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The central statement of Catholic faith, the Nicene Creed, begins, "I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible." Thus, Catholics believe that God is not a part of nature, but that God created nature and all that exists.
The Roman Catholic view is that baptism is necessary for salvation and that it frees the recipient from original sin. Roman Catholic tradition teaches that unbaptized infants, not being freed from original sin, go to Limbo (Latin: limbus infantium), which is an afterlife condition distinct from Hell. This is not, however, official church dogma.
The Catholic Church does not believe in Christian universalism (i.e., all or most people go to heaven), in double predestination (i.e., some, most, or all people are destined to sin and hell), in Feeneyism (i.e., non-Catholics and excommunicated Catholics cannot be saved), or in how many people will go to heaven or hell (either most or few or ...
Entry into heaven requires the grace of baptism, which can be obtained outside the sacrament of baptism, such as through baptism of blood or baptism by desire, for God is not bound by his sacraments. The unbaptized dead the church commends to the Divine Mercy , since the Penitent Thief was saved without baptism.
Nonetheless, according to Catholic dogma, baptism, or at least the desire for it, along with supernatural faith or at least the "habit of faith", are necessary for salvation. Hence, it is not immediately clear how to reconcile the mercy of God for unbaptized infants with the necessity of baptism and Catholic faith for salvation.
Hence Thomas Aquinas writes: "A man would not believe unless he saw the things he had to believe, either by the evidence of miracles or of something similar" (II-II:1:4, ad 1). In the Catholic Church, justification is granted by God from baptism, the sacrament of faith. [15] Joseph Cardinal Tobin said, "religion is a lifestyle. It means that ...
In Christian theology, baptism of desire (Latin: baptismus flaminis, lit. 'baptism of the breath', due to the belief that the Holy Spirit is the breath of God [1]), also called baptism by desire, is a doctrine according to which a person is able to attain the grace of justification through faith, perfect contrition and the desire for baptism, without the water baptism having been received.
Christianity – monotheistic religion centered on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as presented in the New Testament. The Christian faith is essentially faith in Jesus as the Christ (or Messiah), the Son of God, the Savior, and, according to Trinitarianism, God the Son, part of the Trinity with God the Father and the Holy Spirit.