How Do You Interact With Christians Who Report Something Other Than Ba

[Little Flower]

Every time I see the title of this topic on the main page for the phorum listed as the last one with posts (if that made sense ) I always think it says "How do you interact with children". because it says "how do you interact with ch". And I [i]always [/i]think it says children, and wonder why there's a topic like that on the Debate Table, and then I click it and realize I read it wrong

[Mark of the Cross]

[quote name='cooterhein' timestamp='1320450282' post='2331472']
The effects and/or power of baptism can be summarized like this: It had the effect of getting me wet, and it happened to be powerful cold. I was baptized in the late 90's. That is not when God regenerated me. He regenerated me about 8 years later.

I'm describing them as happening at completely separate times because that's the way it happened. And the truth is, that's usually how it goes down with folks that aren't baptized as infants. This includes many converts to Catholicism, although they tend to be a little uncomfortable with talking to other Catholics about it.

Edit- maybe not uncomfortable in every situation, but it's not the kind of thing a Catholic convert will typically bring up on their own.
[/quote]
When the seed is planted and when the tree is ready to fruit are two different events.

[Ed Normile]

[quote name='Basilisa Marie' timestamp='1320364381' post='2330997']
I'm sorta confused...

But if you're talking about conversion experiences, then that's not a weird concept to Catholics. Infant baptism isn't actually the "normal" way to get baptized - adult baptism is. Most Catholic families just do the "abnormal" way because parents plan to raise their kids Catholic, and why wait? Plus Catholics believe that baptism isn't the only experience of salvation. Conversion is a life-long process full of experiences of grace, of turning back to God and rededicating one's life back to God. God calls us in different ways at different times in our lives. Everyone's faith life is different. So...it doesn't seem like an issue to me.
[/quote]

Actually for Catholics infant baptism is the "Normal" way, as we believe that children are born with the stain of original sin on there souls and if they should die before being baptized they may not get to heaven, now we know that we can rely on the Infinite Mercy of Jesus and must trust in His Mercy in cases such as these but infant baptism is the "Normal" way amongst catholics. The point at which a child matures in the faith is when that child acting in the age of reason reaffirms their Catholic faith through the Sacrament of Confirmation.

ed

[Mark of the Cross]

[quote name='cooterhein' timestamp='1320360988' post='2330960']
I was regenerated about 8 years after I was baptized. That's the way it happened.
[/quote]
Maybe you're confusing encounters with God as being born again. It is possible to have more than one such event in the course of a life time, in fact many are possible. You might drift along for years with not much happening. But then suddenly God will call on you to do something, which may seem an astronomically spiritual event. Then things may go quiet again for years while you and he work away in the background like the little hour glass. It's all part of a plan which you can't see.

[cooterhein]

[quote name='nunsense' timestamp='1320456677' post='2331570']I guess I don't really understand what you mean by regeneration so it's hard to use a word that means something different to each of us.[/quote]Regeneration means becoming a Christian because of something that God does to you, and that thing is called regenerating you. It's a spiritual transformation from a state of being that is spiritually dead (or unregenerate) to spiritually alive (regenerate). This act of God (more specifically, the Holy Spirit) also coincides with the singular point in time at which the Holy Spirit begins indwelling a person. I emphasize the idea that it's a singular point in time because there is, of course, a good deal of process-oriented work that God does over the rest of a person's life once He's in there. But there is always one precise, singular, watershed moment at which an individual stops being the only person inside their meatsuit and starts sharing it with the third person of the Trinity. That begins when the Holy Spirit begins indwelling you, and it's one of the best ways to pinpoint when you were regenerated.

I think the main difference in our vocabulary has to do with grace, and the different adjectives you like to attach to it. I'm not talking about being indwelt by a person named Grace, though. I'm talking about being indwelt by a person named the Holy Spirit, and I'm not entirely sure that we really are talking about the same thing there.

Other terms that are roughly synonymous with "regeneration"- renovation, resurrection, new life, born again, new birth, born from above, born of water and the Spirit or just born of the Spirit, baptized with the Holy Spirit and with fire or just baptized with the Holy Spirit, becoming a new creature, dying to sin and living to righteousness, conversion, translation from darkness to light.

[quote]I don't use the word because I don't think we mean the same thing when we use it. The Catholic faith has its own words for spiritual experiences that may not coincide or mean the same things as your choice of words.[/quote]You're absolutely right. I think there is enough overlap for us to have a discussion, though. For example, one of the terms used by Catholics is "baptismal regeneration."

[quote][size=3]Last Sunday we celebrated the baptism of Jesus and [url="http://www.frtommylane.com/homilies/years_abc/baptism_of_our_lord-4.htm"]we reflected on everything we do in the Church because of Jesus[/url]. The sacraments come from Jesus. We are baptized because Jesus was baptized and commanded that all be baptized. The Gospel today allows us to continue to reflect on the Sacrament of Baptism. In the Gospel today John said he came baptizing with water (1:31) but Jesus would baptize with the Holy Spirit (John 1:33). So there is a huge difference between the baptism offered by John and the baptism offered by Jesus. John’s baptism was a sign of repentance, turning from sin back to God again. But John’s baptism did not bring about a change in the person by itself, although it was a sign of the person’s desire to leave sin. On the other hand the baptism of Jesus gives the Holy Spirit. When we are baptized we are profoundly changed. The change is so great that the quality of our soul is transformed. Baptism is not just something external, not just a certificate we receive on paper, but [url="http://www.frtommylane.com/homilies/years_abc/baptism_of_our_lord-2.htm#conformed_to_christ"]we are profoundly changed in our soul[/url]. That is why baptism is received only once because it leaves a mark forever on our soul. We often call that mark a seal. (Theologians call this an ontological change.) Baptism puts a seal on our souls. This is why baptism is the first sacrament we receive. Baptism, Confirmation, and Holy Orders are the three sacraments that seal our souls forever, changing them forever, which is why we receive them only once.[/size]

[size=3]The reason why [url="http://www.frtommylane.com/homilies/years_abc/baptism_of_our_lord-2.htm#conformed_to_christ"]the quality of our soul is changed at baptism[/url] is because Jesus’ baptism is baptism with the Holy Spirit while John’s baptism was only water baptism and did not give the Holy Spirit. When Jesus was baptized he received an outpouring of the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove coming down and resting on him (John 1:32). This also shows the profound difference between the baptism of John and the baptism of Jesus.[/size][/quote]My soul was not profoundly changed when I was baptized with water. The quality of my soul was not one bit different after I was baptized as compared to how it was before. There was simply no change. You have a teaching, you believe it, and that is nice. But it fails the reality test. It didn't actually work out that way. There are things that I disagree with from the passage that have to do with Biblical interpretation, but that's not my main focus here- my main focus is on a reality check.

[quote]The other times that the soul receives a special mark or seal are:


[size=4][color=#000080]Three sacraments, Baptism, Confirmation, and Holy Orders, are given once, as they render a permanent seal or character upon one's soul (2 Corinthians 1:21-22, Ephesians 4:30, Revelations 7:3).[/color][/size][/quote]There is a specific point in my life when God regenerated me and permanently changed me from a non-Christian to a child of God, but it did not correspond with any type of sacrament or ordinance. It didn't even correspond to the first year in which I asked Him to do this. It happened when God did it. As it so happens, the time at which He chose to do it does not correspond to any of the times at which you've indicated that you would expect Him to do it.

[quote]You say that you were not regenerated at baptism. I don't know what you mean by that - you were certainly marked with the seal of God on this day, whether you are aware of it or not (if it was a valid baptism). What you experience as 'regeneration' may not be something that the Catholic church recognises if you are dissociating it from the Sacraments.[/quote]Here's the situation. I was raised in a devout Christian home and was therefore steeped in church and raised to self-identify as a Christian. I was baptized in the late 90's. About six years later, though, I began having some concerns about the reality of my Christian identity which I won't go into detail about here, but this should be sufficient: Throughout the course of that sixth year post-baptism, I assessed whether God had ever done any of the things that I listed earlier in the post. I didn't want to identify as anything other than a Christian, but I had to make sure God was really doing something to me personally and that it wasn't just a family and church-related association. So I examined myself over the course of many months, asking whether I really knew the difference between being a child of God vs. the opposite of that as a result of experiential knowledge. I asked myself whether the Holy Spirit had ever indwelt me, and if so, what should I be looking for in terms of what He's doing, did I ever have experiential knowledge of the starting-point of His indwelling, and what has He actually been doing lately, if anything. Did my life include a period of time where I was unable to act in obedience to God in certain ways, but then God began enabling me to do so because of what He was doing within me. More than anything, I wanted to find that all of these things had happened and God was within me and at work.

But as it turns out, He wasn't. Despite being raised in a Christian home and being involved in church to the extent that relatively conservative, faithful, devout Christians still tended to see us as a family of "super-Christians," and despite being six years removed from being baptized, I was striking out in all aspects of self-examination. The Holy Spirit was not indwelling me, I had never been renovated or regenerated or born again, God wasn't doing anything within me, and I'd never gotten any supernatural assists in my attempts at obedience to God. None of that had happened. I didn't want to reach that conclusion, and I fought it every step of the way. But that was the reality of the situation, uncomfortable as it might have been. So I started asking God to start doing all of those things, or do them on a one-time basis as the case might be.

It got to be a really uncomfortable situation when God didn't immediately do any of them. I had to wait for quite some time. But around 8 years after I was baptized, God did all of them. Ever since, I've been indwelt by God and He's been doing all the stuff the Holy Spirit is supposed to do within a Christian. None of it had happened before, but God started doing it around 8 years after I was baptized.

So here's what we're looking at. We both know regeneration is a one-time thing, and it doesn't happen twice. But we're looking at two different times when something may or may not have happened. On one hand, we're looking at the time when I was baptized with water in the late 90's. According to you, I received a singular but still rather non-specific seal. I was easily unaware of it, and at best, it served as an 8-year-long bookmark that falls well short of a guarantee that God will actually do anything in the future. And on the other hand, there's the time 8 years later when God actually did all those things that He hadn't ever done to me previously.

But only one of those things can properly be called regeneration- that is to say, the process by which God causes a person to become a Christian. So my perspective is that the "seal" thing that you describe- even if it did happen without my knowledge- did not cause me to become a Christian, and it falls well short of anything that can properly be described as "regeneration" (in this case, the type that ostensibly happens at baptism). Continuing with my perspective, the stuff that all happened 8 years later [b]is[/b] regeneration, whereas the secret seal thing (even if it did happen) [b]is not[/b] regeneration.

And I presume you would then support the perspective where the secret seal is regeneration, but all of the other things- indwelling of the Holy Spirit, divine help and enabling to live as a Christian, spiritual renewal, a state of being that goes from un-renovate to renovated- this is not regeneration. Or perhaps you would suggest that God secretly began the process, but I only realized the fruits of it 8 years later.

But then there's one other thing for you to consider- what about a situation where things happen in the opposite order? What about when God does all those things to someone and then they get baptized (with water) 5 or 8 or 10 years [b]after[/b]? What's the explanation there? I understand the argument for planting the seed and bearing fruit, but what about when fruit is legitimately borne well before the alleged seed-planting happens? Is there a retroactive explanation for how someone could really and truly be a Christian well before being baptized, even though baptism is supposed to be the cause of it?


[quote]As far as I am concerned, whether I was aware of it consciously or not, at my baptism, I was 'regenerated' in the context that my soul was wiped clean of sin and I had a spiritual rebirth into Christ. I don't know what you mean by the word regeneration however unless you would care to try to describe your meaning more fully to us.[/quote]You believe you were regenerated when you were baptized. I know this. But perhaps you don't understand what I'm doing here. I'm strenuously emphasizing the connection between the doctrine that you believe and the reality of what actually happens. Do you believe you were regenerated at baptism simply because it's something you believe, or can you testify to something that was confirmed by reality?

This is a reality check. This is not a careful examination of the finer points of your belief system, although I don't mind if that happens to. But the top priority here is the reality test. You believe something is supposed to happen at baptism, but it often does not. This is basically an exercise in seeing how you interact with reality when it doesn't match up with a basic Catholic teaching. Are you able to be flexible with the teaching, at least to the extent that you can believe reality-based facts when they are clearly presented to you? Or does it force you to disbelieve specific things that all kinds of Christians testify to on a regular basis?

I know what happened to me. I know what God did, and I know when He did it. I have an exceptionally detailed grasp of what happened and when it happened. This is reality. This is the thing that doesn't budge or change or conform to anything. So believe it or don't. I am curious to see how you interact with it, though, because full understanding of a flawed doctrine requires a detailed understanding of what happens when it runs into a reality that contradicts what it says should be happening instead.

[Lisa]

Answering the original question. I would interact with them the same way I try to interact with everyone, whether they share the same beliefs with me or not: sharing the truth with love while finding common ground on many large issues.

I am very happy that you have had an experience that allowed you to embrace the call that was there at baptism to follow Him. I would disagree, however, that that you can 100% know how God is working in your soul. He might have changed something there, maybe it just took you a long time to recognize it? I don't claim to know your situation, but sometimes a conversion/reversion experiences happens so subtly- first a change in morals (some of the big picture items), then a beginning of belief in His divinity, and leading to an abiding change of life and heart.

In fact, this seems to be one of the more compelling reasons to me for how most Catholics receive the Sacraments; we are opening ourselves up to God's grace and how he works in our lives, even if it is a little at a time.