You can divorce.
You can disinherit.
You can undo vows of fraternal orders.
But some people insist to me that baptism is “permanent”, and cannot become undone by action of either the person or the church.
Can’t get your foreskin back, either.
That’s not related at all.
You might want to define your terms. If you mean can a baptismal certificate be “revoked” I’d say not. If you mean baptism as a spiritual matter take it up with God and let us know. You won’t get agreement among Christians what constitutes a “correct” baptism so you’ll have a tough time gettin a satisfactory answer here.
Baptisms aren’t “annulled” as they aren’t an impediment. You need a divorce to get married again.
In the Roman Catholic tradition, the sacraments of Baptism, Confirmation, and Holy Orders “imprint a character,” or leave an indelible mark on the soul. There is, accordingly, no way to “unbaptize” someone. See the Code of Canon Law, Can. 845 §1.
- Rick
Hmmm…my first thought was that excommunication might be sort of the equivalent of undoing a baptism. However, the 1917 Catholic Encyclopedia article on excommunication a.) stresses the “medicinal” quality of baptism (i.e., it’s supposed to make the excommunicatee–or whatever it’s called–fall on his or her knees and humbly repent, not eternally cast them out of the Church and in to the maw of Hell) and b.) specifically states “The excommunicated person, it is true, does not cease to be a Christian, since his baptism can never be effaced…” So it seems there is some truth to the notion that (at least in some circles) baptism is considered “permanent”. Theologically speaking, I suppose being eternally damned to Hell might qualify as “cancelling” a baptism, but that is obviously something which would be up for grabs until you actually died.
Of course, on a personal level, if one were to say “I don’t believe in ‘baptism’ any more or in any of the things it stands for”, that would seem to do the trick.
There was also the Donatist controversy in the early church, back around the 300’s C.E. The Donatists believed certain Christians needed to be “rebaptized” because they had been baptized by priests who had earlier renounced Christianity under threat of persecution. The Donatists lost, and it’s noteworthy that (what became the) orthodox position was evidently dead set against “rebaptism”. Of course, many Protestant groups would probably re-baptize Catholics, but I don’t think it’s so much that they would hold there was an originally valid baptism which was “annulled” as they would simply say that there was no valid baptism to begin with.
I agree. It is just a ritual. If you no longer believe, simply ignore that it happened and move on.
MEBuckner?
What would be the nearest modern-day equivalent to Donatism?
Thanks.
I heard David Hocking say that being called to Christ is forever. Once saved, you cannot back out of it. I’m sure he backed it up with a scriptural reference (he is good at that), but I don’t recall which one.
That’s exactly what an annulment is. In the eyes of the Church, for instance, my mother and father were never validly married, even though they walked down the aisle, said the right things to each other, etc. The Church’s statement to that effect is the annulment.
If a person asks if a baptism can be annuled, what they’re really asking is whether there can be such a thing as an invalid baptism, which would seem to have been addressed in the Donatist controversy.
Hmmm…I dunno about that one. The original Donatists pretty much all died out, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a modern equivalent (the position of Jehovah’s Witnesses is similar to that of the Arians). However, if there is one, I don’t know what it is.
I’d better add that MEBuckner is talking about the Arian Heresy, NOT the Aryans who started the Nazi party. I used to know what the Arian Heresy was about, but I don’t remember anymore.
Yes, quite. The Arians (and the Jehovah’s Witnesses) believe(d) that Jesus Christ is a created being, the Son of God, but not actually God Himself (whereas most Christians believe that Christ is simultaneously God and the Son of God).
Oops, darnit–I swear I’m not just trying to pad my post count, it’s just that I thought of this just as I was hitting “submit”, okay?
Also, Naziism wasn’t so much founded by “Aryans” as it was that the founders of Naziism believed they were “Aryans”, a mythological super-race of “Nordic” white people. The term derives from what the Indo-European-language-speaking invaders of Northern India called themselves; Indo-European is a linguistic term, not a “racial” one, and is no longer applied to all speakers of Indo-European languages anyway (Germanic and Scandinavian languages, Greek, Latin and the Romance languages, the Slavic languages, Farsi or Persian–“Iran” comes from the same root as “Aryan”–Sanskrit and Hindi and Urdu, and assorted others) but somehow 19th and early 20th century Europeans got this bee in their bonnet that the North Indian “Aryans”–who were possibly somewhat lighter skinned than the South Indians or Dravidians, just to go by the present-day distribution of skin colors on the subcontinent–all had blonde hair and blue eyes or some damned thing.
Some years ago, in France, an anarchist organization began a campaign in order to obtain from the RCC to “debaptize” people. Without success since on the basis of Canon Law, the RCC argued that baptism couldn’t be undone.
Some of them eventually had the baptism registers in churches mention that they have “renounced” to their baptism, but only after a court ordered the churches to do so (based on law stating that personnal informations contained in a database, computerized or not, must be updated at the concerned person’s request). But nevertheless, the church still state that updated registers or not, these persons are still baptized, from the RCC point of view.
The Arian heresy stated that :
-The Son isn’t eternal. He was created by the Father
-He wasn’t co-creator of the world
-He received his divine nature only after being invested of his mission as a savior
And there was even more subtleties since Arianists soon had their own divisions, concerning the nature and substance of the Father and Son, as soon as it became an influential and very widespread movement.
Arianism has been amonst the most succesful of the early heresies. Its eventual demise (like its initial success) was much more related to political issues than to theological ones.
Its name came from its funder’s name, Arius.
MEBuckner writes:
> Indo-European is a linguistic term, not a “racial” one,
> and is no longer applied to all speakers of Indo-European
> languages anyway . . .
What do you mean when you say that it “is no longer applied.” The linguistic family is still called “Indo-European.” Your sentence isn’t even consistent, since first you say that the term no longer applies, and then you apply it anyway.
Hmm. This really raises the question of whether a baptism-like ritual could ever be NOT a baptism. Wouldn’t there be some cases where a person might be able to prove that the ritual they went through was not a baptism for some odd reason, and thus shouldn’t be counted?
For instance, say I (being a pagan) am discussing with a Catholic friend her impending baptism. During the discussion we decide to act out the ritual. As I understand the Catholic rules, a lay Christian can baptize someone in case of emergency, but a non-Christian cannot. Is my baptism of my friend a real baptism?
What if my friend demonstrates to me the wording by mock-baptizing me? I’m not a Christian, and I would be taking it as a demonstration only, not an actual baptism. However, there wouldn’t be any real reason that my friend couldn’t baptize me if it were an emergency. Would that be a real baptism?
What about cases where a child accepts baptism to make their parents happy but later says that they have never been a member of the faith? If the person performing the baptism does it in sincerity, but the recipient doesn’t, then wouldn’t that be an invalid baptism?
Corr