Autor: Stebbins, J. Michael

Buch: The Divine Initiative

Titel: The Divine Initiative

Stichwort: Kindertaufe; Schwierigkeit d. Erklärung der Kindstaufe im Rahmen d. psychologischen Erklärung d. Gnade; Anselm

Kurzinhalt: Within the framework of the psychological notion of grace, the state of justice tended to be conceived wholly in terms of acts: to possess faith meant actually to believe,

Textausschnitt: 26/3 Another of the speculative difficulties faced by the early scholastics had to do with infant baptism (GO:27-3O; GF:8-9, 16-17). Again, the dogmatic issue was not at stake; the theologians aligned themselves with the longstanding practice of the church, which was predicated on the belief that infants are in fact saved through the reception of the sacrament. But difficulties arose when it came to explaining why the sacrament has this efficacy. Within the framework of the psychological notion of grace, the state of justice tended to be conceived wholly in terms of acts: to possess faith meant actually to believe, to possess charity meant actually to love God above all things. It was not apparent, therefore, how one could speak of baptized infants as justified, since they plainly lack the requisite operations of believing and willing. (75; Fs) (notabene)
27/3 One way of approaching the problem was to sidestep it entirely, and so some theologians went no further than to repeat the Augustinian claim that the infant is justified by receiving the sacrament of faith even though it does not make an act of faith. For the more speculatively inclined, Anselm provided an ingenious solution: infants are not justified by baptism, but they are forgiven for the fault they have inherited from Adam; if they die in this state 'they are saved as if they were just [quasi iusti] by the justice of Christ, who gave himself for them, and by the justice of the faith of the church their mother, which believes on their behalf.' This approach exerted a great deal of influence on early scholastic speculation. By the twelfth century, the speculative issue came to be expressed more technically in terms of the question whether a virtue is a quality or a motion. The tenacity of the Anselmian position is evident from the fact that as late as 1201 it won the tentative approbation of Innocent III, who found it more persuasive than the view that through baptism infants are justified by receiving the infused virtues in the form of habits rather than in the form of acts. (75; Fs)