The other day when I was on Catholic Answers Live, I had an interesting challenge (time code: 1:16:17). A gentleman called in and asked if there were any infallible pronouncements from the Magisterium affirming that the desire for baptism is sufficient to obtain the grace of justification. I responded with the following quote from canon four of the Council of Trent’s Canons on the Sacraments in General:
If anyone shall say that the sacraments of the New Law are not necessary for salvation but are superfluous, and that although all are not necessary for every individual, without them or without the desire of them . . . men obtain from God the grace of justification, let him be anathema.
The positive formulation of the above canon, so I argued, is that the grace of justification can be obtained at least by a desire for the sacraments when they cannot be actually received in reality. Since one such sacrament is baptism, it follows that a person can obtain the grace of justification with a desire for baptism, even when the sacrament is not actually received. And given that an anathema is attached to it, this teaching is infallible.
The gentleman didn’t agree with my reading. He countered that the phrase “without x or y” (“without them [the sacraments] or without the desire of them”) doesn’t mean having at least y is sufficient. For example, he went on to explain, the statement “a wedding cannot take place without a bride or a groom” doesn’t mean that having at least a groom is sufficient for the wedding. Obviously, you need both!
Similarly, he argued, the meaning of Trent’s “without the sacrament or the desire of them” formula is saying that to obtain the grace of justification you need both the sacrament and the desire for it. In other words, you can’t just go through the motions. A person (if the person is an adult) must intend to receive what the sacrament gives.
I’ll admit that my response to his counter wasn’t as airtight as I would have liked it to be, given that I’d never heard this counter before and didn’t have much time to think it through. This being the case, I thought it might be good to share some thoughts on it here.
The first thing to note is that the gentleman’s example of a wedding, a bride, and a groom is correct. The statement “a wedding cannot take place without a bride or a groom” doesn’t mean having at least the groom is sufficient. Rather, it means that you need both a bride and a groom to have a wedding. (Although I suppose the statement would probably be stated as “a wedding cannot take place without a bride and a groom.” But I digress.)
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7v0PePgVIs?start=10]
As true as this may be, it doesn’t mean Trent’s use of the formula “without x or y” is meant to be interpreted in this way. Let me explain.
In the wedding example, the implied targeted question is whether a wedding can happen without a bride or a groom. Of course, the answer is no. You need both. This is why it is correct to interpret the above statement, “a wedding cannot happen without a bride or a groom,” to mean you need both a bride and a groom to have a wedding.
Now, recall that the gentleman reads Trent’s teaching—“without the sacraments or a desire for them”—to mean that we must have a desire for the sacrament when we receive the sacrament to obtain the grace of justification. On this reading, the implied targeted question is whether we can obtain the grace of justification by receiving the sacraments without a desire for them.
But here’s rub: the context of the canon shows that this is not the targeted question. The targeted question, rather, is whether the sacraments are necessary for salvation.
The canon has in its sight some of the Reformers, who said and were saying the sacraments were not necessary for salvation and thereby superfluous. Note the canon’s opening line: “If anyone shall say that the sacraments of the New Law are not necessary for salvation but are superfluous . . . let him be anathema.”
Now, if you’re a person who thinks the sacraments aren’t necessary for salvation and thereby superfluous, then you’re not going to think they’re needed to obtain the grace of justification. Nor will you agree with the common theological tradition prior to and at the time of the council—namely, that one must have at least a desire for the sacraments when they are not actually received to obtain the grace of justification (see Summa Theologiae III:68:3).
Given that these are the logical consequences of thinking the sacraments aren’t necessary for salvation, and that the targeted question of the canon is whether the sacraments are necessary for salvation, the formula “without the sacraments or a desire for them” fits best with the above twofold scenario: the actual reception of the sacraments and having a desire for them when they cannot be received actually in reality. This is far from the question of whether we must have a desire for the sacrament when we receive the sacrament.
Although I appreciate the challenge issued by the gentleman who called in, and I wish I could have offered a more pointed response at the time for our listeners and viewers, his counter simply doesn’t succeed. Therefore, we’re justified (pun intended) in reading the canon in a way that implies that Trent infallibly affirmed the teaching that the desire for the sacraments when they cannot be received actually in reality is sufficient to obtain the grace of justification (assuming that the sacraments are not available to be used).