Dist. 6, Part 2, Art. 2, Q. 2
by St. Bonaventure
Source text: Public Domain Mark 1.0. English translation/apparatus/encoding: CC BY-NC 4.0, Wroot Press.
https://bonaventure.wrootpress.com/browse/4/d/6/q/bon-sent-IV-d6-p2-a2-q2
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### Question II. *Whether right intention is necessary for baptism.*

Secondly it is asked concerning this matter, whether right intention is necessary for baptism. And that it is so, seems [to be the case]:

1. Because for baptism intention is required: therefore for baptizing rightly, right intention is required.

2. Likewise, it is a lesser evil to intend nothing in an action than to intend an evil end: therefore if a defect of intention cannot stand with baptism, much less can a crooked intention.

3. Likewise, the works for which intention is necessary take their name from it: therefore, since for baptism intention is necessary, then if the intention is right, so [is] the baptism; and if [the intention is] crooked, so [is] the baptism; but there is no baptism unless it is right: therefore etc.

**On the contrary:** 1. Above it has been proved that a heretic baptizes; but a heretic always has a crooked intention, because he wishes to draw [the baptized] to his heresy: therefore right intention is not necessary for baptism.

2. Likewise, an evil will in the one baptizing does no harm: therefore neither does a crooked intention.

3. Likewise, baptism is the work of God, not of man: therefore it cannot be crooked; but rectitude of intention is required on account of the rectitude of the work: therefore right intention is not necessary for baptism.

> **Conclusion.** Belonging to the necessity of the Sacrament is only the intention of the work, not the right intention of the one acting, except by way of congruity.

**I respond:** It must be said that intention is the same as reasoned will, insofar as it is directed to an end. But the end is twofold: for there is an end which is the terminus or completion of a thing, and there is an end which is the usefulness of a thing. Thus in the Sacrament the end is twofold; one, namely, which is the completion, namely that there be there the union of word and element; and the end [which is] usefulness, namely of the one baptized, or of the one baptizing. — According to this twofold end the intention is twofold: just as someone who builds a house intends both to complete it and intends to dwell [in it]; so in the Sacrament one intends by a first intention to minister the Sacrament of the Church, [and] consequently either intends his own usefulness, or the salvation of the child, or whatever it may be. — The first intention belongs to the necessity of the Sacrament; the second only to congruity. The first intention does not have a right and a crooked [form], but it is the second which has a right and a crooked [form]. — Hence the response is plain, that right intention contributes nothing to the Sacrament of baptism, nor does an intention that is not right oppose anything as regards the substance of the Sacrament, yet it harms, or profits, the one who has it.

**To the solution of the [objections] on the opposite side:**

*To 1.* The arguments, therefore, which prove that right intention is required for baptism, presuppose that for baptism an intention is required which is the intention of usefulness; and therefore they are all founded upon a falsehood, as is plain regarding the first.

*To 2.* To that which is objected, that it is better to intend nothing than [to intend] evil; it must be said that a defect of intention does not impede the Sacrament on account of fault, but on account of the necessary requirement of that act.

*To 3.* To that which is objected, that works take their name from intention; it must be said that this is true of works for whose informing intention of the end is necessary, as is usefulness. — It must be noted, however, that although it is not necessary to intend the efficacy of baptism in itself and principally, nevertheless it is intended in every baptized person either in general or in particular, either in itself or in something annexed, either on its own account or on account of something else. For in order that someone be baptized, it is necessary, if he is an adult, that he intend that there be done in him or about him what the Church does; likewise that the one baptizing intend to do [the same]. But to the exterior act, insofar as it is the Church's, is joined the interior character; for thus, and not otherwise, is it a sacramental act.