Ladislaus said:

Invincible ignorance is not salvific, merely exculpatory.

Oops, I'd written that it isn't exculpatory, thanks for the gentle correction.  I mean, it doesn't excuse them from the blame of original sin and whatever other sins they have.  They are only excused from the sin of willful heresy or schism, IF they are invincibly ignorant their entire life.

Ladislaus said:

"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."

This may be another gentle correction, and if so it is well-deserved.  Despite how it may have appeared in my longer post, I do not believe that following one instance of the natural law is evidence of supernatural faith.  Maybe I did when I wrote the post, carried away by my own train of thought, I can't remember.  I think what I wanted to show is that even if following one instance of the natural law WERE proof of supernatural faith, per Garrigou-Lagrange, that it still wouldn't suffice for charity, perfect contrition, and justification.  But as you say, it doesn't suffice for  supernatural faith either.

I don't think that obedience to the natural law requires actual grace.

Obviously there are times someone follows the natural law for the wrong reason, like someone who saves a drowning swimmer because he wants to be considered a hero.  It is definitely nonsense that ONE action in conformity with the natural law suffices for supernatural faith and salvation!  Garrigou-Lagrange is one of the few to go this far.  

What the majority of the implicit faith crowd would say is that an action in conformity with the natural law, in conjunction with belief in the one true God who is a Rewarder, would be enough for supernatural faith.  And it must be admitted that that was enough before the first Pentecost.  But that was because the Old Testament time was one of anticipation, while our time is one of revelation.  And in a time of revelation, one cannot be saved except those to whom God has revealed Himself.  It's just unthinkable to me that Christ could die on the Cross but that, after this event, the central event of all human history, people could be saved the same way they were before, through vague expectation, as if it had never happened.

I think that any action we take in conformity with the natural law is like a nudge from God in the right direction.  But it is not even close to being arrival.  Being an adult convert I've experienced this personally.  Certain sins of my pre-Catholic life left me feeling guilty and ashamed but I'd block this out.  I'd continue sinning, but perhaps scale back on the grotesqueness of the sins a little.  I adopted that form of relative morality so commonplace among pagans.  It wasn't until I'd entirely given up the habit of mortal sin that I was given the sudden impulse to be baptized in the Catholic Church.  For a two year period before that I was in no real hurry to be baptized and considered myself "Christian," meaning all Protestants and Catholics were okay.  Strangely enough, I was against the Novus Ordo even during this murky period of my life, where I was more concerned with Jews and cօռspιʀαcιҽs than with faith.

My conversion was extremely Magdalene/St. Paul/St. Augustine like -- another reason I hate implicit faith, as it completely spoils the inspiring example of those conversions.  Implicit faith makes it possible they could have been saved without the EXPLICIT conversion.  Not probable, mind you, but still possible, and that is enough to ruin the beauty of being truly born again.  Anyway, it's no coincidence that I share Augustine's view of explicit faith being necessary, because both of us know what it is to be radically converted, to literally become the opposite of what you used to be.  That does not happen with "implicit faith."

Ladislaus said:

"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."

You mean most theologians ( actually all ) before Pighius.  Most theologians of the last two centuries hold the opposite view.  Today it is nearly impossible to find a priest who believes what was believed universally for fifteen centuries.  

Implicit faith of course opens the doors to salvation for Jews and Muslims in their sects, depending on if you believe they worship the one true God, and this is where the heresy comes in.  Thanks, De Lugo, for making a complete mess out of theology.  Trying to stop this hemhorrage of loose EENS theology is like trying to shovel your guts back into your stomach after being hit with a mortar blast.

Ladislaus said:

"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."

I didn't know that.  Garrigou-Lagrange, though, like many 19th-20th century theologians, strikes me as a dangerous mystic.  He is balanced somewhere in between Aquinas and Hans urs von Balthasar -- almost like the missing link between them, which is pretty scary.

Ladislaus said:

"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."

I have said in this thread that if I were Pope I would forbid speculation under pain of automatic excommunication.  What I mean about being free to speculate for now is that no Pope has specifically condemned the implicit faith idea, despite having five hundred years and counting to do so.  Although Pius IX did say that it would be wrong to keep speculating on this.  When the CMRI priest quoted that at me, I was flabbergasted.  He was accusing ME of being the one who was speculating!  I told him "That's what you're doing!" and he said "No!!!"  He believes that Pius IX taught that someone in invincible ignorance can be saved, so from his perspective I was disobeying him ( Pius IX ) by denying this.

While my impulse is to wage unrestrained war on the implicit faith crowd, a la Richard Ibranyi, the moderate, Polish side of my personality is overtaking the Spanish side, so for now I have to agree with you that it's only proximate to heresy.  No matter how bleak my outlook, it's hard for me to say the Church permitted actual heresy to spread like wildfire for four hundred years.  Granted, it's not much better to say they allowed grievous error to spread unchecked for four hundred years, is it?  Hey, they didn't paint over the Sistine Chapel ceiling in all that time either.  But it's better and less injurious to the Church to say that for now this is allowable speculation.  

I just read in a book called "All Can Be Saved" that theologians discussed things like invincible ignorance amongst themselves but kept these speculations from the flock, knowing they'd be confused.  I wonder when that changed.  I mean, that is what theologians are here for, to speculate.  It is the Pope's job to rein them in if they go too far.  So we appear to be dealing with a massive failure of omission on the part of many, many Popes -- a hard nut to swallow.  

Correction of the last line:  "So we appear to be dealing with a massive omission on the part of many, many Popes -- a hard nut to swallow."

In my opinion, God allowed this "omission", i.e. not explicitly condemning some of these theories, as a way to sift the wheat from the chaff, as a test of faith.  Popes are moved at times to condemn errors when they feel the need to to protect the Faith.  Without these errors, there wouldn't have been a Vatican II, and God wanted to allow all this to happen--for whatever reason.

Here's perhaps a nice bottom line.  We don't need to trouble ourselves too much about the theological complexities.  God doesn't require us to be theologians to understand Church teaching.

When someone, Catholic or non-Catholic, asks me whether any non-Catholics can be saved, I simply respond "No".  Sadly, most Traditional Catholics, if asked that question, immediately begin to dance and equivocate.  I teach my children that non-Catholics cannot be saved.  I am not going to go into a long dissertation about how Protestants qua Protestant cannot be saved.  They don't need to understand any of that, and they wouldn't get it anyway.  What am I supposed to do, hand them a 20-page Msgr. Fenton treatise?  Or, alternatively, should I boil it down in the other direction and teach them that, well, sometimes Protestants are really Catholics?  That would actually harm their simple faith.  When the Church defines dogmas like EENS, She does so in a way that they can be accepted and understood by ALL the faithful.  Our Lord didn't deliver two-hour dissertations on all the exceptions that might exist.  He taught simply, that unless we are born again of water and the Holy Spirit, we cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven.  He didn't then launch immediately into distinctions.

And what's sad is that many Traditional Catholics would consider me impious and somehow damaging the Faith for simply answering "No" and repeating Holy Mother Church's dogmatic definition verbatim.  And Novus Ordo Catholics might even call me a heretic for saying so.  Perhpas the Church Herself was impious for defining it that way without further explanation?  Absit.  Until the Church defines otherwise and adds additional clarification, I am content with what She has defined and need to inquire no further.  To take a page out of your book, Raoul, if I were pope, I would reiterate EENS and forbid any further inquiry into the subject.  It's as Father Feeney said, if people start believing that the resolution to receive Baptism suffices, then their resolution to receive Baptism actually can be undermined.  Hypothesizing about exceptions serves no other purpose than to undermine the Faith and lead to religious indifferentism.  And that's what happened at Vatican II.  V2 came about as a direct result of undermining EENS.

So, to answer your original question, what the Church has defined already regarding EENS should be enough for us and is enough for us.

I believe those who live among Catholics cannot be invincible ignorant.

Well damn, thinking it over, the teaching they'll be exposed to would in MOST cases would be Vatican II teaching. Forget then, I'm not saying who's in vincible or invincible ignorance.

"Outside the Church there is no salvation" does not mean that everyone who is not a Catholic will be condemned.

Oh, really?

Persons who make use of the graces God gives them, even though they are not members of the true Church, actually have the desire to become members inasmuch as they wish to use all means ordained by God for their salvation.

Here are the very seeds of Vatican II, folks, right before our eyes.  So the criterion for salvation becomes subjectivized.  Anyone who "wishes to use all the means ordained by God for [his] salvation" are now inside the Church (although they are not members and not Catholic, per what's above).  So following one's own lights becomes the criterion for salvation.  Thus you get religious liberty.

And within the Church you have members and non-members (i.e. non-Catholics)--ergo the subsistence ecclesiology, that the Church subsists in the Catholic Church but has within Her folks who are also non-Catholic non-members.

Quote from: Baltimore Catechism

"Outside the Church there is no salvation" does not mean that everyone who is not a Catholic will be condemned.

Oh, really?

Quote from: Baltimore Catechism

Persons who make use of the graces God gives them, even though they are not members of the true Church, actually have the desire to become members inasmuch as they wish to use all means ordained by God for their salvation.

Here are the very seeds of Vatican II, folks, right before our eyes.  So the criterion for salvation becomes subjectivized.  Anyone who "wishes to use all the means ordained by God for [his] salvation" are now inside the Church (although they are not members and not Catholic, per what's above).  So following one's own lights becomes the criterion for salvation.  Thus you get religious liberty.

And within the Church you have members and non-members (i.e. non-Catholics)--ergo the subsistence ecclesiology, that the Church subsists in the Catholic Church but has within Her folks who are also non-Catholic non-members.

(a) "Outside the Church there is no salvation" does not mean that everyone who is not a Catholic will be condemned. It does mean that no one can be saved unless he belongs in some manner to the Catholic Church, either actually or in desire, (my emphasis) for the means of grace are not given without some relation to the divine institution established by Christ.

This is not Vatican II.

114 Q. Which are the means instituted by Our Lord to enable men at all times to share in the fruits of the Redemption?

A. The means instituted by Our Lord to enable men at all times to share in the fruits of the Redemption are the Church and the Sacraments.

115 Q. What is the Church?
A. The Church is the congregation of all those who profess the faith of Christ, partake of the same Sacraments, and are governed by their lawful pastors under one visible head.

*121 Q. Are all bound to belong to the Church?
A. All are bound to belong to the Church, and he who knows the Church to be the true Church and remains out of it, cannot be saved.

Anyone who knows the Catholic religion to be the true religion and will not embrace it cannot enter into Heaven. If one not a Catholic doubts whether the church to which he belongs is the true Church, he must settle his doubt, seek the true Church, and enter it; for if he continues to live in doubt, he becomes like the one who knows the true Church and is deterred by worldly considerations from entering it.

In like manner one who, doubting, fears to examine the religion he professes lest he should discover its falsity and be convinced of the truth of the Catholic faith, cannot be saved.

Suppose, however, that there is a non-Catholic who firmly believes that the church to which he belongs is the true Church, and who has never--even in the past--had the slightest doubt of that fact--what will become of him?

If he was validly baptized and never committed a mortal sin, he will be saved; because, believing himself a member of the true Church, he was doing all he could to serve God according to his knowledge and the dictates of his conscience. But if ever he committed a mortal sin, his salvation would be very much more difficult. A mortal sin once committed remains on the soul till it is forgiven. Now, how could his mortal sin be forgiven? Not in the Sacrament of Penance, for the Protestant does not go to confession; and if he does, his minister--not being a true priest--has no power to forgive sins. Does he know that without confession it requires an act of perfect contrition to blot out mortal sin, and can he easily make such an act? What we call contrition is often only imperfect contrition--that is, sorrow for our sins because we
fear their punishment in Hell or dread the loss of Heaven. If a
Catholic--with all the instruction he has received about how to make an act of perfect contrition and all the practice he has had in making such acts--might find it difficult to make an act of perfect contrition after having committed a mortal sin, how much difficulty will not a Protestant have in making an act of perfect contrition, who does not know about this requirement and who has not been taught to make continued acts of perfect contrition all his life. It is to be feared either he would not know of this necessary means of regaining God's friendship, or he would be unable to elicit the necessary act of perfect contrition, and thus the mortal sin would remain upon his soul and he would die an enemy of God.

If, then, we found a Protestant who never committed a mortal sin after Baptism, and who never had the slightest doubt about the truth of his religion, that person would be saved; because, being baptized, he is a member of the Church, and being free from mortal sin he is a friend of God and could not in justice be condemned to Hell. Such a person would attend Mass and receive the Sacraments if he knew the Catholic Church to be the only true Church.

I am giving you an example, however, that is rarely found, except in the case of infants or very small children baptized in Protestant sects. All infants rightly baptized by anyone are really children of the Church, no matter what religion their parents may profess. Indeed, all persons who are baptized are children of the Church; but those among them who deny
its teaching, reject its Sacraments, and refuse to submit to its lawful pastors, are rebellious children known as heretics.

I said I gave you an example that can scarcely be found, namely, of a person not a Catholic, who really never doubted the truth of his religion, and who, moreover, never committed during his whole life a mortal sin. There are so few such persons that we can practically say for all those who are not visibly members of the Catholic Church, believing its doctrines, receiving its Sacraments, and being governed by
its visible head, our Holy Father, the Pope, salvation is an extremely difficult matter.

I do not speak here of pagans who have never heard of Our Lord or His holy religion, but of those outside the Church who claim to be good Christians without being members of the Catholic Church.

These catechisms were burned in many places after Vatican II.

These catechisms were burned in many places after Vatican II.

I would burn them too, for different reasons.  St. Pius X is reported to have taken the old Catholic Encyclopedia and slammed it to the ground when it was presented to him.