my daughter’s wedding, you come to me. That’s great.
Mark:
You have to, it’s the rules. Of course not, obviously. Those have been some very enlightening answers to some questions that I’ve had about baptism. I’m sure some of our listeners have had them too. Jason, did you want to come in with some parting thoughts here?
Jason:
Yeah, just a couple parting thoughts. Again, thank you Trent, for coming on. When I was listening to a podcaster months ago and I don’t remember who it was, but somebody asked him, “Well, how do you get guests on your show?” And they said, “Well, I just ask. Worst they do is say no.” Me and Mark had talked about you coming on so I shot you an email and then you replied, agreeing to come on. And like I said in the email, I kind of was swinging for the fences there. And you know what really impressed me about you? Guess.
Trent Horn:
You can’t lose. What were you going to say?
Jason:
No, I was going to say what really impressed me about you was it showed your humbleness to come down on our little podcast show here.
Trent Horn:
Oh no, this has been really fun, I think of small people.
Jason:
No, no it is. And one of the premise of our show is, we’ve come up with kind of a new slogan, old school Catholicism for the new evangelization. There’s guys out there that are a lot more intelligent, especially on these subjects than we are but me and Mark try to bring a perspective of what is the like myself, what does a simple minded layman think? What kind of questions would he ask if he had a Trent Horn to talk to? Or Jimmy Akin or whoever the case may be? I know some of these questions were probably pretty basic to you but we appreciate you, the clarification on them because I know it cleared up some of the questions that I even had myself, outside of the ones that I was asking for the sake of the show, on the topic.
Trent Horn:
Oh yeah, absolutely. And they’re very important questions and got to get baptism right. It’s the door to the other sacraments. You got to make sure you get that one right.
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