Canons on the Sacrament of Baptism<\/a>). The Catholic replies that baptism is the normative means of regeneration; however, in extraordinary cases, baptism of desire may suffice, and a person could be saved. St. Thomas Aquinas talks about this at great length.<\/p>\nA Protestant might ask about\u00a0the difference between baptism of desire and trusting Christ alone for salvation. The answer is \u201cnot much.\u201d For example, a man could know he is about to be killed, acknowledge Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior and Redeemer in that moment and die a saved man. Only God knows all the factors involved. But it is altogether possible.<\/p>\n
The key word above is \u201ccould.\u201d That doesn\u2019t mean that it is the normative<\/em> process if one has time to be obedient to biblical commands, etc. (which include being baptized for the forgiveness of sins and regeneration). The anathemas of Trent regarding denial of baptism as a necessity for regeneration and salvation presuppose that one is able to be baptized.<\/p>\nIn some situations (such as the hypothetical above of the man about to be killed) that is not possible. The Catholic Church does not teach that he would be damned simply because he didn\u2019t have time for someone to spit on him in the name of the Trinity (i.e., to produce \u201cwater\u201d immediately in an emergency situation) and baptize him. Let\u2019s not get ridiculous . . .<\/p>\n
But if a Catholic points out that the Church allows for baptism of desire in this case and others, then some will accuse the Catholic of denying the authority of Trent, or say that it is an individualized reading of that council, that can be dismissed! This is sheer nonsense, because in the canons concerning \u201cOn the Sacraments in General\u201d, right before the canons on baptism, from Session VII, we find Canon IV:<\/p>\n
If any one saith, that the sacraments of the New Law are not necessary unto salvation, but superfluous; and that, without them, or without the desire thereof<\/em><\/strong>, men obtain of God, through faith alone, the grace of justification;-though all (the sacraments) are not indeed necessary for every individual; let him be anathema.<\/p><\/blockquote>\nThis is baptism of desire, explicitly sanctioned by Trent. Case closed . . .<\/p>\n
*****<\/p>\n
Meta Description:\u00a0Baptism of desire doesn\u2019t wipe out the \u201cnormative\u201d necessity for baptism.<\/p>\n
Meta Keywords:\u00a0Baptism, baptismal regeneration, baptism of desire, original sin, sacraments, sacramentalism<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Good Thief on the Cross, by Jacopo Bassano (1510-1592) [public domain \/ Wikimedia Commons] *** (3-3-07) *** A certain Protestant objection is made that Catholics make baptism necessary for salvation, so that if someone doesn\u2019t receive baptism they are necessarily damned, and that this is the Council of Trent\u2019s teaching (Canons on the Sacrament […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2331,"featured_media":9265,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[314],"tags":[315,2717,1461,181,650,321],"class_list":["post-9264","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-baptism-and-sacramentalism","tag-baptism","tag-baptism-of-desire","tag-baptismal-regeneration","tag-original-sin","tag-sacramentalism","tag-sacraments"],"yoast_head":"\n
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Dwight Longenecker, Brandon Vogt, Marcellino D'Ambrosio, and Fr. John A. Hardon, S. J. Dave has been happily married to his wife Judy since October 1984. 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Formerly a campus missionary, as a Protestant, Dave was received into the Catholic Church in February 1991, by the late, well-known catechist and theologian, Fr. John A. Hardon, S. J. Dave\u2019s articles have appeared in many influential Catholic periodicals, including \"This Rock\" (now called \"Catholic Answers Magazine\"), \"Envoy Magazine\" (Patrick Madrid), \"The Catholic Answer,\" \"The Coming Home Journal,\" \"Gilbert Magazine\" (American Chesterton Society), and \"The Latin Mass.\" He also writes a featured column for every issue of \"The Michigan Catholic\": published by the archdiocese of Detroit, and was editor for most of the apologetics tracts published by the St. Paul Street Evangelization apostolate. Dave\u2019s apologetics and writing apostolate was the subject of a feature article in the May 2002 issue of \"Envoy Magazine.\" He served as the staff moderator at the Internet discussion forum for The Coming Home Network, from 2007-2010. Dave has been interviewed on many nationally syndicated Catholic radio shows, including \"Catholic Answers Live\" (twice), \"Faith and Family Live\" (Steve Wood), \"Kresta in the Afternoon,\" \"Son Rise Morning Show,\" \"Catholic Connection\" (Teresa Tomeo), and \"The Catholics Next Door.\" His large and popular website, \"Biblical Evidence for Catholicism,\" was online from March 1997 to March 2007, and received the 1998 Catholic Website of the Year award from \"Envoy Magazine.\" His blog of the same name (now transferred to Patheos), begun in February 2004, contains more than 1,500 papers, at least 500 debates or dialogues, and over 50 distinct \"index\" web pages. Unsolicited correspondence has indicated many hundreds of conversions (or returns) to the Catholic faith as a result, by God's grace, of these writings. Dave's conversion story was published in the bestselling book \"Surprised by Truth\" (edited by Patrick Madrid; San Diego: Basilica Press, 1994). Sophia Institute Press has published six of his books: \"A Biblical Defense of Catholicism\" (Foreword by Fr. John A. Hardon, S. J., 1996 \/ 2003), \"The Catholic Verses\" (2004), \"The One-Minute Apologist\" (2007), \"Bible Proofs for Catholic Truths\" (2009), \"The Quotable Newman\" (editor: 2012), and \"Proving the Catholic Faith is Biblical\" (2015). He is co-author (with Dr. Paul Thigpen) of the inserts for \"The New Catholic Answer Bible\" (Our Sunday Visitor: 2005), and editor for \"The Wisdom of Mr. Chesterton: The Very Best Quotes, Quips, and Cracks from the Pen of G. K. Chesterton\" (Saint Benedict Press \/ TAN Books: 2009). \"100 Biblical Arguments Against Sola Scriptura\" was published by Catholic Answers in May 2012. His \"Quotable Wesley\" compilation was published by (Protestant \/ Wesleyan publisher) Beacon Hill Press in April 2014. Several of his 49 books are bestsellers in their field. Dave maintains a popular personal Facebook page, a Facebook author page, and has a Twitter account as well. He offers almost all of his books in e-book form on his own Biblical Catholicism site (http:\/\/biblicalcatholicism.com\/), at a permanent deep discount: only $2.99 for ePub, mobi, and AZW, and $1.99 for PDF. His writing has been enthusiastically endorsed or recommended by many leading Catholic apologists, authors, and priests, including Dr. Scott Hahn, Fr. Peter M. J. Stravinskas, Marcus Grodi, Patrick Madrid, Steve Ray, Tim Staples, Devin Rose, Mike Aquilina, Al Kresta, Karl Keating, Fr. Dwight Longenecker, Brandon Vogt, Marcellino D'Ambrosio, and Fr. John A. Hardon, S. J. Dave has been happily married to his wife Judy since October 1984. They have three sons and a daughter, and reside in southeast Michigan (metro Detroit).","sameAs":["https:\/\/biblicalcatholicism.com\/","https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/dave.armstrong.798","https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/@LuxVeritatisApologetics"],"url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/author\/davearmstrong"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9264","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2331"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9264"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9264\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9265"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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