Are Catholics Born Again?

“Have you been born again?” the Fundamentalist at the door asks the unsuspecting Catholic. The question is usually a segue into a vast doctrinal campaign that leads many ill-instructed Catholics out of the Catholic Church. How? By making them think there is a conflict between the Bible and the Catholic Church over being “born again.”

To be honest, most Catholics probably do not understand the expression “born again.” Yes, they believe in Jesus. And yes, they try to live Christian lives. They probably have some vague awareness that Fundamentalists think being “born again” involves a religious experience or “accepting Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior.” Many cradle Catholics, too, have had their moments of closeness to God, even of joy over God's love and mercy. They may even have had “conversion experiences” of sorts, committing themselves to take their faith seriously and to live more faithfully as disciples of Jesus. But the cradle Catholic probably cannot pinpoint any particular moment in his life when he dropped to his knees and “accepted Jesus” for the first time. As far back as he can recall, he has believed, trusted and loved Jesus as Savior and Lord. Does that prove he has never been “born again”?

Not “the Bible way,” says the Fundamentalist. But the Fundamentalist is wrong there. He misunderstands what the Bible says about being “born again.” Unfortunately, few Catholics understand the biblical use of the term, either. As a result, pastors, deacons, catechists, parents and others responsible for religious education have their work cut out for them. It would be helpful, then, to review the biblical — and Catholic — meaning of the term “born again.”

The only biblical use of the term “born again” occurs in John 3:3-5 — although, as we shall see, similar and related expressions such as “new birth” and ,regeneration” occur elsewhere in Scripture (Titus 3:5; 1 Pet 1:3, 23). In John 3:3, Jesus tells Nicodemus, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” The Greek expression translated “born again” (gennathei anothen) also means “born from above.” Jesus, it seems, makes a play on words with Nicodemus, contrasting earthly life, or what theologians would later dub natural life (“what is born of flesh”), with the new life of heaven, or what they would later call supernatural life (“what is born of Spirit”).

Nicodemus' reply: “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born?” (John 3:4). Does he simply mistake Jesus to be speaking literally or is Nicodemus himself answering figuratively, meaning, “How can an old man learn new ways as if he were a child again?” We cannot say for sure, but in any case Jesus answers, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, `You must be born again.”' (John 3:5-7).

Here Jesus equates “born again” or “born from above” with “born of water and the Spirit.” If, as the Catholic Church has always held, being “born of water and the Spirit” refers to baptism, then it follows that being “born again” or “born from above” means being baptized.

Clearly, the context implies that born of “water and the Spirit” refers to baptism. The Evangelist tells us that immediately after talking with Nicodemus, Jesus took his disciples into the wilderness where they baptized people (John 3:22). Furthermore, water is closely linked to the Spirit throughout John's Gospel (for instance, in Jesus' encounter with the Samaritan woman at the well in John 4:9-13) and in the Johannine tradition (cf. 1 John 5:7). It seems reasonable, then, to conclude that John the Evangelist understands Jesus' words about being “born again” and “born of water and the Spirit” to have a sacramental, baptismal meaning.

Fundamentalists who reject baptismal regeneration usually deny that “born of water and the Spirit” in John 3:5 refers to baptism. Some argue that “water” refers to the “water of childbirth.” On this view, Jesus means that unless one is born of water (at his physical birth) and again of the Spirit (in a spiritual birth), he cannot enter the kingdom of God.

A major problem with this argument, however, is that while Jesus does contrast physical and spiritual life, he clearly uses the term “flesh” for the former, in contrast to “Spirit” for the latter. Jesus might say, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of flesh and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God” — though it would be obvious and absurdly redundant to say that one must be born (i.e., born of flesh) in order to be born again (i.e., born of the Spirit). But using “born of water and the Spirit” to mean “born of the flesh and then of the Spirit” would only confuse things by introducing the term “water” from out of nowhere, without any obvious link to the term “flesh.” Moreover, while the flesh is clearly opposed to the Spirit and the Spirit clearly opposed to the flesh in this passage, the expression “born of water and the Spirit” implies no such opposition. It is not “water” vs. “the Spirit,” but “water and the Spirit.”

Furthermore, the Greek of the text suggests that “born of water and the Spirit” (literally “born of water and spirit”) refers to a single, supernatural birth over against natural birth (“born of the flesh”). The phrase “of water and the Spirit” (Greek, ek hudatos kai pneumatos) is a single linguistical unit. It refers to being “born of water and the Spirit,” not “born of water” on the one hand and “born of the Spirit” on the other.

Another argument used by opponents of baptismal regeneration: “born of water and the Spirit” refers, correspondingly, to the baptism of John (being “born of water”) and the baptism of the Spirit (being “born of ... the Spirit”), which John promised the coming Messiah would effect. Thus, on this view, Jesus says, “Unless a man is born of water through John's baptism and of the Spirit through my baptism, he cannot enter the Kingdom of God.”

We have already seen that, according to the Greek, “born of water and the Spirit” refers to a single thing, a single spiritual birth. Thus, the first half of the phrase cannot apply to one thing (John's baptism) and the second half to something else entirely (Jesus' baptism). But even apart from the linguistical argument, if “born of water” refers to John's baptism, then Jesus is saying that in order to be “born again” or “born from above” one must receive John's baptism of water (“born of water ...”) and the Messiah's baptism of the Spirit (“. . . and Spirit”). That would mean only those who have been baptized by John could enter the kingdom of God—which would drastically reduce the population of heaven. In fact, no one holds that people must receive John's baptism in order to enter the Kingdom — something now impossible. Therefore being “born of water . . .” cannot refer to John's baptism.

The most reasonable explanation for “born of water and the Spirit,” then, is that it refers to baptism. This is reinforced by many New Testament texts linking baptism, the Holy Spirit and regeneration. At Jesus' baptism, the Holy Spirit descends upon him as He comes up out of the water (cf. John 1:25-34; Matt 3:13-17; Mark 1:9-11; Luke 3:21-22). Furthermore, what distinguishes John's baptism of repentance in anticipation of the Messiah from Christian baptism, is that the latter is a baptism with the Holy Spirit (Matt 3:11; Mark 1:8; Luke 3:16; John 1:31; Acts 1:4-5).

Consequently, on Pentecost, Peter calls the Jews to “be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins” and promises that they will “receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:38), thus fulfilling the promise of John. Peter clearly teaches here that the “water baptism,” to which he directs the soon-to-be converts, forgives sins and bestows the Holy Spirit. Christian baptism, then, is no mere external, repentance-ritual with water, but entails an inner transformation or regeneration by the Holy Spirit of the New Covenant; it is a “new birth,” a being “born again” or “born from above.”

In Romans 6:3, Paul says, “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life” (RNAB). Baptism, says Paul, effects union with the death and resurrection of Christ, so that through it we die and rise to new life, a form of “regeneration.”

According to Titus 3:5, God “saved us through the washing of regeneration (paliggenesias) and renewal by the Holy Spirit.” Opponents of baptismal regeneration argue that the text refers only to the “washing (loutrou) of regeneration” rather than the “baptism of regeneration.” But baptism is certainly a form of washing and elsewhere in the New Testament it is described as a “washing away of sin.” For example, in Acts 22:16, Ananias tells Paul, “Get up, be baptized and wash your sins away, calling upon his name.” The Greek word used for the “washing away of sins” in baptism here is apolousai, essentially the same term used in Titus 3:5. Furthermore, since “washing” and “regeneration” are not ordinarily related terms, a specific kind of washing — one that regenerates — must be in view. The most obvious kind of washing which the reader would understand would be baptism, a point even many Baptist scholars, such as G.R. Beasley-Murray, admit. (See his book Baptism in the New Testament.)

In 1 Peter 1:3, it is stated that God has given Christians “a new birth to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.” The term “new birth” (Gk, anagennasas, “having regenerated”) appears synonymous with “born again” or “regeneration.” According to 1 Peter 1:23, Christians “have been born anew (Gk, anagegennamenoi, “having been regenerated”) not from perishable but from imperishable seed, through the living and abiding word of God.” From the word of the Gospel, in other words.

Opponents of baptismal regeneration argue that since the “new birth” mentioned in 1 Peter 1:3 and 23 is said to come about through the Word of God, being “born again” means accepting the Gospel message, not being baptized. This argument overlooks the fact that elsewhere in the New Testament accepting the gospel message and being baptized are seen as two parts of the one act of commitment to Christ.

In Mark 16:16, for instance, Jesus says, “Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved; whoever does not believe will be condemned.” “Believing”, i.e., accepting the Gospel, entails accepting baptism, which is the means by which one “puts on Christ” (Gal. 3:27) and is buried and raised with him to new life (Rom 6:3-5; Gal 2:12). Acts 2:41 says of the Jewish crowd on Pentecost, “Those who accepted his message were baptized . . .” It seems reasonable to conclude that those whom 1 Peter 1:23 describes as “having been born anew” or regenerated through the “living and abiding word of God” were also those who had been baptized. Thus, being “born of water and the Spirit” and being “born anew” through “the living and abiding word of God” describe different aspects of one thing — being regenerated in Christ. Being “born again” (or “from above”) in “water and the Spirit” refers to the external act of receiving baptism, while being “born anew” refers to the internal reception in faith of the Gospel (being “born anew” through “the living and abiding word of God”).

Moreover, baptism involves a proclamation of the Word, which is part of what constitutes it (i.e., “I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit”). To accept baptism is to accept the Word of God. There is no need, then, to see the operation of the Word of God in regeneration as something opposed to or separated from baptism.

Some Fundamentalists also object that being “born again” through baptismal regeneration contradicts the Pauline doctrine of justification by grace through faith. Implicit here is the idea that Christian baptism is a mere “human work” done to earn favor before God. In fact, Christian baptism is something that is done to one (one is baptized — passive), not something one does for oneself. The one who baptizes, according to the Bible, is Jesus Himself by the power of the Holy Spirit (cf. Jn 1:33). It makes no more sense to oppose baptism and faith in Christ to one another as means of regeneration than it does to oppose faith in Christ and the work of the Holy Spirit to one another. There is no either/or here; it is both/and.

Following the New Testament use of the term, the Catholic Church links regeneration or being “born again” in the life of the Spirit to the sacrament of baptism (CCC, nos. 1215,1265-1266). Baptism is not a mere human “work” one does to “earn” regeneration and divine sonship; it is the work of Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit, which, by grace, washes away sin and makes us children of God. It is central to the Catholic understanding of justification by grace. For justification is, as the Council of Trent taught, “a translation from that state in which man is born a child of the first Adam, to the state of grace and of the adoption of the sons of God through the second Adam, Jesus Christ” (Session 6, chapter 4). Baptism is an instrumental means by which God graciously justifies — that is, regenerates — sinners through faith in Jesus Christ and makes them children of God.

Catholic teaching is not opposed to a “religious experience” of conversion accompanying baptism (of adults) — far from it. But such an “experience” is not required. What is required for baptism to be fruitful (for an adult) is repentance from sin and faith in Christ, of which baptism is the sacrament (CCC, no. 1253). These are grace-enabled acts of the will that are not necessarily accompanied by feelings of being “born again.” Regeneration rests on the divinely established fact of incorporation and regeneration in Christ, not on feelings one way or the other.

This point can be driven home to Evangelicals by drawing on a point they often emphasize in a related context. Evangelicals often say that the act of having accepted Christ as “personal Savior and Lord” is the important thing, not whether feelings accompany that act. It is, they say, faith that matters, not feelings. Believe by faith that Christ is the Savior and the appropriate feelings, they say, will eventually follow. But even if they do not, what counts is the fact of having taken Christ as Savior.

Catholics can say something similar regarding baptism. The man who is baptized may not “feel” any different after baptism than before. But once he is baptized, he has received the Holy Spirit in a special way. He has been regenerated and made a child of God through the divine sonship of Jesus Christ in which he shares. He has been buried with Christ and raised to new life with Him. He has objectively and publicly identified himself with Jesus' death and resurrection. If the newly baptized man meditates on these things, he may or may not “feel” them, in the sense of some subjective religious experience. Nevertheless, he will believe them to be true by faith. And he will have the benefits of baptism into Christ nonetheless.

When Fundamentalists call themselves “born again Christians,” they want to stress an experience of having entered into a genuine spiritual relationship with Christ as Savior and Lord, in contradistinction to unbelief or a mere nominal Christianity. As we have seen, though, the term “born again” and its parallel terms “new birth” and “regeneration” are used by Jesus and the New Testament writers to refer to the forgiveness of sins and inner renewal of the Holy Spirit signified and brought about by Christ through baptism.

How, then, should a Catholic answer the question, “Have you been born again?” An accurate answer would be, “Yes, I was born again in baptism.” Yet leaving it at that may generate even more confusion. Most Fundamentalists would probably understand the Catholic to mean, “I'm going to heaven simply because I'm baptized.” In other words, the Fundamentalist would think the Catholic is “trusting in his baptism” rather than Christ, whereas the informed Catholic knows it means trusting in Christ with whom he is united in baptism.

The Catholic, then, should do more than simply point to his baptism; he should discuss his living faith, trust and love of Christ; his desire to grow in sanctity and conformity to Christ; and his total dependence on Christ for salvation. These are integral to the new life of the Holy Spirit that baptism bestows. When the Fundamentalist sees the link between baptism and the Holy Spirit in the life of his Catholic neighbor, he may begin to see that St. Paul was more than figurative when he wrote, “You were buried with Christ in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the power of God, who raised him from the dead” (Col 2:12).

If you've been saved the Holy Spirit will transform you and you become a new man.

So once you are saved, you are infallible? You cannot commit a sin? How do you KNOW you are saved if you can't state here and now that you are infallible?

Being saved doesn't mean that you're perfect ... being saved means that your on the path to perfection.

As long as you're on the path to perfection, ... you're fullfilling God's requirements for where He wants you to be.

Recall that a feature of our chritian status is that God has adopted us into His family.

He is now our Father ... and He treats us as His children.

Jesus said that we don't even have the capacity to be as loving to our own children ... as the Father is to His.

Most earthly parents recognize typical imperfection/disobedience in their own children ... as a sign that they have further to mature, ... rather than as a reason to cast them out. I'm convinced that God sees this in a similar way ...
John 6:37 All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.
For what offense would you disown your own child ?

Would you disown them because they missed the weekly family meeting ?

Psa 23:1-3 The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside quiet waters. He restores my soul; He guides me in the paths of righteousness For His name's sake.

The shepard/sheep relationship is an affirmation of the free will of man. Nobody would deny that sheep have free will. Sheep can and do leave the flock. If they leave the flock, they can and do die from predators, weather, etc. The benefits of being sheparded include warmth, food, water, protection etc.

In the same way, Christians are sheparded by Christ. If we don't choose to run away from the flock, Christ will do all the things mentioned in Psalm 23...sometimes even forcing our hand if need be. Sheep may be reluctant to go somewhere and the shepard may have to pick it up, but the shepard can only pick it up because it chooses to remain with the flock.

If we choose to walk outside of Christ's protection, then we are subject to the devil, the predator, and will die. If we are lost and trying to find our way back to the flock, then Christ will find us and lead us back, but if we continue to run away from Christ he will not chase us forever.

I don't understand why you evade the point I was making and steer the discussion in a different direction. But I will attempt to answer your question.

For Catholics and Orthodox, there is no inherited sin. What the Latin Church calls "original sin" is not sin in the usual sense. It is an inherited lack of original righteousness and does not condemn to hell (here the Western Church disagreed with and corrected Augustine, whereas no theologian in the East ever said that what they call "original mortality" condemns to hell). The condition of lack of original righteousness is inherited by being human, because we are born in solidarity with Adam. I was careful to point out that original sin is different from actual (freely chosen sin, after one knows the difference between right and wrong).

But baptism is not merely about freeing from hell because salvation in Christ is not merely about freeing from hell. Baptism incorporates into Christ, into the inner life of the Trinity, into Christ's body, the Church. It makes us into adopted children of God. So the baptized infant, who cannot ever have committed actual sin, is freed from the condition of original "sin" (the missing original righteousness that Adam and Eve forfeited for us all is restored to the descendent of Adam and Eve) and far more important, incorporated into the very innner life of God as an adopted son (Jn 1, Jn 3). The child can throw all this away once he learns the difference between right and wrong and deliberately chooses knowingly to do wrong. But the blood of Christ can free him from such sins committed once he reaches the age of knowledge of right and wrong, if he repents of those sins and seeks forgiveness in the "second plank after baptism (Jerome), the sacrament of confession.

Even after baptism an inclination toward sin remains (concupiscence) but this is not sin in any sense of the word.

Your question "If The blood of Christ takes away all sin and the parents have been baptized then how would the child inherit sin?" arises from your misreading, from your having read the phrase "blood of Christ takes away all sin" in the way you are accustomed to think of this process. Of course the blood of Christ takes away all sins but not against the will of the sinner. The parents' sins are taken away in their baptisms but other unrepentant sinners' sins are not taken away. You are reading "takes away" in an automatic, puppetry sense: in your view, apparenlty sin is wiped out of the world by the sacrifice of Christ and people are saved without any involvement on their part, though you Calvinists believe that this applies only to the elect.

I am not a Calvinist and my exposition of baptism was not a Calvinist exposition. So, when I spoke of baptism taking away sins, I simply assumed that it applied to the sins of the baptizee, not to anyone else. So, for baptized parents, it applies to their sins but has nothing to say to their children (who have no sins anyway but do have the condition of original sin). Since you believe that Christ takes away sins without reference to baptism, for you it's a "class act"--the blood of Christ takes away sins for the class of the elect but not for the reprobate, with no regard for whether Elect A or B or X or Y has been baptized or not. For us, baptism takes away sins and baptism is an act applied to an individual person, not a class of people.

This serves to illustrate how easy it is for one person to read his own beliefs into what he reads.

You err in reading the text from Peter "Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ" You gloss it as follows: "Clearly Peter is directing the readers attention away from the outward, symbolic, physical water (i.e. removal of dirt from the body) and to the inward cleansing which is accomplished by the Holy Spirit (a good conscience)."

Now what is "clear" to you was as clear as mud to the apostles and those who sat at their feet and those who sat at their feet (the Fathers of the Church) and remains muddy to me.

I think we would agree that Peter is contrasting two things ("not as" and "but as"). Can we agree so far?

But what if the one he rejects is simply the most literal normal meaning of washing in water: when you pour water over yourself, it washes physical dirt away. (Your reading simply ignores this very basic level of meaning and jumps to a choice between two figurative meanings. But why would not Peter have been rejecting the most basic, most obvious literal meaning when he sets out to make a contrast? That's the normal way one does figurative and literal.)

The literal meaning of physical washing of nothing but physical dirt from the body with water is the meaning Peter rejects. Then he goes on to what he really means.

This really hysical water does a truly spiritual cleansing. In order for his analogy to work, there has to be something similar and something different: the similar is that the wet, physical water truly accomplishes something; the very dissimilar is that this that it accomplishes is not physical cleansing from physical dirt but a spiritual cleansing of the whole person from sin and into adopted sonship.

Your reading cannot be correct because you bust up the analogy. In your reading, the water plays no real creaturely, only a figurative, role. The cleansing is purely spiritual, involving a "spiritual water." Our Catholic and Orthodox reading takes account of the real down-to-earth role of water (all the sacraments involve real creaturely vehicles to accomplish real supernatural goals) and real out-of-this-world supernatural power.

You can insist on your reading as you wish, but ours takes account of the Incarnation: Jesus was truly, really down-to-earth really human, creaturely and really, truly out of this world divine at the same time. Our sacraments are exactly that, each of them employing some of God's good creatures to transform us into something greater than this merely creaturely world.

Your approach to these matters leaves us as mere creatures with an overlay of spiritual power. You split the divine and human into separate spheres that remain unintegrated. This is not what happened in the Incarnation and in thus refusing to recognize how the Incarnation once and for all changed the entire relation between Creator and Creature because the Creator united himself personally, integratedly, with the creature, you hollow out the central meaning of the event of our salvation. (Your theology corresponds to Nestorianism, in case you want the technical specs).

You, of course, wlll accuse us of idolatry in believing that the creaturely water in its waterness (waterness now transformed by the Holy Spirit into WATERNESS) cleanses us body and soul. You let the water remean merely [water] that tags along for the ride while the real power is entirely spiritual. You can have your spiritualizing theology if you wish, but we believe that Christ himself showed us this new creation, this new transformative ability of his (Christ's) creatures--not just any old creature but the ones he designated to be combined with the words he gave us (water, oil, bread, wine, the consent of spouses in marriage etc.), we believe this only because Christ demonstrated it in his own body when it hung on the cross and rose from the dead and that he authorized it when he commanded us to do things with water and with bread and wine that, had he not commanded them, we would have believed utterly impossible.

We follow his simple commands and example, as hard as it is to believe that water or bread or wine can do these monumental, stupendous things. But we believe it because he said so.

And that, my friend, is what Peter meant when he wrote those words. Peter saw before his very eyes what the creaturely thing (Christ's human nature, body, soul, mind, heart) was capable of and was humble enough to realize that if this transformative power of the creature was possible in the person of Christ, then nothing could ever be the same again; water would never be the same again, bread and wine never the same again when used as commanded by Christ to transform mere creatures into adopted begotten ones of God.

You turn your back on what the Church believed and taught from Peter and Paul onward for more than 1000 years. Turn your back on it if you must, but before you do, on why beg God for understanding to consider whether, perhaps, this reading of the event of the Incarnation and its aftermath might not be what Jesus himself taught to his apostles.

"So you don't need to do anything since you one day found faith? So if you wanted to gamble and fornicate, that makes no difference in your salvation?"
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A couple points I will try to explain. At the time I truly placed my FAITH in JESUS CHRIST and his sacrifice for me at Calvary the Holy Spirit came upon me and began to convict me of my sin and help guide me in my daily walk. The desire to commit sin falls away as you mature, does it ever go away completely no. Do we make mistakes, yes. So in answer to your question if I were to gamble or fornicate after being saved, yes I would be still saved!

I do not control this free gift from GOD. The gift of GRACE (GOD'S RICHES AT CHRIST'S EXPENSE) is GOD'S blessing to us.
If you assume that your works determine the status of your grace then logically it stands to reason you are saying you can control GOD. We are GOD'S possessions not the other way around.

As a Christian the desire to do good works grows as you mature out of a desire to please the LORD, not to buy salvation or do penance. Works are more of a reflection, or mirror, of ones faith. So when James says "faith without works is dead" I agree completely as I should.

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