Folia Theologica 20. (2009)

Barbour Hugh: The Cosmology of Catholic Worship: Pre-Socratic Sacraments? A Consideration by a disciple of St. Thomas Qauinas

THE COSMOLOGY OF CATHOLIC WORSHIP

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miliar structure of a scholastic question. So I will do today. First I offer the question at issue in the most general and formal way, then I present the opposing answers to the question and the arguments in their favor, and then I present the general sense of my resolution, and then finally proceed to the resolution of the opposing arguments: Utrum, videtur cjuod, respondeo dicendum, ad primum et cetera dicendum.

So here is the question for our article:

Utrum intelligentia theologica ordinis sacramentalis a Christo instituti exigat usum philosophiae perennis quo sacramenta exponantur uti signa ex materia et forma composita singillatim applicata ut singuli homines ad salutem aeternam perveniant?

Which being interpreted is "Whether the theological understanding of the sacramental order instituted by Christ requires the use of the philosophia perennis whereby the sacraments are expounded as signs composed of matter and form individually applied so that individual men might arrive at eternal life?

Videtur quod non.

Obiectiones

First Objection: from the question of the salvation of infants who die before baptism.

In 2007 the International Theological Commission published a study entitled On the Hope of Salvation for Infants Who Die Without Being Baptised.4 The document itself presents contemporary pastoral needs as the reason for the undertaking of the study, that is, the large numbers of infants who die violently, or of starvation, and of the multitude of beings produced by artificial technologies of reproduction. After reviewing the traditional and common teaching of the Church as found in the Scriptures, Fathers, and Scholastic Doctors, the commission saw fit to hold suggest that the equivalent of justification through baptism might be obtained through the infant's enduring of bodily death in conformity with the death and struggle of Christ, or the undergoing of a martyrdom of sorts by violent death, or simply as a free gift. The document states:

4 http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/cti_documents / rc_con_cfaith_doc_20070419_un-baptised-infants_en. html