Question One. Whether an Adult who does not Consent can Receive the Effect of Baptism

57. As to the first point [n.56], argument is made that he does not:

No one who does not consent contracts carnal marriage,     therefore not spiritual marriage either, because spiritual consent there is required not less but more; now in baptism a spiritual marriage is as it were contracted, because then the soul is espoused to God; therefore etc     .

58. Again in baptism a certain vow is made of renouncing Satan and clinging to God; but no one who is unwilling or not consenting vows or binds himself to God;     therefore etc     .

59. Again, his own malice harms the baptized more than the malice of the minister doing the baptizing; but in the one baptizing there is required not only consent but the intention of baptizing; therefore much more is the baptized’s consent required.

60. Again, Augustine in a letter [On Baptism against the Donatists IV ch.24 n.31]: as a sponsor responds for the child, so an adult responds for himself; but if the sponsor does not consent, the child for whom he does not consent is not baptized. For it seems that baptism is conferred in virtue of the sponsor’s reply when to the question “Do you wish to be baptized?” the sponsor replies “I wish,” and the priest subjoins “And I baptize you etc.;” but what is done under a condition is nothing if the condition do not exist.

61. To the contrary:

Decretals III tit.42 ch.3, Gregory IX, ‘About baptism and its effect’: “He who is drawn forward by terrors and punishments and, lest he incur harm, receives the sacrament of baptism, such a one, just like him too who comes to baptism feigning, receives the character of Christianity impressed on him, and he himself, as if willing conditionally though absolutely he does not will, is to be compelled to the observance of the Christian faith.” Therefore, he who is absolutely not willing receives the sacrament of baptism.

I. To the Question

62. Here I draw a distinction both on the part of him who is called an adult and on the part of him who is called non-willing.

A. About an Adult with the Use of Reason or without It

63. About the first: either an adult is not using reason and has never used it (as the empty headed and mad from birth); or he is not using reason now, yet has sometimes had the use of it; or, third, he is actually using reason now.

1. About an Adult who never Uses Reason

64. Judgment about the first must, in brief, be made as about a child [n.16], save that there is a difference in this, that if there be hope of his sometime needing to be cured and coming to have the use of reason, that time must be waited for, so that he may receive the sacrament with greater reverence. But if there be no hope of his ever attaining the use of reason, the sacrament is to be conferred on him at once, because God removes the remedy for salvation from no one.

2. About an Adult not Now Using Reason

65. About the second, namely someone not now using reason [n.63] yet who did at some time use reason, I say that the supposition is that he is now in habit consenting or not consenting according to the way he was actually disposed when, immediately before impediment to his use of reason, he was healthy; namely, if he actually consented then, he is judged to be consenting in habit now; if he actually dissented then he is judged to be dissenting in habit now. And I said ‘immediately’ in the sense that between the act and the impediment no opposite motion of will intervene. And thus I say universally that the one who is habitually disposed can receive the sacrament the way he could before when he was actually this way or that way disposed. But how he who is disposed actually could be baptized will be stated at once in the third part [nn.68-69].

66. But is it expedient to baptize such a one? For many things are lawful which are not expedient, I Corinthians 6.12.

67. I reply that if there be hope he will return to the use of reason, it is more expedient to await the time when he does have the use of reason; for example, it is expedient as regard one asleep to wait the time of his being awake, and as regard one who is deranged the time of a lucid interval. But if there be no hope of him, as of one who falls into some permanent blockage to his use of reason, it is expedient to baptize him (provided however he has the capacity for baptism), because otherwise he would be exposed to the danger of damnation. But how he may be capable will be stated immediately in the discussion of him who has the use of reason [n.69].

3. About an Adult with the Use of Reason

68. About the third case, namely an adult using reason [n.63], I make a distinction about the ‘not consenting’ [n.56] that is put in the question, which can be understood as the negative or the contrary: the negative denies only actual consent, while the contrary posits actual dissent.

69. And the distinction is plain, because ‘not willing’ is not the same as ‘willing against’. If ‘contrary’ is taken as ‘dissenting in act’, then the adult dissents either simply or in a certain respect. And I mean ‘simply’ in the way it was expounded in Ord. III d.15 nn.58-59, 119, that when someone, who wills something simply so as to escape some disadvantage, wills that something (as throwing merchandise overboard into the sea to escape sinking) he wills simply to throw the merchandise overboard, for his will by commanding moves his power to throw overboard, and his will moves itself freely because it cannot be compelled. He is willing simply, then, when he throws the merchandise overboard, but he wills against it in a certain respect, that is he wills against it under a certain condition, because he would will against it if he could save his life in another way.

B. About an Adult who is not Willing

70. If the adult dissents in both ways, I say that he does not receive the sacrament, because God says through Wisdom, Proverbs 23.26, “Sons, give me your heart,” as he does not want anyone who is altogether unwilling to be ascribed to his family; but someone who receives baptism is ascribed thereby to the family of Christ.

71. Nor is it necessary here to distinguish between the one who cries out or protests his dissent by an exterior sign and the one who does not cry out, because if in real truth there is dissent, it is altogether the same as regard God and the truth; but as to the judgment of the Church (which judges of things manifest and presumes that one who keeps silent consents), he who cries out will not be compelled to observance of the Christian religion, but he who does not cry out will be compelled.

72. Nor can the Church here be accused because an injury is done to him who wills against [baptism] but does not cry out; for it is a lesser evil to him that he keep the Christian Law than that he be permitted to act with impunity against it; because it is a lesser evil to do good things against one’s will and to escape evil things than to do freely and with impunity evil things and to lose good things.

73. But if the adult dissents in a certain respect but consents simply (and does so, I say, not only to the washing [of baptism] as if to a certain bath, but to the washing in the way the Church intends to do it), he receives the sacrament, because simply he is willing, although in a certain respect unwilling.

74. And about such an adult the Council of Toledo speaks, which is cited in Decretals III tit. 42 ch.3, Gregory IX, “Those who now a long time ago were compelled into Christianity (because it is already clear that they have been made associates in the divine sacraments) should be compelled to keep the faith that they by necessity took up, lest the name of the Lord be blasphemed and the faith they took up be held as cheap and contemptible.”

75. An example of this: whatever is the way that someone is able to consent to the washing [of baptism], the washing is received in the way in which it is conferred by the Church - and yet, let that someone be unwilling (provided he could escape torments), because he does not believe the washing is worth anything.

76. An example can also be taken from him who does not believe that the words of the ritual formula can have any effect, yet he concedes to the intoner of them that he is saying the formula over him with the intention with which he is wont to say it, saying in his heart ‘Let the formula be worth as much as it can be worth’ - this person should truly be said to have been intoned over; and if such formula intoned over someone were said to be ‘consecration of him to the devil’, he would also be consecrated to the devil.

77. Now the difference of this case, ‘he who dissents in a certain respect’, from the preceding one [n.70], is plain, because he who is simply dissenting does not at all receive the sacrament; and for this reason he would, when the dissent ceases, have to be baptized simply; but he who simply consents, though he dissent in a certain respect, has been baptized, and therefore when this dissent in a certain respect ceases, he is not to be baptized again.

78. But if someone consents only negatively [n.68] I say that he receives the sacrament, because God wills not to bind man to what is impossible or (according to the state of this life) to something too difficult. But now ‘not being distracted’ seems too difficult for man in this state of life, because, according to Augustine On Free Choice 3.25 n.255, “It is not in our power what things when seen we are touched by;” therefore God willed not to set down the salvation of man with the condition ‘if he not be distracted’. Therefore, he did not want to oblige anyone, in receiving baptism, not to be distracted [on distraction, cf. Scotus Lectura III d.17 n.26].

79. And so it is universally with all the other sacraments; for the priest, in confecting the sacrament [of the eucharist], is not obliged (I mean, necessarily) to the fact that he not be distracted; for a distracted priest truly confects, provided however that before, while he was robing, he intend to celebrate mass according to the manner of the Church.

80. And if you ask, let it be that someone not consenting actually yet consenting virtually (in the way that the example about the celebrating priest is posited [n.79]), receive the sacrament, does not he too surely receive it who consents only in habit (and the distinction between these, habitually and virtually, is plain in Ord. II d.41 n.10)? And let it be that he does, does not he too surely receive it who only negatively does not consent, and he too surely who only negatively does not dissent, because he has neither the opposite habit nor the opposite act?

81. About the first [he who consents only in habit] it could be said that such a one is judged to be consenting in habit because he at sometime had actual consent with no dissent intervening. And such a one, though using reason, receives the sacrament, because he does not for any condition seem to be less capable if he is using reason than if, having used it before, he is not using it now. But in such a one who is not using reason now, yet having used it before, habitual consent would also be sufficient; therefore, here too.

82. About the second [he who negatively neither consents nor dissents, n.80], although it were difficult to find such a person, especially one who had sometime thought of baptism before, because either it would have pleased him then to be baptized or it would not have pleased him (indeed would have displeased him), and according to his last movement he would be judged to be such in habit for the future; yet if someone were wholly not consenting nor dissenting, both actually and in habit, and yet he is using reason, he would not be capable of baptism; for from the fact he is using reason he ought to have, or have had, some devotion for the sacrament, if it has to be valid for him - for otherwise he would seem to be contemning it.

II. To the Initial Arguments

83. To the first argument [n.57] I say that in baptism there is more properly an adoption to sonship than to marriage, because a child cannot properly be said to contract a marriage since he does not have use of reason, the use of which is required for any contract. But in adoption the consent or act alone of the adopter suffices even if the one adopted has no consent or act.

84. To the second [in fact the third, n.59] I say that malice can exist in the minister or insofar as he is minister (namely in administering badly), either because he does not believe well or because he does not intend to confer the sacrament. And this malice, especially the malice of not intending, prevents the sacrament from being conferred more than does the malice of morals in the recipient (and the reason will be stated in the following distinction [d.5 nn.18, 24]). Now there can be another malice of the minister, not insofar as he is minister, but concomitant (as that he is in mortal sin); and this does not prevent the sacrament from being conferred. It is plain, therefore, that the intention of the minister impedes the sacrament but not any other malice. But it does not follow from this that the non-intention of the recipient impedes it, because in a second agent there is required also what per se belongs to the agent, and this is the ‘to intend’ in an agent acting by reason, but intention does not belong per se to the recipient insofar as he is such.

85. To the third [in fact the second, n.58] one must say that if the adult to be baptized willingly intends to renounce the devil and his pomps, everything that precedes the reception of baptism is not of the necessity of the sacrament, but belongs only to its solemnity.

86. To the next [n.60] I concede that the custom of the Church is good one, because the Church baptizes no adult unless he respond for himself; and it is a praiseworthy and reasonable custom, so that he be ascribed to the family of Christ who is willing. But although he not respond, namely because he does not have use of reason (as someone asleep), the sacrament could be conferred on him, provided however he is consenting in habit. But as was said before [n.67], it is not expedient to do this but to wait for the time when he may actually consent.