Apologetics Toolkit

Baptism

• In Sacred Scripture
• In the Catechism

[Please also see Steve Brandt's thoroughly informative piece on infant baptism.]

In Sacred Scripture

The emphasis in each passage is, of course, added.

Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. (John 3:5)

Mark 16

14

Afterward he appeared to the eleven themselves as they sat at table; and he upbraided them for their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they had not believed those who saw him after he had risen.

15

And he said to them, "Go into all the world and preach the gospel to the whole creation.

16

He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned.

`He who believes and is baptised will be saved' (Mark 16,16). The two conditions are inseparable. Only those who believe in the Gospel are introduced into God's family by baptism; without faith that rite would lose its value. On the other hand believers possess the divine life only through that baptism which united them into a single body of which Jesus Christ is the head, as St. Paul expressed it. Faith and baptism in fact do not do away with the personal effort to conform one's conduct to the precepts and example of Jesus. The Lord's last command was: `Teach them to observe all the commandments which I have given you.' (Georges Chevrot, On the Third Day, Scepter 1961, p. 100)

1 Peter 3

18

For Christ also died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit;

19

in which he went and preached to the spirits in prison,

20

who formerly did not obey, when God's patience waited in the days of Noah, during the building of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were saved through water.

21

Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a clear conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ,

22

who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers subject to him.

VI. THE NECESSITY OF BAPTISM

1257 The Lord himself affirms that Baptism is necessary for salvation.[59] He also commands his disciples to proclaim the Gospel to all nations and to baptize them.[60] Baptism is necessary for salvation for those to whom the Gospel has been proclaimed and who have had the possibility of asking for this sacrament.[61] The Church does not know of any means other than Baptism that assures entry into eternal beatitude; this is why she takes care not to neglect the mission she has received from the Lord to see that all who can be baptized are "reborn of water and the Spirit." God has bound salvation to the sacrament of Baptism, but he himself is not bound by his sacraments.

1258 The Church has always held the firm conviction that those who suffer death for the sake of the faith without having received Baptism are baptized by their death for and with Christ. This Baptism of blood, like the desire for Baptism, brings about the fruits of Baptism without being a sacrament.

1259 For catechumens who die before their Baptism, their explicit desire to receive it, together with repentance for their sins, and charity, assures them the salvation that they were not able to receive through the sacrament.

1260 "Since Christ died for all, and since all men are in fact called to one and the same destiny, which is divine, we must hold that the Holy Spirit offers to all the possibility of being made partakers, in a way known to God, of the Paschal mystery."[62] Every man who is ignorant of the Gospel of Christ and of his Church, but seeks the truth and does the will of God in accordance with his understanding of it, can be saved. It may be supposed that such persons would have desired Baptism explicitly if they had known its necessity.

1261 As regards children who have died without Baptism, the Church can only entrust them to the mercy of God, as she does in her funeral rites for them. Indeed, the great mercy of God who desires that all men should be saved, and Jesus' tenderness toward children which caused him to say: "Let the children come to me, do not hinder them,"[63] allow us to hope that there is a way of salvation for children who have died without Baptism. All the more urgent is the Church's call not to prevent little children coming to Christ through the gift of holy Baptism.

The Baptism of infants

1250 Born with a fallen human nature and tainted by original sin, children also have need of the new birth in Baptism to be freed from the power of darkness and brought into the realm of the freedom of the children of God, to which all men are called.[50] The sheer gratuitousness of the grace of salvation is particularly manifest in infant Baptism. The Church and the parents would deny a child the priceless grace of becoming a child of God were they not to confer Baptism shortly after birth.[51]

1251 Christian parents will recognize that this practice also accords with their role as nurturers of the life that God has entrusted to them.[52]

1252 The practice of infant Baptism is an immemorial tradition of the Church. There is explicit testimony to this practice from the second century on, and it is quite possible that, from the beginning of the apostolic preaching, when whole "households" received baptism, infants may also have been baptized.[53]

[Please also see Steve Brandt's thoroughly informative piece on infant baptism.]

Notes

50 Cf. Council of Trent (1546): DS 1514; cf. Col 1:12-14.

51 Cf. Cf. CIC, can. 867; CCEO, Cann. 681;686,1.

52 Cf. LG 11;41; GS 48; CIC, can. 868.

53 Cf. Acts 16:15, 33, 18:8; 1 Cor 1:16; CDF, instruction, Pastoralis actio: AAS 72 (1980) 1137-1156.

59 Cf. Jn 3:5.

60 Cf. Mt 28:19-20; cf. Council of Trent (1547) DS 1618; LG 14; AG 5.

61 Cf. Mk 16:16.

62 Cf. GS 22 sec. 5; cf. LG 16; AG 7.

63 Mk 10:14; cf. 1 Tim 2:4.