Unknown. Let's assume that it is so. But why, then, is this "corporeality" of the sacraments not given by God as something definite and unchanging? How did people themselves know that such and such actions should be performed in such and such a way and that these words should be pronounced and not others? After all, all this is human inventions!

Confessor. You would be quite right if the forms of the sacraments were created outside the Church by individual people. But again, it seems, you have forgotten everything that we have said about the Church. Christ is the head of the Church, and it is the receptacle of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, the action of God's power in it continues. You ask, where did people get from, how the sacraments should be performed, what actions should be performed and words should be pronounced? This was said by the Church. In the Word of God are given the basic principles of all divinely revealed truths. But their further development, being equally divine in its source, reveals these truths in their fullness. Just as a plant that has grown, blossoms, and bears fruit is all contained in the grain, but the grain and the grown plant are not one and the same thing, so are the dogmas of the Church, the whole teaching of grace, the entire internal order of church life contained in the Word of God, but the Symbol of Faith, the teaching on the sacraments, and the holy canons are not the same as their seed in the Word of God. although they are all contained in this grain. Everything that the Church has was created by the power of the Holy Spirit already in the process of her earthly life.

Unknown. I don't understand why a process is needed for revelation? Why was it not possible to reveal all this to people at once, how to immediately reveal to them the moral law of the Gospel? Wouldn't it be more convincing if all the truth were revealed to people at once?

Confessor. Again you forget that the Church is not an empty form, completely indifferent in itself, in which, as in a vessel, is contained the power of the Holy Spirit. The Church is the living Body of Christ, headed by Him and filled with the Holy Spirit, which means that people, as members of this Body, are active in it. Hence a certain definite correlation between the supernatural principle and the natural earthly process. Man's participation in the development of the Church and her earthly natural existence made inevitable the gradual development of her depending on the moral and spiritual state of people, the degree of their faith, the preparedness of their consciousness, and a whole series of external conditions. Hence the different forms of the sacraments in different centuries are also understandable. The Church lives and therefore changes. But this is not a change in this or that human imagination -- it is a living change of a seed laid in the ground and gradually growing into a perfect plant. "You are God's field, God's building," says the Apostle Paul. And until you are fully imbued with a true understanding of the teaching about the Church as the supernatural Body of Christ, living in a natural earthly environment, everything will seem to you "strange", "unreasonable", "human", because you will see only the human in everything.

Unknown. Yes. You reason quite consistently. And having accepted the basic proposition, I have to accept your conclusions, although sometimes this is very difficult for the mind. However, my "private" questions cannot be solved by your general reasoning, and I will still have to pass on to the individual sacraments.

Confessor. I'm listening to you.

Unknown. Let's start with baptism. According to your teaching, the sacrament of baptism is a sacred act where, by immersion in water three times, with the pronunciation of certain words, a person is born again, becomes a different person, joins the Church, becomes its member. Isn't it?

Confessor. Yes, so.

Unknown. Suppose you are right that this grace which regenerates the whole man necessarily requires an external form: immersion in water, the utterance of certain words, that is, what you call the "corporeality of the sacrament." But the question arises: is it possible that only this external form, only this corporeality, is required?

Confessor. Of course not.

Unknown. But that's exactly what you do! As if nothing but this external form is needed.

Confessor. Why do you think so?

Unknown. Very simple. After all, "being born again" and joining the Church through certain external actions presupposes one indispensable condition: faith. Remember how Acts speaks of the baptism of a eunuch. Philip preached to him about Jesus on the way and apparently convinced him. We drove up to the water. The eunuch, pointing to the water, said: "... behold, water; What hinders me from being baptized?" Philip answered him: "... If you believe with all your heart, you can. He answered and said, "I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God." And he commanded the chariot to be stopped, and both Philip and the eunuch descended into the water; and baptized him" (Acts 8:36-38).

Thus, the possibility of the sacrament depended on faith. Without faith, there would be no sacrament. Is it like that with you? Will you not consider the sacrament to have been performed if the person being baptized is indifferent or even hostile to the faith? And according to the Church's teaching, will not your formula work without his faith, and will he be subject to a second baptism? But the denial of faith as a necessary internal condition for the celebration of the sacrament can be seen most clearly in the baptism of infants. You immerse them in water and assure them that they are already "members of the Church," that is, they are also "born again." But what kind of faith can a suckling infant have? Under such conditions, does not your baptism turn into some kind of magic spell, where words and actions have a self-sufficient meaning? And is it not clear that the Church has here replaced the inner meaning of the sacrament with an external rite? And therefore, even if it is possible to recognize as truth the abstract teaching about the "corporeality of grace," it is absolutely impossible to accept what has come out of it in practice.