Question Two. Whether Baptized Children Receive the Effect of Baptism

19. Process thus to the second question [n.11], and argument is made that baptized children do not receive the effect of the sacrament:

Because the effect of baptism is grace; but children do not receive grace, because grace is not infused without faith, because, Hebrews 11.6, “without faith it is impossible to please God,” and therefore not possible to be in God’s grace either. But children do not receive faith, which I prove:

20. First, by the authority of the Apostle, Romans 10.17, that “faith comes by hearing;” children cannot thus receive faith.

21. I prove it, second, with this reason, that he who has faith can use it when he wants, if not impeded; a baptized child, when he will have come to the use of reason, has no power for an act of faith, because he cannot proceed to an act of believing the articles of faith.

22. And there is a confirmation of this, that he who has faith is disposed differently toward act than is he who does not have faith; for a habit is in some way disposed toward act, and in this way the haver of faith differs from the non-haver [cf. Ord. I d.17 nn.32-53]. But a baptized child is in no way differently disposed toward the act of believing than if he had not been baptized; because if, having been baptized, he be nurtured among infidels and be taught by them, he would acquiesce in their error just as another would who was not baptized; if too a non-baptized child be nourished among the faithful and be taught in their Law, he would acquiesce in that Law just as a baptized child would. If therefore a baptized child is in no way differently disposed toward the act of believing than the non-baptized child, in no way does he have the habit of faith.

23. If it be replied that an acquired habit is disposed in some way to the act, an infused habit not so - against this, and for confirmation of the main argument [n.22], that if God were to infuse the habit of geometry into someone then, when the ideas of geometrical terms occur to him he could, from that habit, assent to the truths of geometry. Therefore, similarly in the matter at hand: by infused faith, were it present, the one possessed of it could assent to the ideas of terms when they occur to him, and so when the idea of ‘dead’ and ‘resurrection’ is apprehended, someone could assent to this truth, ‘the dead will be resurrected’, of which we experience the opposite.

24. There is a confirmation of what is proposed, because a habit bestows some facility and delight in the act, from Ethics 2.5.1106a15-17; for no one works more easily or more delightfully against a habit than according to it. But a baptized child, after he will have become an adult, more easily dissents from matters of belief than assents to them, as we experience;     therefore etc     .

25. Again to the main point: no one receives grace from God unless he is in some way conjoined to God, for God does not give grace to one who is actually averse and totally indisposed. The first conjunction with God is through faith; therefore, to one who does not have faith, grace is not given. But a child does not have faith before baptism;     therefore , grace is not given to him in baptism.

I. To the Question

26. On the contrary:

Augustine says in his Enchiridion ch.13 n.43, “From a child recently born up to one decrepit [with age], just as none is held back from baptism, so there is none who does not die to sin in baptism;” but no one dies to sin unless he receives grace; therefore etc     .

27. To this question I say that just as it is believed that original sin is discharged in baptism for a child, so too is it believed that grace is infused into him, because, as was said in the question on Circumcision [d.1 n.370], God remits guilt (conformably to the state of fallen nature) to no one save one to whom he gives grace; for he liberates no one from perdition unless he ordains him for this, that he be a son of the Kingdom.

II. To the Initial Arguments

28. As to the first argument [n.19], although God could, of his absolute power, give grace without faith (if one has posited that two absolutes are simply distinct), yet because “God’s works are perfect,” Deuteronomy 32.4, and because, when God heals a man, he heals him totally, therefore must it be conceded that he does not infuse grace into a child without faith and without hope.

29. Now as to the proofs about faith [nn.20-21] (which are against this [n.28]), they have their place in III d.23 [not in the Ordinatio; see Lectura III d.23 nn.48-58], for they prove absolutely that no faith is infused; and therefore they have to be solved there, just as it has to be declared there why [infused] faith is to be posited - for either it is posited as having some causality with respect to act, and then the act could not, without that causality, be of the sort it is when that causality is posited; or faith is posited as having no causality, and then it is manifest that faith cannot, from the act, be reckoned to be present.

30. But if it have some causality, then still this is possible: either it has a precise causality, namely which could not belong to anything else, or a non-precise causality, namely if a like causality could belong to acquired faith.

31. And if the first of these were posited, it could perhaps with certitude be set down that faith is known to be present by the fact that someone would know a condition of such sort to be present in his act as could not be present without infused faith.

32. If the second be posited, then it can simply not be known from the act, or from any condition of the act, that infused faith is present. And then it would have to be said that, although nothing is in the act or belongs to the act by which he who has faith may be distinguished from him who does not have faith, and that thereby it could not, by natural reason, be known that faith was present, yet this is something believed.

33. And thus it could be said generally that no supernatural virtue can be proved to be present either from any act or from any condition of the act; but perhaps neither can it be proved universally, by natural reason, that any supernatural virtue is present

34. More will be said about this in book III [Lectura III d.23 nn.48, 56-58, Ordinatio III d.26 n.132, d.27 n.66], in the material about the virtues.

35. To the second initial argument [n.25], it is said that a child is conjoined to God through the faith of the parents.

36. To the contrary: posit the parents to be heretics.

37. It is said he is conjoined through the faith of the Church.

38. To the contrary: let it be that in the Church Militant no one were faithful yet they [the ones who baptized the child] intended to do what Christ did; the child would still truly be baptized and receive grace.

39. I say therefore to the argument that in fact grace is given to no one save through some meritorious cause that merits the child’s conjunction with God, and this meritorious cause is Christ; but besides this cause, there is no need to grant another cause intrinsic to the recipient whereby he may be conjoined to God before he receive grace.