The CMRI/SSPV/SSPX would all respond in the affirmative of such a possibility.

So let's look at the Church now.  So in the Church we have people like you and me who accept Catholic teaching and then we have a number of Pat Robertsons.

People like you and me are fully Catholic, whereas the Pat Robertsons are only partially Catholic.  We and the Pat Robertsons are only in a partial and imperfect communion with one another.

We and the Pat Robertsons are formally united with one another but are materially divided.  So, in one sense, formally, the Church is one and united; in another sense, materially, divisions remain among those inside the Church.

And so the Church can be said to subsist in the Catholic Church, because the visible Catholic Church forms its integral core, where the Church exists both formally and materially.

So here we have the notions of "separated brethren", partial communion, imperfect communion, and subsistence ecclesiology.  So here we can understand how Vatican II can state both that the Church is one (formally) and that there are regretful divisions in the Church (materially).

Pardon me for intruding with this silly remark, but wouldn't you put the novus ordo catholics who, in reality, pretty much think like Pat Robertson, in the same category?

There are NO Catholics who clearly have faith, and there are many (probably the majority) who don't.  So, the ones who think like Pat Robertson, i.e. are basically Protestant or in some cases even worse, yes, they would be in the same category.  It's not a silly remark.

Ladislaus said:

Note that Caminus and SJB both refuse to answer my original question.  That shows a complete lack of honesty, refusing to answer a question simply for fear of where it may lead.

It's a very simple question.

There's a Bible-believin Protestant who attends Protestant services, believes that the Catholic Church has it all wrong, and accepts, among other things, sola Scriptura and sola fide.  Of all the Protestants in the world who fit that description, if they died without being disabused of these beliefs, could any of these be saved?

trad123 said:

The CMRI/SSPV/SSPX would all respond in the affirmative of such a possibility.

They would say he has to be invincibly ignorant.  Ladislaus is talking about someone who is culpably ignorant.  If CMRI did say he could be saved, they would somehow twist the sense of "invincibly ignorant" to let this Protestant off the hook.  For instance, that he is invincibly ignorant because he has been prejudiced against Catholicism by his parents.  I am meeting with their priest again soon and I'll ask him some questions to see how far they take "invincible ignorance."

Like Ladislaus, I do not believe invincible ignorance is exculpatory, and I believe in St. Augustine's definition of those outside the Church as the massa damnata, all those who have never heard the Gospel.  

Ladislaus, you say believing in the Catholic Church itself and what it proposes for belief constitutes the formal motive of faith.  Do you have any backup for that?  

I understand where you're coming from because that ends all confusion.  If belief in God revealing is the formal motive of faith, and God can reveal outside the Church, then this could lead you to adopt a stance similar to Garrigou-Lagrange, where simply believing in and following the natural law in one instance is enough to prove supernatural faith in God.  Is this simply rationalism and Pelagianism cloaking itself with the term "supernatural faith," as I said earlier, or, since obedience to the natural law requires actual grace, is supernatural faith involved after all?  

A compromise can be reached.  Someone who obeys the natural law CAN have supernatural faith -- since they are corresponding with prevenient grace, which comes from God. But more than that is required for justification. An act of supernatural faith does not result right away in charity, perfect contrition and the remission of sins.  

The question then arises as to when justification occurs.  Ordinarily, it is at the moment of baptism.  If Ladislaus is right and the formal motive of faith is not just God revealing as "the universal God," the God of nature, but God revealing as the Catholic God, the God of the Church, then it is as the moment that one commits himself to believing everything the Catholic Church teaches, it is at the moment one decides to become Catholic that he becomes eligible for justification.  

This of course opens up new problems, because some will say "What if someone is instructed by Protestants and knows about the Trinity and Incarnation and baptism, but not the Catholic Church -- can they be saved?"  No.  So much for that problem.

This is by no means a dogma, but it actually makes sense, and it eliminates many difficulties.  Not to mention that it is fully consonant with my experience.  I was a sort of wavering "Christian" for two years, but everything began to click when I committed myself to becoming Catholic.  It is from that moment that I believe I can trace my new self as having emerged, rather than from the moment that I began to believe in Jesus Christ, but in a confused and disorientated and corrupted way.  I had a girlfriend and saw nothing wrong with it, I just believed in my incorrect version of Jesus Christ.  

But for now, I have decided that the Church has left this question -- "What is the minimum amount of knowledge required for justification?" -- open.  If we accept what Pius XII and the VII Popes teach, it is not open for speculation, and implicit faith can save.  Luckily, I do not accept what they teach.  But I am giving ground in that I no longer will accuse those who teach diferently than me, so far, of heresy on this matter, depending on how they define "implicit faith."  For instance, Bishop Fellay spoke something close to heresy when he said a Hindu could be saved, because Hindi don't believe in one God but several.  Bp. Fellay didn't specify that this Hindu, to qualify for his version of implicit faith, would have to believe in one God who is a rewarder, at which point he would have ceased attending Hindu services ( if they have any ).  If pressed to explain himself, perhaps Bp. Fellay would have mentioned that.

I do not believe that believing in one God who is a rewarder is enough to save, but how can I call it heresy when this opinion has been circulating for four hundred years and was never specifically condemned?  If God is going to punish me for wimping out and saying that implicit faith isn't heresy, I will tell him that ( a ) I didn't believe it personally and ( b ) His Church never condemned it.  But until then, I concur with Ladislaus that this theory of implicit faith is only proximate to heresy, rather than with the Feeneyites or Richard Ibranyi that it is heresy.  

When Gregory XVI reproved those who believe you can be saved in any religion whatsoever, I tried to convince myself this was directed against the implicit faith idea.  But that was wishful thinking.  

Summo Iugiter Studio, Gregory XVI

"Finally some of these misguided people attempt to persuade themselves and others that men are not saved only in the Catholic religion, but that even heretics may attain eternal life."

I find it hard to believe that he would dismiss this whole centuries-long implicit faith controversy with one throwaway comment.  If that were his intent, he would be much more likely to have written a formal denunciation.  The sense of his comment is clearly aimed at those who say "You can be saved as a Protestant" or "You can be saved as an Orthodox" -- those who say, in effect, that other religions are means of salvation.

Those who explain implicit faith carefully ( no, not you, Abp. Lefebvre ), say that those who are saved IN another sect are saved IN the Catholic religion.  This is probably why Mgr. Fenton is considered by Caminus to have upheld the EENS dogma -- while to people like me he seems to be busting it apart -- because he was very, very meticulous about how he defined implicit faith.  He punctiliously "informs" his readers that someone who is invincibly ignorant can be a member by desire and thus IN the Catholic Church.  He objects to those he considers less careful, who say such a person is joined to the soul of the Church or is not a member in any way.  He objects  to this because such formulations make the implicit faithers easy to attack.  

As for Cantate Domino, it says that pagans, Jews, heretics, schismatics will go to hell unless they are JOINED TO THE CHURCH before the end of their lives.  Those who teach implicit faith carefully, like Mgr. Fenton, do make sure to specify that those who are eligible for salvation by implicit faith are joined to the Church.  

Yeah, they may have found a loophole, and maybe they are quibbling with words -- deal with it.  It's just like St. Thomas and limbo.  To avoid teaching the Pelagian heresy, he came up with the ludicrous concept of a happy place in hell.  And it worked.  He avoided heresy.  He is still surely wrong on this one, but not a heretic.
 
Mgr. Fenton was wrong when he said that the Church has always taught implicit faith, but the wording of the Church decrees doesn't rule it out either.  There is a case that can be made that it is not a development of doctrine, but a revelation of what was always latent.  The reason is that the early Church Fathers spoke of those who could have been saved by implicit faith before the coming of Christ, which leaves the door open for speculation about implicit faith after His coming.  Until the Church says something like "The idea that you can be saved in another sect by implicit faith -- CONDEMNED," then I'd have to say people are free to speculate, as distasteful as that is for me to admit.  I am like St. Augustine waking up after a long slumber in a new semi-Pelagian world, but what can I do?  

Also, regarding my last post about the Jansenists, although I'll eventually open another thread about this ( probably many of them ) let me make it clear I don't agree with infrequent communion or that the Church has to go back to harsher methods of penance or anything like that.  Nor do I agree with the heresies attributed to Jansenius.  All I'm saying is that the Jansenists appeared to have seen the danger all around them, the danger that led to Vatican II, the liberalism and laxism, the bending of the Church to meet the world rather than the other way around.  I see them as a very flawed advance guard who tried to nip this in the bud, but went too far -- exactly like the Feeneyites, but much more sympathetic, in my opinion.

I'm only beginning to study this era of history, so I won't say anything more about it in this thread except that I take back my praise of Pascal.  I've read some excerpts of his Provinciales and found it smug and superficial.  

No, I'm just reiterating something taught by the Church. God revealed something here about His economy of salvation.

SO AM I!!!!!  That's why I keep referring to the "judgment of the external facts."  According to what has been revealed, what the means of salvation are and according to the external forum we must say that they are not saved.  If you want to avoid further confusion, drop the word "possible" because that term immediately brings the question into a different realm.  

They would say he has to be invincibly ignorant.  Ladislaus is talking about someone who is culpably ignorant.

In the line of questioning I'm taking, I'm actually not even worried about how or why or with what distinctions Pat Robertson could be saved.  I'm just asking Caminus and SJB whether it's possible in any way that he's saved.  And I'm not talking about a last-minute interior conversion either.

Ignorance doesn't have to be culpable either for someone not to be saved.  Culpability pertains to the degree of sin and punishment due for infidelity.  Invincible ignorance is not salvific, merely exculpatory.

Ladislaus, you say believing in the Catholic Church itself and what it proposes for belief constitutes the formal motive of faith.  Do you have any backup for that?

I'll have to try digging up an old theology manual.  I heard this from a seminary professor, that the "formal motive of faith is the authority of God revealing as proposed by the Catholic Church".  We have to submit ourselves to an authority or a rule of faith in order to have faith.  So, for instance, the Protestants claim that the Bible is their rule of faith, but they in effect interpret the Bible to whatever they want it to mean, ultimately setting themselves up as the rule of faith.  So they're not subjecting themselves to the authority of God.

That's why people who reject Church dogma are "formal" heretics; we say that in rejecting one dogma, they're rejecting them all.  That's because in rejecting even one dogma they're rejecting and repudiating the formal motive of faith.  Now, even these heretics still claim that they're following the authority of God.  I've never heard of a formal heretic who said, "I'm rejecting the authority of God revealing."  They ALL believe and are convinced (or convince themselves) that they're following God's authority.

Now rejecting the formal motive of faith or merely lacking it makes no difference except from the standpoint of culpability.  If it's missing, it's missing.  Period.  And without it there can be no supernatural faith.

I understand where you're coming from because that ends all confusion.  If belief in God revealing is the formal motive of faith, and God can reveal outside the Church, then this could lead you to adopt a stance similar to Garrigou-Lagrange, where simply believing in and following the natural law in one instance is enough to prove supernatural faith in God.

And I think that theology is nonsense.  There's absolutely NOTHING there being accepted on the authority of a revealing God.  Believing in a rewarder God is a natural truth, about which certainty can be attained by natural reason alone.  That's why most theologians held that one must have explicit faith in the Holy Trinity and the Incarnation, because these are the core supernatural (beyond nature) truths of the faith which can only be known through revelation.

Remember also that Garrigou-Lagrange was the teacher of Yves Congar whose theology is reflected in turn by Vatican II's Lumen Gentium--thanks to that citation from trad123.  So here's an actual historical link between the theology of a Garrigou and Vatican II--in addition to the logical link I have been trying to demonstrate.

Is this simply rationalism and Pelagianism cloaking itself with the term "supernatural faith," as I said earlier, or, since obedience to the natural law requires actual grace, is supernatural faith involved after all?

I don't think that obedience to the natural law requires actual grace.  But, yes, I think that this is in fact a semi-Pelagianism.

A compromise can be reached.  Someone who obeys the natural law CAN have supernatural faith -- since they are corresponding with prevenient grace, which comes from God. But more than that is required for justification. An act of supernatural faith does not result right away in charity, perfect contrition and the remission of sins.

I think that supernatural faith requires a supernatural object (i.e. revealed supernatural truths), so that obedience to the natural law doesn't even come close.

This of course opens up new problems, because some will say "What if someone is instructed by Protestants and knows about the Trinity and Incarnation and baptism, but not the Catholic Church -- can they be saved?"  No.  So much for that problem.

That's a tough one.  I think that there's a way for this formal motive of faith to be inchoate or incipient or implicit in a general belief based on the authority of God, in a very brief and narrow transitional window.  But as soon as a false rule of faith starts to emerge, the formal motive of faith can disappear or be lost.  So, for instance, if a Protestant comes across some natives in the jungle, teaches them about the Holy Trinity and the Incarnation, and baptizes them, they would be accepting these truths on the authority of this Protestant, who claims to be speaking with the authority of God.  But the minute this Protestant starts telling them about how the Bible is the authority, and starts spouting nonsense about faith alone saves, regardless of how sinful one might be, my gut tells me that those people no longer have supernatural faith, even if they had it momentarily before it was polluted.

This is by no means a dogma, but it actually makes sense, and it eliminates many difficulties.  Not to mention that it is fully consonant with my experience.  I was a sort of wavering "Christian" for two years, but everything began to click when I committed myself to becoming Catholic.  It is from that moment that I believe I can trace my new self as having emerged, rather than from the moment that I began to believe in Jesus Christ, but in a confused and disorientated and corrupted way.  I had a girlfriend and saw nothing wrong with it, I just believed in my incorrect version of Jesus Christ.

And that's what I was getting at earlier with my examples of material heresy, the Catholic material heretic vs. the Protestant material heretic.  These are NOT the same thing.  I just don't think it's possible for there to be true Protestant material heretics.  

But for now, I have decided that the Church has left this question -- "What is the minimum amount of knowledge required for justification?" -- open.  If we accept what Pius XII and the VII Popes teach, it is not open for speculation, and implicit faith can save.

I don't believe that Pius XII ever taught that.

Luckily, I do not accept what they teach.  But I am giving ground in that I no longer will accuse those who teach diferently than me, so far, of heresy on this matter, depending on how they define "implicit faith."  For instance, Bishop Fellay spoke something close to heresy when he said a Hindu could be saved, because Hindi don't believe in one God but several.  Bp. Fellay didn't specify that this Hindu, to qualify for his version of implicit faith, would have to believe in one God who is a rewarder, at which point he would have ceased attending Hindu services ( if they have any ).  If pressed to explain himself, perhaps Bp. Fellay would have mentioned that.

Ah, the SSPX is really bad on this issue, and their promotion of their bad ideas regarding EENS actually undermine and contradict their objections to Vatican II--as I've been trying to show on this very thread.

I do not believe that believing in one God who is a rewarder is enough to save, but how can I call it heresy when this opinion has been circulating for four hundred years and was never specifically condemned?  If God is going to punish me for wimping out and saying that implicit faith isn't heresy, I will tell him that ( a ) I didn't believe it personally and ( b ) His Church never condemned it.  But until then, I concur with Ladislaus that this theory of implicit faith is only proximate to heresy, rather than with the Feeneyites or Richard Ibranyi that it is heresy.

I don't think that Feeneyites per se called it heresy, but the Dimonds do.

As for Cantate Domino, it says that pagans, Jews, heretics, schismatics will go to hell unless they are JOINED TO THE CHURCH before the end of their lives.  Those who teach implicit faith carefully, like Mgr. Fenton, do make sure to specify that those who are eligible for salvation by implicit faith are joined to the Church.

Bingo.  And this distinction leads RIGHT to Vatican II--as I've explained above.

I disagree with you that people are or should be free to speculate--as I've written above.  I think that all speculation should cease immediately.  It serves no other purpose than to weaken and undermine the faith.  Why is it that the Church defined a dogma that no one who's not Catholic can be saved and 50-page treatises are required to explain its TRUE meaning.  What if a simple Catholic just takes the dogma at face value?  In fact, what's been done by all the speculation is to reverse the dogma.  Whenever even Traditional Catholics are asked by Protestants whether it's true that only Catholics can be saved, their answer isn't "Yes, absolutely.", but it's almost always, "Well, what that dogma means is really this, that yes you can in fact be saved outside the Church." etc. etc.

It's this kind of abominable speculation that has led to religious indifferentism and Vatican II--and all their lovely fruits.