Scotus Academicus, Tomus decimus: De Baptismo, De Poenitentia, De Extrema Unctione

NOTE 1. The present difficulty chiefly concerns four dispositions of an adult who approaches to receive baptism: namely, faith, which excludes all unbelief and error; consent, which admits no coercion; sincere will, which removes pretense and dissimulation; and finally penance, which draws the soul back from sins and turns it toward God. It is most certain, moreover, that faith is required in an adult to obtain the grace of justification. For in the last chapter of Matthew, when Christ commissions the Apostles to convert the nations, he commands: Go, teach all nations, baptizing, etc.; here he wills instruction to precede baptism because faith is necessary: For faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of God, that is, preaching. Hence, at the end of Mark: He who believes and is baptized will be saved. Therefore, when the Eunuch asked for baptism, Philip said to him, Acts 8: If you believe, you may. When the Eunuch replied, I believe, Philip at once baptized him. All the holy Fathers held this truth with equal certainty, requiring a confession of faith from catechumens as a necessary disposition before baptism. Such were St. Dionysius, bk. On the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, ch. 2; Origen, hom. 5 on the bk. of Numbers; Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechesis 2; Basil, bk. 3 Against Eunomius; Chrysostom, on ch. 15 of 1 Corinthians; and the other Greek Fathers. The Latin Fathers also support them: Tertullian, On the Spectacles, ch. 4; Cyprian, ep. 70 and 76; Ambrose, bk. On the Holy Spirit, ch. 11; Jerome, Dialogue Against the Luciferians, ch. 5; and St. Augustine, bk. On Faith and Works, chs. 9 and 20. Councils likewise decree the same: “the Council of Laodicea, can. 19 and 47; the Sixth Synod of Constantinople, ch. 7; and, most recently, the Council of Trent, sess. VI, ch. 6, establishes faith as the first disposition of an adult toward justification, giving the reason in ch. 8: because it is the root and foundation of justification. Faith is not, however, necessarily required beforehand in the recipient for him to be validly baptized, as St. Augustine teaches admirably in bk. On Baptism, ch. 11, where he says: When the integrity of the sacrament is at issue, it does not matter what the recipient believes, or with what faith he is imbued. It matters greatly, indeed, for the way of salvation; but it matters nothing to the question of the sacrament. For it can happen that a man possesses the sacrament intact and yet has a perverse faith.”

NOTE 2. Following the Subtle Doctor, In IV Sent., d. 4, q. 1, n. 2, an adult may be distinguished in two ways: one adult by age alone, the other by both age and reason. The first is someone who, although he has reached full age, is not yet in possession of reason, either from birth or because, though he once had the use of reason, he does not have it when the occasion to receive baptism arises, while it is hoped that he will have it at some time. The second is one who presently enjoys full and perfect reason. The question is raised of both: whether either may be baptized without consent. Moreover, according to the same Doctor, In II Sent., d. 41, q. un., there are three ways of consenting or dissenting: actual, virtual, and habitual. Actual consent is that by which someone in fact wills and consents, and determines to do or receive something. Virtual consent is consent once elicited actually and not revoked, but which remains operative because it moved the will to bring about an effect by applying the means; such is the consent of someone who is distracted while carrying out what he had resolved by a determinate act of will to do. Habitual consent is an ineffectual will by which someone does indeed will an effect, but does not apply the means during the time in question, although he removes the obstacle of a contrary will, either negatively, by suspending an act of nonconsent, or positively, by eliciting an act of dissent. For, as the Doctor teaches in the aforesaid d. 4, q. 1, n. 3, someone can be said not to consent in two ways: either contrarily or negatively. Negatively, he merely withholds actual consent; contrarily, he posits actual dissent. He gives this reason for the distinction: because it is not the same to not will and to will against. For not willing means suspending an act of willing, whereas willing against means positing an act of not willing. Again, someone who dissents contrarily, or positively, dissents either simply, so that he would not want the action under any circumstances, or only in a certain respect, so that he would not want the action if there were no danger to avoid. Thus, the Doctor says in the same place, someone who throws his goods into the sea to escape drowning simply wills to throw them overboard: for by commanding, his will moves his motive power to throw them, and freely moves itself, since it cannot be compelled. He therefore throws them overboard as one who simply wills it, but does not will it in a certain respect, that is, conditionally, because if he could, he would rather save his life by another means. The question, then, is which of these kinds of consent is required and sufficient for receiving the sacrament validly.

NOTE 3. According to the Doctor, ibid., q. 5, n. 2, someone can intend and perform an act dissemblingly in two ways. For dissembling, as it occurs in human acts, consists in someone outwardly pretending or presenting as intended something he does not intend inwardly: in words it is called a lie, and in deeds dissimulation. In the common usage of theologians it is called pretense. With respect to receiving a sacrament, this is twofold. The first occurs when the recipient truly has no intention at all of receiving the sacrament, although outwardly he feigns that he wills to receive it. The second concerns the prior disposition for receiving the sacrament rightly: the recipient feigns that he has this disposition, although he lacks it—for example, when he feigns belief in the mysteries whose faith is required, yet does not believe them; or feigns repentance for sins committed before baptism, though in fact he does not repent; or when, in the very reception of the sacrament, he sins mortally through an evil interior intention.

With these points established, four matters remain to be determined: first, whether and when an adult who is not in possession of reason may licitly be baptized; second, whether an adult who does not consent truly receives baptism; third, whether one who approaches baptism dissemblingly receives its effect; fourth, whether an impenitent person can receive baptism rightly.

First conclusion. — AN ADULT DEPRIVED OF REASON FROM BIRTH, IF HE DOES NOT HAVE A LUCID USE OF REASON, IS BAPTIZED VALIDLY AND LICITLY. This is the Doctor’s teaching in the aforesaid q. 1, n. 2, where he explains this difficulty so clearly that I am glad to transcribe here not only his doctrine but his very words. He says: “The same must be said of that adult as of a child, with this single difference: if it is hoped that he will at some time be cured and use reason, that time should be awaited, so that he may receive the sacrament with greater reverence. But if it is despaired that he will ever attain the use of reason, the sacrament should be conferred on him at once, because God excludes no one from the remedy of salvation. Of the second, namely, one who does not now use reason but once did, I say that he is now supposed habitually to consent or dissent according to how he stood in health immediately before this impediment: that is, if he then actually consented, he is judged now to consent habitually; if he then actually dissented, he is judged now to dissent habitually. I said immediately, so that no contrary movement of the will intervened between that act and this impediment. Thus, I say universally that someone in this habitual state can receive the sacrament just as he could before, when he was in one state or the other. How someone in an actual state can be baptized will be said at once in the third member. But is it expedient to baptize such a person? For many things are lawful that are not expedient, 1 Corinthians 6. I answer: if it is hoped that he will return to the use of reason, it is more expedient to await the time when he will use reason; for example, in the case of someone asleep it is expedient to await the time of waking, and in the case of a madman the time of a lucid interval. But if this is not hoped—for example, in the case of someone who has fallen into a permanent impediment to the use of reason—it is expedient to baptize him, provided that he is capable of baptism; otherwise he would be exposed to the danger of damnation. How someone is capable of it will be said at once concerning one who uses reason.” Thus the Doctor.

The same point is gathered from the Roman Ritual, title On Baptism, where we read: “Let the insane and the mad not be baptized, unless they have been such from birth; for then the same judgment must be made about them as about infants, and they can be baptized in the faith of the Church. But if they have lucid intervals, let them be baptized while they are in possession of their minds, if they wish. If, however, before becoming insane they showed a desire to receive baptism, and danger to their life is imminent, let them be baptized even if they are not in possession of their minds. The same must be said of someone suffering from lethargy or delirium: he is to be baptized only while awake and understanding, unless danger of death is imminent, if he had previously shown a desire for baptism.” Here it first forbids the baptism of an insane or mad person; second, it permits it if he is permanently insane; third, even if he is not permanently insane, if he desired baptism while he had lucid intervals, then he may be baptized even in insanity, provided there is danger to his life.

Second conclusion. — AN ADULT WHO IN NO WAY CONSENTS RECEIVES THE SACRAMENT INVALIDLY; BUT IT IS OTHERWISE IF HE CONSENTS AT LEAST IN A CERTAIN RESPECT. This is the common teaching as to

The first part, moreover, is explicitly taught by Innocent III, ch. Maiores, On Baptism and Its Effect, where he says: But he who never consents, but wholly contradicts, receives neither the reality nor the character of the sacrament, because explicitly to contradict is more than to consent not at all. He proves this by analogy: Just as, in fact, someone incurs no stain of guilt if, while wholly contradicting and protesting, he is forced to burn incense to idols. — In the same place the Pope decrees likewise concerning someone who receives the sacrament of baptism while asleep or insane, without revoking his prior will never to receive baptism: But sleepers, he says, and the insane, if before they became insane or fell asleep they persisted in contradiction, because the intention of contradiction is understood to endure in them, and if they emerged in this state (or, alternatively, were immersed), do not receive the character of the sacrament.

The reason for this truth is drawn from the will of Christ the Lord. He could, absolutely speaking, have instituted the sacraments so that they would benefit even those who were unwilling; yet the understanding of the Doctors and the Church leads us to conclude that he did not institute them in this way. The Doctor gives the fitting reason in In IV Sent., d. 1, q. 1, n. 3, where he says: “If, then, someone dissents in both ways—negatively and contrarily, simply and in a certain respect—I say that he does not receive the sacrament. For God says through the Wise Man, Proverbs 23: My son, give me your heart, not wishing anyone wholly unwilling to be enrolled in his household. By receiving baptism, however, one is enrolled in the household of Christ.” The Doctor adds: “Nor is it necessary here to distinguish between someone who protests and manifests his dissent by an outward sign and someone who does not protest; for in truth, if there is dissent, it is altogether the same with respect to God. Yet with respect to the judgment of the Church, which judges what is manifest and presumes consent in the one who is silent, one who protests will not be compelled to observe the Christian religion, whereas one who does not protest will be compelled. Nor can the Church be accused of wronging someone who is unwilling yet does not protest. For it is a lesser evil for him to observe the Christian Law unwillingly than to be permitted with impunity to act against it: it is a lesser evil to do some good things unwillingly and to avoid evils than freely and with impunity to do evil and omit good.”

YOU WILL SAY 1: Innocent III, in the same ch. Maiores, says: There are some who say that sacraments which by themselves obtain their effect, such as baptism and order, and other similar sacraments, are conferred not only on sleepers and the insane, but also on unwilling and resisting people—not as to the reality, perhaps, but as to the character—since not only children, who do not consent, but also those who dissemble, who dissent in their heart though not in their speech, receive the sacrament. Therefore baptism can be validly administered to unwilling and resisting people. — I deny the inference; for this is not the opinion of the Supreme Pontiff Innocent, but only a report of what others think. Hence he immediately adds: But those people are challenged with this: those who were immersed while unwilling and resisting would at least, by reason of the sacrament, belong to the jurisdiction of the Church; hence they would reasonably be compelled to observe the rule of the Christian faith. Yet it is contrary to the Christian religion that someone who is always unwilling and wholly opposed should be compelled to receive and observe Christianity. For this reason, some distinguish not unreasonably between one unwilling person and another, one coerced person and another: the person violently drawn by threats and punishments, who receives the sacrament of baptism lest he suffer harm, receives, like one who approaches baptism dissemblingly, the impressed character of Christianity. By these words the Pope grants that only someone unwilling in a certain respect can indeed be baptized validly, but not one who is compelled absolutely to receive baptism.

The second part is proved by the same Doctor in the same place: someone who dissents only in a certain respect, that is, through fear of incurring some evil if he did not receive the sacrament, is truly baptized: “But if, he says, he dissents in a certain respect yet consents simply—and consents not merely to that washing as to a sort of bath, but to the washing in the manner in which the Church intends to perform it—he simply receives the sacrament, because he is simply willing, although he does not will it in a certain respect. The Council of Toledo speaks of such a person, as cited in the Extravagantes, On Baptism and Its Effect, ch. Maiores: those who were long ago compelled to become Christians, since it is now established that they have been joined to the divine sacraments, must be compelled to keep the faith they received under duress, lest the name of the Lord be blasphemed and the faith they received be held in contempt. An example of how someone can consent to receive that washing in the manner in which it is conferred by the Church, and yet would not want it if he could escape the torments, is someone who does not believe that words of an incantation can have any effect, yet allows the enchanter to say those words over him with the intention with which he usually says them, saying in his heart, let them have whatever power they can. Such a man would truly be said to have been enchanted; and if that incantation were said over someone consecrated to the devil, he would be consecrated to the devil. The difference between this member, dissenting in a certain respect, and the preceding member is clear: the one who dissents simply does not receive the sacrament at all, and so, once his dissent ceases, he would simply have to be baptized. But this man, because he consents simply, although he dissents in a certain respect, is baptized, and when that dissent in a certain respect ceases, he is not to be baptized again. If someone does not consent only negatively, I say that he receives the sacrament if he consents virtually; for God did not wish to bind a person to what is impossible, or excessively difficult in the condition of this life. Now, in this condition, it does not seem excessively difficult for a person not to be distracted; for, according to Augustine, bk. 3, On Free Choice, it is not within our will not to be affected by what we see. Therefore God did not wish to make human salvation depend on the condition that one not be distracted. Nor, then, did he wish to bind someone who is not distracted while receiving baptism. The same applies universally to the other sacraments. A priest, too, is not necessarily bound, when consecrating the Eucharist, not to be distracted. For he truly consecrates while distracted, provided that earlier, when vesting, he intended to celebrate Mass according to the custom of the Church.”

And if you ask whether, given that someone who does not consent actually but does consent virtually—in the manner of the example of a priest celebrating—receives baptism, one who consents only habitually also receives it, the distinction between virtual and habitual consent is clear from bk. 2, d. 41. And suppose that he does: does someone who merely does not consent negatively also fail to dissent negatively, since he has neither an actual nor a habitual contrary act? — As to the first, one could say that such a person is judged to consent habitually, because he once had actual consent and no dissent intervened; and such a person, even if he is now using reason, receives the sacrament. For someone who uses reason does not seem less capable on account of any condition than someone who used it earlier but does not use it now; yet in the latter case, though he does not use it now, habitual consent would suffice. Therefore it suffices in this case too. As to the second, although it would be difficult to find such a person, especially one who had once thought about baptism—for either he would then have liked to be baptized, or he would not have liked it, indeed would have disliked it, and in the latter case his habitual consent or dissent would be judged to persist thereafter—nevertheless, if someone were wholly without consent or dissent, both actually and habitually, and yet were using reason, he would not be capable of baptism. For, since he uses reason, he must have some devotion toward the sacrament if it is to benefit him; otherwise he would seem to hold it in contempt.

From all this the Doctor determines chiefly five things. First, that someone who dissents negatively or contrarily is not baptized validly. Second, that someone who dissents only in a certain respect is truly baptized, because he is held to consent simply. Third, that virtual consent suffices for someone to be baptized not only validly but rightly: for if virtual intention suffices in the minister, it does so much more in the recipient, since the recipient requires less intention than the minister, as we said when treating the necessity of a minister. Fourth, habitual consent suffices for valid reception of the sacrament, because a past will is always held to persist until it is revoked. Innocent teaches the same in ch. Maiores, where he says that the insane and sleepers who have already consented and have not afterward dissented are baptized validly. Councils also decree the same. The Third Council of Carthage, ch. 31, says: Let the sick be baptized if they cannot answer for themselves, when those near them have testified to their will. The same must be done with penitents. The First Council of Orange decrees the same in ch. 11, elsewhere numbered 12: Someone who suddenly becomes mute may, as prescribed, be baptized or receive penance if he has testimony of a prior will in the words of others, or of a present will in his own gesture. Fifth and finally, someone who is indifferent—that is, who neither consents nor dissents—does not receive the sacrament.

YOU WILL SAY 2: Innocent, in the aforesaid ch. Maiores, says: The sacramental character is impressed by the action when it finds no contrary object of the will opposing it. But in someone who neither consents nor dissents there is no contrary will; therefore the character of baptism is impressed in him, and consequently he is baptized validly. Furthermore, no consent is required to receive extreme unction; therefore none is required for baptism either. — I answer the first point: by “contrary will” Innocent also means a negative will. For he says: “But he who never consents, but wholly contradicts, receives neither the reality nor the character of the sacrament”; the words but wholly contradicts are not added as a qualification of doubt, but as an intensification, as Hiquaeus rightly observes in the same place. For the case proposed concerned people who, having been invited to baptism, were dragged to it; he says their baptism is null because, he says, to contradict is more than to consent not at all. Here he also assumes that someone who consents is baptized validly, for one who consents is not considered unwilling. As to the second, I say there is no parallel: extreme unction presupposes no consent other than the general consent of a faithful and penitent person, who, at the very point of death, is reasonably presumed to wish all means conducive to salvation to be applied to him. Hence the Roman Ritual, under the title On the Sacrament of Extreme Unction, teaches: It is to be administered to the sick who, while sound in mind and in possession of their senses, asked for it, or would probably have asked for it, or gave signs of contrition, even if afterward they lose speech, become insane, die, or are insensible.

Third conclusion. — AN ADULT GUILTY OF AN ACTUAL MORTAL SIN MUST NECESSARILY DO PENANCE AND TRULY BE SORRY FOR THE SINS COMMITTED IN ORDER TO RECEIVE BAPTISM WORTHILY AND RIGHTLY. This is the common teaching among theologians, and

It is proved first from Sacred Scripture. In Acts 2, when St. Peter saw the Jews to whom he had preached ready to do whatever he prescribed as necessary for their salvation, he said: Repent, and let each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Hence the Council of Trent, sess. VI, ch. 6, declares penance necessary in an adult approaching baptism, so that he may receive its effect worthily. For, speaking of the preparation necessary for justification, it says: They are therefore moved against sins by some hatred and detestation, that is, by that penance which must be performed before baptism. Accordingly, in can. 3 it defines: If anyone says that without the prevenient inspiration of the Holy Spirit and his help a person can believe, hope, love, or repent as he ought in order that justification and grace be conferred on him, let him be anathema. And with good reason: for every justification of a sinful person, as something most supernatural, requires beforehand a supernatural disposition, at least in its manner. Hence the same Council, sess. XIV, ch. 1, says: Penance was indeed necessary in every age for all people who had defiled themselves with mortal sin, in order to attain grace and justice; this was also necessary for those who had asked to be washed by the sacrament of baptism, so that, casting away and amending their perversity, they might detest so great an offense against God with hatred of sin and pious sorrow of soul.

“The Subtle Doctor defends the same truth. For in d. 1, q. 5, n. 2, he says: In another way someone can be dissembling by showing himself disposed to receive the sacrament, while inwardly he is not disposed: either because he does not have right faith, or because he has some mortal sin presently in act or committed in the past, for which he feels neither attrition nor contrition at all. He is speaking of the sacrament of baptism, and therefore assumes that baptism does not justify an adult guilty of an actual sin without prior attrition or contrition.”

YOU WILL SAY: The same Doctor seems to assert that sorrow for sin is not absolutely necessary for an adult sinner, but only the will to receive the sacrament, without present complacency in sin. For he says in In IV Sent., d. 14, q. 3, a. 3: Just as, then, an adult can obtain the first grace that erases original sin in either of two ways—either from a good movement that disposes him to it by way of congruous merit, or from receiving the sacrament—so too in the present case, etc. This is explained as follows: for the first reception of grace, some movement meritorious by way of congruity is required; for the second, nothing is required but voluntary reception of baptism, without dissimulation—that is, with the intention of receiving what the Church confers—and without an act or will of mortal sin. Thus, in the first case some inward work, in some way accepted as congruous merit, is required; in the second, only an outward act together with removal of an inward impediment. Therefore, one who has been attrite for some time, etc. — Some answer these words by saying that the Doctor does not assert that penance is unnecessary for the worthy reception of baptism, but only that perfect contrition, which justifies outside the sacrament, is not required; that distinction is indeed the chief subject of the whole discussion. Hiquaeus, however, says in his Commentary that this appeal is unnecessary, since the Doctor speaks clearly if we distinguish the parts of his argument and consider its aim. — At the beginning of that article he rejects the Master’s opinion in d. 18, asserting that the Evangelical Priest does not remit sins but declares them remitted. The Doctor attacks this because it detracts from the sacrament of penance: on that account it would never remit sins, but would presuppose them remitted by true contrition, and consequently it would not be the second plank after shipwreck. He then sets out the opinion of the Alensis, who says that a congruous disposition is so required for the sacrament of penance that sin is remitted through the sacrament, yet God has not bound his power to the sacraments so that he cannot remit sin without them through a perfect disposition outside the sacrament; for it is an act of greater mercy to institute two ways and means of remitting sin than to restrict it to only one. The Doctor then gives the example of an adult’s baptism and the remission of original sin through those two ways: either through a good movement of the will as congruous merit, or through actually receiving baptism, excluding dissimulation. From this he proves that a sinner after baptism is likewise justified in either of two ways, either through contrition or through the sacrament of penance, on the supposition of attrition; this is indicated by the clause so too in the present case, etc., that is, concerning the sacrament of penance. He adds a fuller explanation: This, he says, is explained as follows: for the first reception of grace—namely, by an adult justified from original sin outside the sacrament—some movement meritorious by way of congruity is required, etc. — In the words just quoted, then, the Doctor means nothing other than that an adult who has committed no actual sin requires no other disposition for receiving the effect of baptism than a sincere will to receive that sacrament. For he speaks only of the way in which original sin is remitted, as his words make clear; he is not speaking there of actual sin, whose removal requires, beyond the will to receive the sacrament of baptism, penance or sorrow for committing that sin.

YOU WILL ASK: Must that penance be an act of perfect contrition, or does attrition suffice? — I answer, attrition suffices, since the sacrament of baptism has in itself the power to remit sin and regenerate a person, as the Council of Trent teaches in sess. VI, ch. 4. After saying that the justification of the ungodly is a translation from the state in which a person is born as a child of the first Adam into the state of grace and adoption as children of God through Jesus Christ our Savior, the Council immediately adds: After the Gospel has been promulgated, this translation cannot take place without the laver of regeneration or the desire for it. By these words the Council attributes the power to regenerate either to the sacrament itself when actually received or to the desire to receive it. This desire means nothing other than perfect contrition; therefore the Council holds that baptism actually received has the power to justify, and does not necessarily presuppose that the person has already been justified through perfect contrition. This is confirmed by the fact that the same Council, in the preamble to sess. VII, says of the sacraments: Through them all true justice either begins, increases once begun, or is restored once lost. Justice begins through no sacrament other than baptism, which is the first of all the sacraments and their gateway, just as it is the entrance to the Church; therefore, etc. The Council of Florence also adds, in the decree of Eugenius, where it speaks of baptism’s effect: The effect of baptism is the remission of every original and actual sin. Consequently, it holds that baptism has in itself the power to remit any sin, and need not necessarily presuppose its remission through perfect contrition. — The Subtle Doctor had taught this doctrine long before either Council, in In IV Sent., d. 14, q. 4, n. 6, where he says: It is therefore said that God requires a congruous disposition—that is, perfect contrition—in order to confer grace on the sinner through the sacrament of penance, not because he binds his power to the sacraments and so cannot confer grace through the sacrament without that prior and congruous disposition that would suffice; this is an act of greater mercy, namely, to institute two ways by which a sinner may be justified rather than restrict him to one. Just as, then, an adult can obtain the first grace that erases original sin in either of two ways, either from a good movement that disposes him to it by way of congruous merit or from receiving baptism, so too in the present case, etc.

YOU WILL SAY: Through sin a person turns away from God as his ultimate end; therefore, to be freed from sin, he must turn toward God as his ultimate end, and hence through an act of charity and contrition. — I deny the final inference. For through imperfect contrition, or attrition, if it excludes the will to sin and is accompanied by hope of pardon, the sinner sufficiently turns toward God as his ultimate end in order to obtain remission of sin through the sacrament of baptism. The Doctor explains this clearly in In II Sent., d. 37, q. 1, n. 8, where he says: “Turning away from the ultimate end can be understood in two ways, either formally or virtually. Formally, it may be contrary or negative: the will either does not will that end, and such not-willing is hatred, or fails to will what it ought to will, and such failure to will is an omission of the precept You shall love the Lord your God. Virtually, it occurs when something is necessary for attaining the ultimate end and the will, by turning away from that thing, thereby turns away virtually from the end; just as an intellect denying a conclusion virtually turns away from a principle, and a sick person is said to turn away from health when he turns away from a bitter drink without which health cannot be had. In itself, the first kind of turning away is of the same nature, and it is not formally included in every sin; for hatred of God is a particular sin. The second kind of turning away is common to every mortal sin, because in every such sin the will is disordered with respect to something necessary for the end.” Thus the Doctor. I infer: but by the attrition just described, the will, previously turned away from God through sin, is rightly ordered with respect to everything necessary for attaining the ultimate end; therefore such attrition immediately disposes the sinner to obtain remission of sins in the sacrament of baptism. The inference is evident. The inference’s premise is proved from Christ’s words in Matthew 19:17: If you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments.

Fourth conclusion. — ONE WHO APPROACHES THE SACRAMENT OF BAPTISM WITH FEIGNED PIETY IS INDEED BAPTIZED VALIDLY, BUT DOES NOT RECEIVE SANCTIFYING GRACE UNTIL THAT PRETENSE, OR OBSTACLE, HAS BEEN REMOVED. This is the common teaching, and

The first part is taught by the Doctor in d. 4, q. 5, where he says in n. 2: “I say that God does not justify one who is unwilling, according to Augustine’s saying: He who created you without you will not justify you without you. This person, who presently has an obstacle against grace—for example, unbelief, or some sin that he commits then by an act of will, or that he committed earlier and in no way regrets—receives grace in no way, according to Augustine in the passage cited above: Everyone who has been constituted the arbiter of his own will, etc. The saying in Wisdom 1, The Holy Spirit of discipline will flee from the deceitful, is understood of such a person.” By these words the Subtle Doctor indicates that the perverse will of someone who approaches baptism dissemblingly is an obstacle to receiving sanctifying grace; on this there is certainly no controversy.

Moreover, St. Augustine explains this truth admirably in bk. 1 of On Baptism, ch. 12. He teaches not only that pretense is an obstacle preventing the one to be baptized from receiving sanctifying grace, but also that when the pretense departs, baptism revives and the baptized person receives the sanctifying grace that baptism has the power to produce. He says: “What if he approached baptism itself dissemblingly: were his sins remitted or not? Let them choose whichever they wish; either answer is enough for us. If they say they were remitted, how then will the Holy Spirit of discipline flee from the deceitful, if he worked the remission of sins in this deceitful person? If they say they were not remitted, I ask: if afterward, with his heart stricken, he confessed his pretense in true sorrow, would he be judged to need baptism again? If it is most foolish to say so, let them acknowledge that a person can be baptized with the true baptism of Christ, yet the persistence of his heart in wickedness or sacrilege can prevent the abolition of sins. Thus they should understand that people can be baptized in communities separated from the Church, where the baptism of Christ is given and received in the same celebration of the sacrament; yet at that time it does not benefit them for the remission of sins, until, reconciled to unity, they are stripped of the sacrilege of dissension by which their sins were held and not permitted to be remitted. For just as, in the case of one who had approached dissemblingly, it happens that he is baptized again¹, but is cleansed by that very pious correction and truthful confession—something he could not receive without baptism—so that what had been given before begins then to benefit him for salvation, when that pretense has departed through truthful confession, so too this person, who received the baptism of Christ, which those who separated themselves lost, as an enemy of the charity and peace of Christ in some heresy or schism—by which sacrilegious crime his sins were not remitted—when he has corrected himself and come to the fellowship and unity of the Church, is not to be baptized again. For by that very reconciliation and peace it is granted that the sacrament, received in schism when it could not benefit him, begins now to benefit him for the remission of his sins in unity.” He says similar things in bk. 3, ch. 13, and bk. 6, ch. 5. Hence, in the conference held at Carthage 54 against the Donatists, we read: Therefore those who have his baptism outside the communion must come to Christ, not so that what was lacking may be supplied, but so that what was present may become beneficial—namely, for salvation, remission of sins, and the justification of the soul. — The author, whoever he is, of the sermon On the Passion, cited by Cyprian, agrees with him. Among other things he says: Although those who receive the sacraments are unworthy, the reverence due to the sacraments prepares a nearer approach to God; and when they return to their heart, the gift of washing is established and restores the effects of its gifts. — Gregory agrees, bk. 5, ep. 61, cited in De consecratione, d. 4, can. 44: The holy thing, he says, which they obtained among heretics then receives its cleansing power in them, when either they receive the Holy Spirit through the laying on of hands or, because they profess the true and holy faith, they are joined to the heart of the universal Church. — St. Isidore of Seville says similar things in bk. 2 of Offices, ch. 24: A heretic does indeed have the baptism of Christ, but because he is outside the unity of faith it benefits him nothing; when he enters it, the baptism he had outside, to his destruction, at once begins to benefit him for salvation.

YOU WILL ASK: What effect does baptism, when it revives, have once the pretense and the obstacle of the recipient’s indisposition have been removed? — The Doctor answers in the aforesaid q. 5, n. 1: “And if someone objects, he says, how will this person have baptismal grace or any effect of baptism? One answer may be that this pretense is removed only through true penance; once it has been removed, baptism has its effect with respect to all sins preceding baptism that were not, however, the cause of the pretense at baptism. For example, someone committed seven mortal sins before baptism; when he comes to baptism, he is attrite for six, but takes pleasure in the seventh at that moment or has no attrition at all for it. That seventh sin alone is the (positive) cause of his pretense at baptism. Therefore he must truly repent of that seventh sin, both in itself and insofar as it was the cause of his pretense at baptism. I say this because perhaps he sinned with a new mortal sin—or perhaps, because he could be excused by ignorance, he showed irreverence toward the sacrament of baptism by receiving it with such pretense. But when that pretense departs, having been an impediment to baptism’s effect, God confers baptismal grace as a remedy against the other sins, which would have been erased in baptism if the pretense had not intervened.” And a little later: “Just as God would first have been present to his sign to cause or give its effect when it was received, had there been no impediment in the recipient, so he is always afterward ready to be present to the one who received that sign, to cause its effect when the impediment ceases. How could he more clearly and splendidly grant baptism the remission of every guilt and punishment when the pretense departs?” Since this account was not free from the difficulty that he raises and probably resolves in the same place, he weighed the matter with his customary acumen and devised a second and third account.

Second, I say, in n. 7, where he says: “Another account may be given: when someone truly repents of that pretense, a more perfect grace is infused in him than the grace infused solely by virtue of penance; that is, it includes within itself the perfection of both penitential and baptismal grace. In this way baptism has its effect, because grace equivalent to baptismal grace is given to the penitent for his pretense, together with the grace he merits by repenting.” But he immediately objects: “Against this it is argued that the person would then gain an advantage from his pretense, greater than if he had not then dissembled and afterward fallen into a sin like that pretense. For if he had fallen and now repented, he would have no grace now except solely by virtue of penance; but you say that the one who then dissembled at baptism has, when repenting, almost a double grace.” Accordingly, because of these disadvantages that follow from this opinion, he does not consider this reasoning absolutely acceptable. Therefore, in n. 8, he proposes another opinion to explain this sort of revival of baptism.

In a third way, he says, chiefly with respect to the principal question, it may be said that the penitent for his pretense receives grace solely by virtue of penance, and no more than if he had not dissembled at baptism but had fallen into sin afterward and risen again through penance. For it is not likely that equal grace would not be given to someone repenting of an equal or lesser sin. This person who fell after baptism, although in one respect he sinned more seriously than the dissembler, nevertheless the dissembler sinned more seriously in another respect, because he showed irreverence toward the sacrament. The words spoken about the effect of baptism obtained by the penitent for his pretense are therefore to be understood not as meaning that in that penance he receives any grace by virtue of baptism—for its reception was dead, and what is dead cannot revive—but that he is released from the precept to receive baptism because he fulfilled it. That fulfillment, however, did him no good for salvation before this penance.

From all this the Doctor proposes three accounts by which one might understand how the sacrament of baptism revives in its effect for someone who received it with feigned piety. The first account is that through the penance performed by someone who received baptism with feigned piety, the sin of that feigned piety is remitted, while the other sins committed before he received baptism are remitted by virtue of the baptism he received, to which God is present—that is, God, who is always present to the sacrament and moves it to produce its effect, namely, remission of sin and infusion of sanctifying grace. He would truly have produced this effect in the very act of receiving baptism, had the obstacle of feigned piety not stood in the way. The Doctor attacks this account in the same place: Because, he says, no mortal sin that remains after baptism can be erased without penance, for according to Jerome penance is the second plank after shipwreck. But those other sins, which are not the cause of the pretense, remain after baptism; therefore they are not erased except through penance. Or, if you suppose that they are erased through baptism when the impediment to baptism’s effect is removed, why cannot that pretense, which caused the impediment, itself be removed through baptism when the impediment ceases? He proposes two answers to this objection in the same place. First, penance and baptism act together as a single, adequate cause for the remission of all sins, both those that preceded baptism and the pretense itself. Thus, if the person who approached baptism dissemblingly had previously committed six mortal sins and added a seventh through that pretense in receiving baptism, God would remit the six earlier sins in view of the baptism he received, and the seventh in view of penance. Hence the Doctor says in n. 6: On this account it would have to be said that those sins are not erased either as to guilt or as to punishment, and that there is no need to have contrition, confession, or satisfaction for them, but only for that seventh sin, which caused the pretense. — To the second part of the objection, namely, that those seven mortal sins remain in the person after baptism, he answers that they do not all have to be removed through penance: because, he says, none of them caused the others to have already been erased. But that seventh sin caused neither itself nor the others to be erased. It is therefore reasonable that baptism be ineffective with respect to that one, but effective with respect to the others: for it formally impedes baptism’s effect, whereas the others do not. The proposition that a mortal sin committed after baptism is not erased except through penance must then be understood of a sin committed after baptism, or of one adhering absolutely—that is, one for which there was neither contrition nor attrition at baptism or afterward. Since this answer still suffers from various difficulties and objections, the Doctor therefore proposes a second account to explain this sort of revival.

The second account of how that pretense is erased is that baptismal grace is restored not in itself but equivalently: when someone who approached baptism with feigned piety rises again through penance, more abundant grace is conferred on him than he would have received by penance alone, precisely because that grace is equivalent to baptismal and penitential grace together. Yet he receives no grace by virtue of baptism by the work performed, but only by way of a prior disposition; in this case baptism serves as a disposition toward the more abundant grace to be produced by the work performed through penance—not solely through the penance’s own power, but on account of the baptism received as a prior disposition. Baptism is said in this case to serve as a disposition toward grace because, through the character received, the baptized person is marked with a new dignity, by reason of which he is enrolled in the household of Christ and thereby is more readily accepted for that grace than someone who has not been baptized. This is also signified by the author of the sermon On the Lord’s Supper, cited by St. Cyprian. Speaking of those approaching baptism, he says: Although those who receive are unworthy, the reverence due to the sacraments prepares a nearer approach to God; and when they return to their heart, the gift of washing is established and restores the effects of its gifts; there is no need to seek or repeat the saving sacrament by any other means. — But the Doctor objects to this account that it cannot be accepted, because, he says, it would follow that someone who had approached dissemblingly gains more from his pretense than if he had not then dissembled and had afterward fallen into a sin like that pretense. For if he had fallen and now repented, he would have no grace now except solely by virtue of penance; but you say that the one who then dissembled at baptism has, when repenting, almost a double grace. The Doctor answers this objection in two ways. First, it is false that he gains an advantage from his pretense; indeed, he suffers a greater loss: For at the time of baptism and afterward, until he repents, he is a child of hell, and all his works are dead. But if he had not dissembled, at that time and afterward until his fall he would have been a child of the kingdom, and his works would have been living, by which he would have merited an increase of grace and glory. Second, he denies that someone who falls after receiving baptism rightly and rises again through penance gains any advantage from his fall, although he recovers baptismal grace and something more, as he teaches admirably in d. 22, where he treats the revival of merits through penance; we too have openly defended the same truth.

The third account the Doctor proposes of baptism’s revival through subsequent penance is that the penitent receives grace by virtue of penance, through which his sins are remitted: the pretense itself directly, and the other sins indirectly. He receives no grace by virtue of baptism, because he received it unworthily. It does not follow from this that baptism does not benefit the convert for salvation. Although it does not benefit him with respect to grace, it does benefit him with respect to fulfilling the precept; observance of the precept contributes to salvation when that person who dissembled performs penance. For through the baptism he received he becomes a child of the kingdom and a member of Christ, and is not bound anew by the precept of baptism. Hence the Doctor observes in the same place: Someone who actually sins mortally can fulfill an affirmative precept even in that very act. For an affirmative precept determines the act as to its substance, but not as to its extrinsic end or other circumstances that can be separated from the substance of the act insofar as it falls under the precept. Since this question of the revival of the sacraments must be taken up again when we speak On the Sacrament of Penance, I judge that we should forgo a fuller examination of it here.