Talk:Baptism of desire

Failed AFD

This article's AFD debate got consensus to keep the article. Johnleemk | Talk 12:57, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

History

This article needs a history Section. I believe Thomas Aquinas invented the expression "Baptism of Desire" but that the concept goes back to the Fathers. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.16.146.33 (talk) 16:05, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

About the move

Cut-and-paste was bad -- but it would be better under that title, if moved properly. It is usually called "baptism of desire" Goldfritha 23:12, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Requested move

Baptism by desire → Baptism of desire — "Baptism of desire" is by far the more common term. A Google search gives us 23,700 hits for "baptism of desire", but only 599 for "baptism by desire", and many of those are due to the Wikipedia article. User:207.112.27.29 16:30, 5 October 2006 (UTC) — Relisting RM by Duja 10:11, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Last Paragraph

Is the last paragraph really appropriate to this entry? It seems more like a justification for that particular belief than part of an encyclopedic entry.

By "support" do you mean your desire to remove it or the paragraph itself? Goldfritha 04:26, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Random Presbyterian here. I stumbled on this article and was a bit surprised to see that the last paragraph stated that the Protestant stance on baptism was that it was merely a ritual; this is certainly not the official position of many Protestant denominations I am aware of, including almost all Calvinists, Lutherans, and Baptists. It then contrasts it to the view of the Oneness Apostolic Pentecostals, but provides a fairly weak explanation of how their doctrine of baptism's power to wash away sins meshes with the belief that the unbaptized might still be saved. I think this paragraph was added by a well-meaning Oneness Pentecostal who lacked backgrounding in Christian theology. I'm going to delete it; in addition to this error it doesn't contribute much to the discussion of baptism of desire, given that it's a fairly specific Catholic doctrine and other denomination's views on the subject of unbaptized persons would be better covered elsewhere. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.17.126.73 (talk) 07:44, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

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The thing I don't like about the last paragraph is that it appears to miss the point of the whole article.

"salvation, which comes from faith alone and is not contingent upon
any ritual or form of words. They point to passages such as Acts 10:44-48"

As I understand, those passages in Acts are the main justification for Baptism of Desire, and as we can see from the article, Baptism of Desire clearly is an act of faith rather than ceremony. So it follows that there is no conflict. A few years ago the Catholics & Lutherans issued a statement that the 400 year old faith v. deeds argument was resolved. In effect it was a big misunderstanding & we all believed the same thing all along!

& to Christians who say we should all have a personal experience of Christ to be a Christian I have to ask then why do we evangelise? Why not just sit back, relax & wait for Christ to make his personal visit to everyone who is gong to be a Christian? Rcol 23:59, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

World Catechism

Coming to think of it, how is it to be interpreted that the World Catechism states that the desire of baptism plus repentance plus charity ensures them salvation? If somebody has habitual grace without being baptized, which of course can happen, this is precisely what we would call baptism of (blood or) desire, or wouldn't we? Thus, nobody has habitual grace without being "baptized" (by desire at least), by definition. Now I think it has been held that charity, that is, the divine virtue of charity which normally is so called, presupposes habitual grace of necessity. Thus if charity in this sense be presupposed to baptism of desire, baptism of desire doesn't exist. Follows that "charity" doesn't denote charity as what is normally meant with it, but whatever love, even in form of an acquired virtue perhaps, nature and helping grace can provide. Or no? --77.4.122.136 (talk) 19:45, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

You started off right, and then you trailed off in the wrong when you said that either Baptism of Desire didn't exist or "charity" was not as normally defined. Speaking as a convert who paid careful attention in RCIA, the Roman Catholic Church rejects the Narrow Path, the idea that Muslims, Hindus, and other non-Christian groups automatically go to Hell. (While the former doctrine Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus was essentially the same as the Protestant Narrow Path doctrine, it was erroneous. Vatican I in the 1800s revoked it as such, saying the Council of Trent 3 centuries earlier was hasty on that particular point.) On the contrary, it teaches that if they are generally good people, they "desire" Baptism whether or not they understand or are aware that they desire it. In fact, Vatican II clarified that all goodness in the world is from Christ, even if the people perpetrating the good deeds don't realize that they're acting for Christ. I hope that answers your question. Perhaps the Article can clarify if my priest replies with where to look up the relevant Council Canons from Vatican II, which I'm having trouble finding at the moment. The Mysterious El Willstro (talk) 19:27, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

Congratulations on your conversion! And thank you for the answer, although it was not to my question (yes that was me)... I guess that may be difficult to understand, but I was not nearly going into such existential problems (and indeed hold a rather optimistic view in this regard, privately). What I actually was into, believe it or not, was merely some nit-picking whether the Catechism (or its English translators) uses correct terminology according to the hitherto standard to express what it intends to express. For, if not, one might - not grumble against it, certainly not, but quietly adding a footnote. Which I then did, with hesitation, in my last sentence above, where I am quite making clear that I do not hold any Narrow Path theology.

My point was simply a technicalized and nit-picking (which I love), but not salvation-exclusivist (which I very much dislike) six-step thing (subject to errors of course):

1. The instillation of habitual sanctifying grace in an unbaptized person (without which now "indeed", so to speak, noone can be saved) is called, by definition so to speak, baptism of desire.

2. By at least common sentence of theology, the infused virtues follow upon habitual grace and cannot be present without it (though acquired, natural virtues can).

3. While usually the names for the acquired virtues are the same as for the infused divine virtues (there is infused prudence, simply given by God, but there is also prudence acquired by experience, and ideally the second is the "natura" in "gratia supponit naturam" of the former), our language habits make a difference with charity. The infused virtue is called "charity", the acquired virtue is called "love". (We don't have the difference in my mother language German btw.)

4. Hence, there can only be charity - in this sense - in a baptized person (possibly by desire).

5. However, the Catechism obviously does teach that baptism of desire exists.

6. When the Catechism speaks of "charity" as a requirement of baptism of desire, what it really means is love.

And thus they have, in the logical though probably not temporal order, (possibly implied) desire first, plus (possibly somewhat subconscious) repentance, plus love and get then Baptism of desire and habitual grace and charity.

Forgive me, though, to give a rather nit-picking comment in as important a matter.--2.236.198.248 (talk) 17:30, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

Baptism of desire ≠ baptism of blood

Baptism of blood is clearly different from baptism of desire. Only Catholics, as far as I know, tend to merge both together and make baptism of blood a form of baptism of desire.
While almost all Christian denominations accept baptism of blood, most do not accept baptism of desire.
In its most general understanding, baptism of desire means any person who desires baptism can acquire the justification normally obtained through baptism simply by this desire. Often, baptism of desire will be considered as having been received somehow (it is unclear how) if a person dies. For example, a catechumen who get ran over by a bus or dies naturally before being baptised can be considered as being justified. Some will say this baptism of desire even extends beyong explicit desire, i.e. people who have never heard of Christianity or baptism can receive the baptism of desire because they implicitly desire baptism. As a sidenote, there are other views of what baptism of desire is, e.g. this book with a 1996 imprimatur and a 2002 nihil obstat states a form of baptism of desire is the desire parents have to baptise their child while the child is still an embryo or fetus.
Most denominations do not accept baptism of desire. They will usually say, from discussions I have had, that God will save you from the bus running over you or will extend your life until you get baptised; or they will say they believe anyone can leave hell if enough prayers are given, or that they believe in the apocatastasis.
Some will profess a form of Feeneyism by rejecting both baptism of desire and of blood. Veverve (talk) 08:15, 12 February 2022 (UTC)

It may not be clear, so I add this: I posted this explanation here, because before I split the two topics into two different articles the topics were confused. Veverve (talk) 02:02, 21 November 2022 (UTC)