[drummergirl]

Correct.

[bobthecockroach]

Thanks!

Now, what about the Intent of baptism?

[drummergirl]

Ok, I've never done much research on this so I'm looking around. Hopefully someone will get you an answer soon.

[drummergirl]

I'm sure ICTHUS will correct me if i'm wrong on this :-) , but from what I've been reading it would seem that you would have needed to have the intent of being baptised. Obviously you wouldn't be looking to follow church teachings because you weren't in the RCC, but the idea of intent requires that you were intending to be baptized and enter into the family of God.

I've also gotten this message from another board:
"Intent can only be inferred from the actions of the minister performing the baptism. If he says "I baptize you in the name of The Father....The Son... and the Holy Spirit" then one can *probably* presume the intent to confer the sacrament is there. If he says nothing, or if he says "I baptize you in the name of Moloch," then you can be fairly certain that the baptism was invalid."

[bobthecockroach]

"Confer the sacrament" is the phrase I'm really asking about. I thought sacraments, by definition, were of some value to confer grace to the reciepient of the sacrament. I do not believe that baptism confers any grace to the recipient but rather is simply a sign of the baptism of the Spirit.

Do you see what I'm saying? If I don't believe that baptism has any power to save or confer any grace to the recipient... then am I not rejecting baptism as a "sacrament" altogether? And if that's the case then wouldn't I be outside of the Intent?

[drummergirl]

Ok, not finding anything that states you have to believe it is a sacrament just like the RCC....Here's response I recieve while looking for an answer.

**********************
A baptism is considered valid under the follow pretexts:
correct form, correct matter, and correct intent.

Correct form is thus "In the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit." Some religious groups to not baptise under correct form, as they have rejected the Trinity in all or some way or have a corrupt understanding of it. Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormons, Oneness Pentacostals are examples.

Correct matter is water. I have heard of some groups baptising in grape juice, soda pop, wine, and all other forms of liquid. Immersion in running water is the preference, followed by immersion in clean water (like say a bathtub), infusion(pouring) by water is acceptable.

Correct intent is to baptise the way that the church does. Below is a quote from the Didache which is a compilation of writing from the Apostles that lays the groundwork for Church Doctrine.

"After the foregoing instructions, baptize in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, in living [running] water. If you have no living water, then baptize in other water, and if you are not able in cold, then in warm. If you have neither, pour water three times on the head, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Before baptism, let the one baptizing and the one to be baptized fast, as also any others who are able. Command the one who is to be baptized to fast beforehand for one or two days" (Didache 7:1 [A.D. 70]).
*******************************

Are we getting any closer on this one?

[eldestofvic]

Originally Posted by bobthecockroach

"Confer the sacrament" is the phrase I'm really asking about. I thought sacraments, by definition, were of some value to confer grace to the reciepient of the sacrament.

That is a correct assessment of the Church's teaching. But we must not make the mistake of viewing the sacrament as a "magic pill". Yes the sacrament confers the grace intended but this grace's efficacy is rooted in the covenental bond that is established between God and the recipient. Baptism is yes a symbol of this covenant but not in the modern understanding of symbolic but rather in the sense that it is both an outward sign and an internal remedy. When we partake in this external sign of our covenental bond we are infused with the internal grace that enables our participation in this same covenant. Certainly there are a number of ideas of christian life that baptism has come to represent. The concepts of immersing ourselves in the Lord; of entering into the tomb and dying to the world and then rising again in Christ are all modern examples of the use of the word symbol as related to baptism. However, the baptism itself, the sacrament of baptism (like circumcision before it) is more than just an external sign but rather it is actually part of the greater whole which is the covenant and therefore the salvation that is contained in the whole is confered in the part.

Part of the confusion also derives from a confused understanding of the term covenant. In our modern understanding, the word covenant tends to take on a sense of a legal contract. To be sure it is not thought of in the same cold hard unfeeling manner associated with say the likes of a mortgage, or a job offer. It's more agreeable than that. We profess to love the other party of the contract and assume that this other party loves us, but still there remains this sense of the covenant being the mutual acceptance of each party upholding their ends of a bargain. This is not the kind of covenant that Jesus (being God) would have established, nor is it the kind of covenant that the original Jewish hearers of the Word (and by extension our first interpretors of the Word) would have understood.

A covenant was to enter into a family relationship (a father/child relationship) or it could even be understood as a master/slave relationship. In such a relationship we begin to see that everything we recieve is gifted to us from God. The father gives totally of himself to the child; that the very work that we do, the professions of faith, the acts of charity are gifts to us from the Father; that even our response of love is indeed a grace that is given to us. Naturally, at least to me, this adoption model of the covenant would almost demand an external symbol that necessitated no action on the part of the recipient. A symbol that pointedly drew attention to the unsolicited gracious gift of the Father that salvation is. Clearly the best example we have of this is baptism - in particular infant baptism.

Obviously, all christians must continually profess the basic creeds of their faith. That Jesus Christ is Lord. That there is forgiveness of sins, resurrection of the body, life everlasting. All of these things must be constantly proclaimed by both our words and actions. But that is not how we are saved. God's gracious gift of our baptismal entry into the new covenant is how we are saved.

I do not believe that baptism confers any grace to the recipient but rather is simply a sign of the baptism of the Spirit.

Well I suppose that is what these discussion boards are all about - people expressing what they believe. However, about what you said... yes it can be difficult to see how God confers grace through baptism. It is much easier to see, through its externals, the gift of grace that is manifested by our life in the Holy Spirit. However, we must always remember that we walk by faith and not by sight. We have been promised that to be baptized is to recieve the remission of sins. We have been promised that to be baptized is to recieve the gift of the Holy Spirit. Faith means that we can believe that these gifts were made present at our baptism even if we don't feel it.

It's funny. I live in an area that is culturally very Catholic (mostly French, Irish and Polish). Therefore, I run into a lot of "former Catholics" who are now converted to some Fundamentalist church or another. When we talk the conversation almost invariably comes around to a discussion about baptism which always leads to the oft quiped "all I got at my baptism was wet". I always wonder at this statement because here they are purporting to enjoy a salvific relationship with Jesus Christ which was, in fact, a promise of their baptism. Yet they will tell me that the two are not related. I'm left to wonder how they know that...

[Katholish]

Bob, a denial of the sacramental character of Baptism could well constitute an invalidation of it. Some Protestant groups depart from the sacramental notion more than others. If you were to enter the Catholic Church, you would probably be conditionally baptized. This is used in cases where there is doubt concerning the validity of the Baptism, but as Baptism imparts an indelible mark on the soul, it cannot be repeated, so conditional baptism includes in the formula "if you are not already baptized, I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit" (or something to that effect), etc.

[bobthecockroach]

So basically the official Catholic position would be, "we don't know if it was valid"?

[Katholish]

The Church wouldn't want to take the chance of repeating the sacrament, so we would always assume it valid unless there is reason to doubt its validity, which there is in this case since proper Intent may not have been present. So the Church probably would not take an official position whether it is valid or not (mostly because they cannot really judge the individual's intent at the time), but would cover both basis, saying that it may or may not have been valid, hence there would be a conditional baptism.

[bobthecockroach]

Makes sense, thanks.