Baptismal differences

[Departed_Light]

I think the school of thoughts about water baptism can be reduced to two basic camps.

1. Baptism is efficacious and leaves an indelible mark on the soul and establishes the person in the Christian community.
2. Baptism is an outward symbol of an inward work.

Does this matter?

If either is true and the other false does it matter what we think about it? Is the spiritual reality of baptism effected by what we think about it?

For the sake of argument and since this is a Catholic site: Let’s say the Catholic view is true and the other false. If a person is baptized in the Trinitarian formula in an ecclesial community that adheres to the idea of symbolic baptism and this person converts to Catholicism he is not baptized again, right? He just agrees to have a different understanding of the event.

Is the view of baptism one as the “non-essential” points of view that keep Christian communities divided?

 

[Jim_Dandy]

I think the school of thoughts about water baptism can be reduced to two basic camps.

1. Baptism is efficacious and leaves an indelible mark on the soul and establishes the person in the Christian community.
2. Baptism is an outward symbol of an inward work.

Does this matter?

If either is true and the other false does it matter what we think about it? Is the spiritual reality of baptism effected by what we think about it?

For the sake of argument and since this is a Catholic site: Let’s say the Catholic view is true and the other false. If a person is baptized in the Trinitarian formula in an ecclesial community that adheres to the idea of symbolic baptism and this person converts to Catholicism he is not baptized again, right? He just agrees to have a different understanding of the event.

Is the view of baptism one as the “non-essential” points of view that keep Christian communities divided?

1. Yes, it matters. No, what we think about Baptism does not affect the reality of it.
2. If validly baptized, a person is not baptized again by the Catholic Church. Baptism is a once-in-a-lifetime event.
3. Do you mean divided from the Mother Church, the Catholic Church, or divided from other Christian communities? Catholics don’t usually think in “essential” or “non-essential” categories. When one becomes a Catholic, one professes to believe “everything the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church teaches” (from the Profession of Faith).

Former Southern Baptist, agnostic, atheist