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.