Posted on 09/20/2007 5:48:47 AM PDT by A.A. Cunningham
Please pass the ontology
By George Weigel
A philosophically-minded young friend recently sent me a fine rant, after having watched a presidential candidates’ cattle call on CNN. The discussion had focused on religion. Several candidates, who identified themselves as Catholics, had indicated that their Christianity was rather easily bracketed when they put on their hats as public servants. “Does ontology mean nothing to these people?” my friend asked. “Do they even know what it is?”
Well, no. They don’t.
And that’s a problem.
By “ontology,” my correspondent was using the technical vocabulary of philosophy to re-capture an image once familiar to generations of Catholics from the Baltimore Catechism, the image of an “indelible mark” imprinted on the soul by certain sacraments. This image of the “indelible mark” was intended to convey a basic truth of Catholic faith: that the reception of certain sacraments changed the recipient forever, by conferring on him or her a new identity — not in the psychological sense of that overused term, but substantively. Or, if you’ll pardon the term, ontologically.
Baptism is a sacrament with what we might call ontological heft. To become a Christian through baptism is qualitatively different from becoming a citizen, a member of the Supreme Court bar, a Detroit Tigers fan, a collector of vintage Volvos, a bourbon drinker, a member of the Democratic or Republican parties, a lifelong student of Dante, or a trout fisherman. When one becomes a Christian through baptism and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, one is changed in a fundamental way: as St. Paul taught those rowdy Corinthians), one becomes a “new creation” (2 Cor 5.17).
That ontological change in baptism (and I swear that’s the last time I’ll use the o-word) incorporates a Catholic into the Church. The Church is not incidental to our identity as new creations in Christ; we don’t “join” the Church the way we join the Rotary, the Kiwanis, the American Association of University Women, the A.M.A., the American Legion, or my beloved Society for the Restoration of Lost Positives (“ept,” “ert,” etc.). Being a Catholic Christian engages who-I-am in a substantively different way than any other aspect of my “identity” — not because I think that’s the case, or because I feel that’s the case, but because that is the case: objectively, not subjectively. Baptism has real effects; it changes us forever.
So when a candidate for public office avers, on the one hand, that his or her “membership in the faith community” is deeply personal, or a matter of “my relationship with Jesus,” and then suggests that being a Catholic Christian is a compartment of life that can be hermetically sealed off from first principles of justice (i.e., the principles involved in abortion, euthanasia, and embryo-destructive stem-cell research), we’re dealing with a confused camper — one might even say, a camper with a severe identity-crisis.
That most Catholic politicians don’t understand this is obvious: that’s why, were the entire Catholic contingent in Congress to be replaced by Mormons, Capitol Hill would certainly lose some good people — but the social doctrine of the Church and the Church’s teaching on the life issues (both of which involve publicly accessible moral truths, not sectarian “positions”) would have a better chance of implementation.
The politicos aren’t alone, however. How many Catholics in the United States understand that their baptism made them a “new creation”? Decades of faux-catechesis, in which the only “indelible marks” to be found in religious education classrooms were made by magic markers on felt banners, have left us severely weakened in our self-understanding, such that too many Catholics imagine their Christianity to be the religious variant of their membership in other voluntary organizations. Thus the challenge posed to the official teachers of the Church — especially bishops and pastors — is a massive one.
Given the campaign calendar, we’ll soon be embroiled in another round of the religion-and-politics wars. Reminding all Catholics about what baptism really does to us would be a good place to begin calling the office-seekers to account.
George Weigel is a senior fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C. Weigel’s column is distributed by the Denver Catholic Register, the official newspaper of the Archdiocese of Denver. Phone: 303-715-3215.
Baptism makes you a new person because it remits original sin, it is an action of God, not any person. If you take a bath you will actually be clean, there is an action and a result, it is the same with Baptism. You are no longer burdened with original sin but you can still sin because you are a human being. It is a Sacrament.
When one is confirmed, also an act of God, you receive an indelible mark on your soul and is also a Sacrament and one that you choose.
There is no Sacrament that makes you perfect, you are only perfected through Jesus Christ and only to the extent that you say “yes”, IOW you have to cooperate with the Grace you are given. God gave us free will and Jesus asks us
to take on his yoke and let him lead us and many, even those who believe, refuse. They see God’s way as a burden and believe that they know better.
It is their own conceit but they don’t see it as that. They are blinded by their own opinion and their own voices are louder than God’s. Many are not willfully sinning, they aren’t even aware of the error of their ways but, God willing, they will someday hear His voice again and realize how wrong they are.
Do Catholics see a Protestant baptism as functioning exactly the same, in this respect, as being baptized into the Catholic church?
1271 Baptism constitutes the foundation of communion among all Christians, including those who are not yet in full communion with the Catholic Church: "For men who believe in Christ and have been properly baptized are put in some, though imperfect, communion with the Catholic Church. Justified by faith in Baptism, [they] are incorporated into Christ; they therefore have a right to be called Christians, and with good reason are accepted as brothers by the children of the Catholic Church." "Baptism therefore constitutes the sacramental bond of unity existing among all who through it are reborn."
...only not so serious or demanding. ;-)
Thank you for your explanation tiki. I am curious, because it seems to me that Catholic theology says that our sin nature is wiped out at baptism. Is this correct? We lose original sin, this is the same as a sin nature? Thus we are a new Adam, with one nature, able to completely be unified in our hearts by following God. Calvinist theology, as I understand it, says that once we are called, we have two natures competing in our hearts. Before it was only our sin nature, we were incapable of following God because we didn’t know him, and after we are called it remains that our sin nature and our relationship with God compete. The Calvinist take makes sense to me, in that it explains the nature of man that I’ve observed, that we are not integrated, that we desire evil even as we do good (lust, desire, fantasy), and desire good even as we do evil (guilt, wishing we did the right thing, feeling bad even as we do wrong). The two natures explains this to me, sin nature and God. Washing completely clean through a sacrament doesn’t make as much sense since I have not seen the massive change in human nature that wiping out a sin nature would entail. I’ve always looked at the destruction of sin nature as being part of heaven.
That’s cute, thanks!
A baptism done in the name of the Father and the Son and of the Holy Spirit is valid no matter the denomination.
We believe it frees us from Original Sin, we can still sin which is why we have Reconciliation which is also a Sacrament.
Baptism washes away original sin but does not take away concupiscence. Likewise, it remits the punishment of everlasting death, but we still will all die our natural death. Thus, just as Scipture says, a cleaned person could be subsequently overcome by 7 demons worse than the orginal one. So there is a real effect, a necessary one, but there are plenty of choices to be made afterwards with free will :) that can cause a person’s downfall.
A Brief Catechism for Adults - Lesson 20: The Sacrament of Baptism
Baptism and the Usus Antiquior (Catholic/Orthodox Caucus)
Justified by Baptism (fallout from the Beckwith conversion grows)
The Million-Dollar Infant Baptism
The Early Church Fathers on Baptism - Catholic/Orthodox Caucus
A Critique of a Critique (On Baptism by Immersion)
Catholics, Reformed Christian Churches sign document recognizing common baptism
You said:
“Many are not willfully sinning, they aren’t even aware of the error of their ways but, God willing, they will someday hear His voice again and realize how wrong they are.”
Maybe so but when I see Biden and Dodd claim to be good Catholics, I see their willful arrogance, and I think they have given their souls to gain the world.
I also see and I will/can judge their actions but it is up to God to see the state of their souls.
Love it, love it, love it!
Yes, indeed, I am thoroughly gruntled ;-)
Thanks for sharing this :)
Excellent! Well, I would say cellent, but I think that would mean not excellent, which confuses me. :P
:)
Language is such fun :)
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