MD: Okay, serious question: What if someone does not believe the statement above? Note, the question is NOT about the person's trust in Christ alone, but about his thinking about his relationship with Christ, salvation,etc.
That is an interesting question, MD. I would agree with BD that faith in Christ alone for salvation is absolutely essential. But to expand it a bit, we would need to agree on the correct Christ and what "salvation" means. I don't see much problem among Catholics and Reformers as to the former. Most FR Catholics and the Catholic Catechism have convinced me that we agree on the identity of Christ, although we have profound disagreement on many of the things Christ did or did not do.
The next issue occurring to me is WHO does the actual, physical saving? As you know, Reformers would say that Christ does all of it, 100% of it, with no help from or conditions met through our own efforts. I have heard a shorthand for the Catholic faith that amounts to free will faith plus works results in salvation. That is, man cooperates with God and that collaboration results in salvation. Is that fair? If it is, then it sounds like man (including any activity by Mary) is partially responsible (due "credit") for his own salvation. If the relationship with Christ is one of unequals in which both work together and contribute to the desired goal (e.g., a boss and his subordinate work together to complete a project), then I would put that at least to the threshold of a disqualifying error.
However, another view might be that a person must have free will faith and do works and THEN God does all the saving Himself (e.g., a subordinate provides some facts and figures to his boss and his boss then completes the project by himself, taking and deserving all the credit). While I also strongly disagree with this view I would say it is materially different from the first. Is any of this responsive to the issue you were raising?
BTW, I was sorry to read of your illness and I really hope they figure out what's going on soon. I can imagine how frustrating it is to have something like that just keep going. I'll be praying for you. I hope that your being vaporized is of help. :)
(2) Actually the question I was raising was (a)How much and in what way do right understanding and/or belief about God 'n Jesus 'n stuff affect one's salvation? (b)See (2a) above but with special reference to right understanding about the faith/works mess.
(3)I am generally concerned that SOME kind of "praxis", some deed or other seems to be involved, however hard we try to get away from it. Sometimes it's amazing and distressing to me that we have so much contention, because I guess that everyone of us in the history of his relationship with Jesus has experienced a moment in which he said, "Yes!" And of that moment, again I GUESS, the best description is, "I did it, yet God did it in me, both to will and to do."
(4)(As an attempt to illuminate a way to think about freedom) I asked someone a trick question the other day: Is God able to lie?
The "trick" is that I'd suggest lying is not an "ability," but a defect or perversion of an ability. The proposed analysis is: The "end" or "object" of communication is to convey what I mean (and to mean the truth.)
The conversations here, even those of the best possible will, show how we are rarely capable even of that. I have wife, child, friends, mentors, students. I strain to tell them what I mean, and I fail again and again. Part is failure of knowledge, part is failure of understanding the person to whom I am communicating (or understanding myself), part is failure in the arts of communication, and part is fear, shame, "need" to control, blah blah.
Even to WANT to convey the truth is a freedom I do not perfectly manifest or experience, at least not often. And when I want to, I still mess up.
So the POWER or ability of God is that He CAN tell the truth, and wants to. For Him to want to lie would be a loss of ability, and since He has neither parts nor passions but is utterly "simple" it would be a loss of "what it is HE is."
Mutatis mutandis and all that other fancy stuff, NOT that we Calflicks are WRONG, mind you, but we have some pretty fancy thinking and talking to do if we are going to maintain that "Free Will" means the "free" act of rejecting Jesus. To act like a corrupt fool MAY be something appropriate to politicians, wait, I mean, MAY sometimes LOOK like freedom (Have sex with, oh, the young Veronica Lake or re-read that tricky passage in Romans, what to do, what to do ...) But it's NOT freedom, it's weakness and failure.
Somehow that seems relevant. Help me out here. At least, if you can, run the same question over the Calvinist matrix, please.
It’s wonderful to see you posting again, Forest Keeper. Happy New Year and may God continue to bless you and your family.