St Thomas More

The holy Roman church, founded on the words of our Lord and Saviour … firmly believes, professes and teaches that the legal prescriptions of the old Testament or the Mosaic law, which are divided into ceremonies, holy sacrifices and sacraments, because they were instituted to signify something in the future, although they were adequate for the divine cult of that age, once our lord Jesus Christ who was signified by them had come, came to an end and the sacraments of the new Testament had their beginning. Whoever, after the passion, places his hope in the legal prescriptions and submits himself to them as necessary for salvation and as if faith in Christ without them could not save, sins mortally. It does not deny that from Christ’s passion until the promulgation of the gospel they could have been retained, provided they were in no way believed to be necessary for salvation. But it asserts that after the promulgation of the gospel they cannot be observed without loss of eternal salvation. Therefore it denounces all who after that time observe circumcision, the sabbath and other legal prescriptions as strangers to the faith of Christ and unable to share in eternal salvation, unless they recoil at some time from these errors. Therefore it strictly orders all who glory in the name of Christian, not to practise circumcision either before or after baptism, since whether or not they place their hope in it, it cannot possibly be observed without loss of eternal salvation.

The baptismal part of Feeneyism consists in the claim that, while baptism of desire and blood are possible (they don’t like the terms) they never actually save anyone. More precisely, if elect persons do receive baptism of desire they will subsequently receive water baptism and if elect persons receive baptism of blood that means, having already received water baptism and fallen into (now forgiven mortal or) venial sin, they have the temporal punishment for this entirely remitted (as if in a second water baptism) by martyrdom. A person could die with baptism of desire and be saved but no one ever is. The basis for this claim is John 3:5 which is interpreted as meaning that no one who fails to receive water baptism is predestined. This appears to have been the mature position of St Augustine (Rahner thought so).

The above definition of Florence (Cantate Domino) is interesting from this perspective. St Thomas More held that no living human person other than Our Lady was in a state of grace at 3pm on 15th Nisan 30 A.D. If he was right then the above definition of Florence is not interesting from this perspective. Imagine, however, for the sake of argument that St Thomas More was wrong. It would be reasonable to assume that there were Jews (say in India or China) invincibly ignorance of Jesus of Nazareth and in a state of grace on on 15th Nisan 30 A.D. It is not unreasonable to imagine some of them persisting in a state of grace and invincible ignorance of Jesus of Nazareth until 20th Nisan 30 A.D. and then dying and being saved. However, this definition excludes that possibility. It says “from Christ’s passion until the promulgation of the gospel they [the ceremonies of the Old Law] could have been retained, provided they were in no way believed to be necessary for salvation”. This seems to imply that a person invincibly ignorance of Jesus of Nazareth and in a state of grace after the Passion cannot be saved. As invincible ignorance is not a sin and the performance of the rites of the Old Law does not offend against natural law the only explanation for this would be that no one who is invincibly ignorant of Jesus of Nazareth is predestined.

This by no means proves Feeneyism and rests on the hypothetical assumption that St Thomas More is wrong on this point (and, for the record, I don’t think he is) but it is interesting none the less and makes the scenario the Feeneyites propose fractionally more probable.