Hi CatholicSteve,
To all my non-labeled Christian Ad Hominem “purists”, can you see any “Ad Hominey” in post regarding me “…This is something which Catholic Steve has not had either the courage, honesty or where-with-all to admit”, or am I just “too sensitive”? I think I have been on this board fairly courageously and honestly unlike the where-with-all of others.
Once again, you seem to have completely misunderstand what the term "ad hominem attack" means in the context of a debate. To reiterate the explanations previously given to you, an "ad hominem attack" is a tactic whereby a debater responds to their opponent's points, not with lucid counterpoints, but with personal attacks, thereby being
evasive.
You have consistently failed to answer basic questions put to you by myself, Homer and others. This has become a predictable pattern. When someone consistently stonewalls like this it is a clear indication that either they are afraid of facing challenges to their position, or they are not interested in honest dialog or they are simply not equipped to back up their arguments.
Wow (again). I gave early Christian writing that actually used the words of Infant Baptism or the same rhetoric for Infant Baptism from Irenaeus (Against Heresies 2:22:4 [A.D. 180]) and onward. The text above Irenaeus is so huge in Christian Apologetics (not just Catholic) that it speaks beyond simply Infant Baptism, yet non-labeled Christians throw it out like a baby in the bath water.
Let's revisit the earliest quotes from church fathers that you gave in support of infant baptism:
The Letter of Barnabas (74AD) - No mention of infant baptism
Hermas (80AD) - No mention of infant baptism
Ignatius of Antioch (110AD) - No mention of infant baptism
Irenaeus (180AD) - Has nothing to do with infant baptism. We'll come back to this in a moment.
Clement of Alexandria (191AD) - Has nothing to do with infant baptism
Hippolytus of Rome (215 AD) - Ah! Finally a text that actually has to do with the topic of infant baptism.
Therefore, my dear non-labeled Christian, you did not see the date of 180AD with Irenaeus which would satisfy your 200AD minimum or will you change that now?
Let's talk a bit more about your quote from Irenaeus. It seems like Irenaeus is a constant victim for having snippets of his work used out of context. The two most common cases are those who claim that Irenaeus thought that Jesus lived into his fifties and those who want to use Irenaeus in support of infant baptism. In both cases, the quotes used are lifted completely out of their theological context. The quote you gave is a prime example. It is part of Irenaeus' larger defense against particular gnostic teachings. At the heart of Irenaeus' theology is the concept of
recapitulation. Rather than try to explain Irenaeus' recapitulation doctrine to you, I'll provide a couple of links which you can read if you wish:
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_ ... 214en.html
http://www.tektonics.org/guest/irey50.html
To quote Everett Ferguson:
“The context of Irenaeus’ statement is his doctrine of recapitulation according to which Christ summed up all of humanity in himself. Involved in this conception for Irenaeus was the idea that Jesus passed through all the ages of life, sanctifying each. There is nothing specifically about baptism, but ‘born again’ makes one think of baptism. ‘Regeneration,’ a different word from what is used in the passage under consideration, regularly means baptism for Irenaeus” (Everett Ferguson: Early Christians Speak, p. 59).
? I checked out some previous posts and could not find the resource/citation for Justin Martyr that you used so quickly. I am pretty sure which one you are talking about but I do not want to put words into your mouth. When you find it would you please underline/highlight the words INFANT BAPTISM and not just the word faith or belief?
This is just the point. The following quote by Justin Martyr is often given by Catholic apologists in support of infant baptism:
"And many,both men and women, who have been Christ's disciples from childhood, remain pure and at the age of sixtey or seventy years..."
Justin Martyr,First Apology,15:61
Like many of the quotes you provided, it says nothing about infant baptism.
There is still a great deal of silence regarding Christian anti-Infant Baptism after 200AD. After 200AD this was a period of numerous writings on the doctrine in regular Christian worship and practice.
So can we take that as a tacit agreement on your part that Christian writings pre-200 (give or take)
including scripture do not teach infant baptism?
"...where is the anti-Infant Baptism writings?
Besides the logical fallacy of your request, which I've repeatedly pointed out to you, the further away we get time-wise from Jesus and the Apostles, the less weight I give to church fathers. It's not that difficult to see a dramatic evolution in Christian doctrine in the first few centuries as the center of Christendom shifts from Jerusalem to Rome.
Although it is always useful to read the church fathers, sometimes the value is more in seeing where they went wrong than where they were right. Collectively, their writings provide excellent signposts of Catholicism's journey of deviation from original Christian teachings to a syncretic mixture of Christianity, paganism, Greek philosophy and Roman imperial power.
It strikes me as strange that you put so much weight on the writings of the early church fathers, when you think they might support Catholic doctrine, yet seem to ignore their
un-Catholic teachings. Tertullian, for example, denied that Mary was a perpetual virgin.
Origen, because of some of his teachings, was declared anathema by a local council in Constantinople in 545, and then had 15 anathemas pronounced against him and his teachings at the Fifth Ecumenical Council (aka the Second Council of Constantinople) in 553. Here's a sample of the Council's edict:
If anyone does not anathematize Arius, Eunomius, Macedonius, Apollinaris, Nestorius, Eutyches and Origen, as well as their impious writings, as also all other heretics already condemned and anathematized by the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, and by the aforesaid four Holy Synods and [if anyone does not equally anathematize] all those who have held and hold or who in their impiety persist in holding to the end the same opinion as those heretics just mentioned: let him be anathema.
This makes me wonder, have you committed a sin by quoting Origen?
Personally, I've learned a lot from the early church fathers, but I don't need them to be infallible. It is actually in their
fallibility that I learn a great deal.
As to the death of a baby prior to any baptism, my non-labeled Christian friend, did you read my posts?
Actually, no, I did not read your post prior to writing to Thomas. I was writing to Thomas, not to you.
Did you read the analogy that I related with Thomas & his son and the Christian & atheist? What do you have to loose?
No, I didn't. Hold on a second, let me go back and read what you have to say about the Christian and Atheist. I'll be right back...
...Ok, I read it. I see that you are essentially invoking a form of Pascal's Wager. The problem is, Pascal's Wager has been soundly refuted from a logical standpoint. The Atheist author Keith Augustine put it succinctly when we wrote:
In the seventeenth century the mathematician Blaise Pascal formulated his infamous pragmatic argument for belief in God in Pensées. The argument runs as follows:
If you erroneously believe in God, you lose nothing (assuming that death is the absolute end), whereas if you correctly believe in God, you gain everything (eternal bliss). But if you correctly disbelieve in God, you gain nothing (death ends all), whereas if you erroneously disbelieve in God, you lose everything (eternal damnation).
How should you bet? Regardless of any evidence for or against the existence of God, Pascal argued that failure to accept God's existence risks losing everything with no payoff on any count. The best bet, then, is to accept the existence of God. There have been several objections to the wager: that a person cannot simply will himself to believe something that is evidently false to him; that the wager would apply as much to belief in the wrong God as it would to disbelief in all gods, leaving the the believer in any particular god in the same situation as the atheist or agnostic; that God would not reward belief in him based solely on hedging one's bets; and so on.
This is the same flawed logic you attempted regarding baptism. The flaw in the argument that I find most egregious is that idea of wagering on God ("what do you have to lose?"). The God I know is not interested in empty forms and rituals. He is not the God of hedged bets. He is a consuming fire who desires
relationship with us based on trust, not an insincere going through the motions of a ritual, "just in case". I'm not saying, by the way, that I think Thomas was insincere in his situation. I would have a hard time, though, loving and serving with my whole heart a God who would subject a baby to eternal torment just because they hadn't been sprinkled with some water. If I were counseling someone in the situation Thomas was in, rather than encourage them to "play it safe", I would stress to them the mercy, compassion, loving-kindness and fairness of God, as revealed in Christ Jesus.
I noticed, in that same post, you also wrote:
The non-labeled Christian’s position of infant death and no hell is slightly wrong from a Catholic Christian view because this is where Limbo comes from.
I'm not sure what you are trying to say here. However, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who is now Pope Benedict XVI, said in an interview in 1984, "Limbo has never been a definitive truth of the faith... Personally, I would let it drop, since it has always been only a theological hypothesis." This equivocation seems to contradict centuries of Catholic teaching. For example, in 1905, Pope Pius X stated
unequivocally, "Children who die without baptism go into limbo, where they do not enjoy God, but they do not suffer either." Both of these views contradict 1,000 years of Catholic teaching, going back at least to Augustine, that unbaptized infants go to Hell.
The earthly Catholic Christian Church simply does not know with certainty what happens with the scenario that he presented. We hope and pray that God is a merciful God, but no one really knows what happens.
I'm surprised at you CatholicSteve! The Catholic church doesn't know? Why, all you need to do is consult the early church fathers!
Go to Catholic Answers (
http://www.catholic.com/) and pull up their resources and then cut/paste (with citations so we can keep you honest) what you find for all the forum readers. The site, Catholic Goldmine has even more sources that you can jump on.
I do occasionally visit these sites as well as occasionally listen to Catholic radio. More often than not I'm struck by the poor Biblical exegesis, the logical contortions that have to be made to try to support various Catholic teachings, and the sense that they
still haven't gotten over the Reformation.
