I'm too new (to the faith, not even just to the forum) to state any kind of strong opinion here, but I do have a question about what's being stated here.
Did Archbishop Lefebvre, or do any conservative advocates of a BOD that applies to more than just catechumens, believe in salvation *by* faith in a God who rewards? Or do they, rather, state that belief in a God that rewards is simply a minimum threshold below which nobody could ever be saved, under any circuмstance?
As I recall Lefebvre (right or wrong) said that if a non-Catholic was saved it would be despite their religion, not because of it.
Though that whole portion of the exchange bothered me, one thing that *really* bothered me about Bishop Barron's whole answer to Shapiro being like "I'm a Jєω, can I still go to heaven?" was that he claimed Vatican II says even an *atheist* of good will "can be" saved. It especially bothered me for two reasons. One of the reasons was that Vatican II simply doesn't say this. It doesn't mention atheists at all. But the other thing is that the idea that someone can be ignorant of God's eternal power and divine nature seems to straight up contradict Romans 1. So like, even if you can debate when/if/how someone could be invincibly ignorant of Jesus Christ, or the Catholic Church specifically, it seems like according to sacred scripture it is *not possible* to be ignorant of God's eternal power or divine nature.
Would using that reasoning, and thus saying that its hypothetically possible for God (by his grace and despite, not because of their errors) to save someone who believes in a God who rewards and is perfectly contrite for any mortal sins, but that God would not save an atheist in any case because the atheist is AUTOMATICALLY in mortal sin for denying what he knows full well is true, be distinguishable from saying anyone is saved BECAUSE they believe in a God who rewards?
Note that I'm posing a question here, not claiming that I have this right. I'm also not arguing AGAINST the strict position here, just wondering if we can logically deliniate.