FK: From what I've learned here, my understanding is that the RC view is that anyone with "sufficient" disagreement with the Church has the PRESUMPTION of damnation, UNLESS, God grants a special dispensation, which is fully within His rights to grant.
You cannot "lose" your salvation (as far as the RCC or EOC is concerned) because our definition and understanding of salvation is not, never was, and never will be a "moment" here on earth. Salvation is a process, not a moment.
According to pretty much the 2,000 year-old Church teaching on salvation, one is either saved or condemned after he is dead. The life we lead in belief or disbelief is the road that leads us to that end. That's what judgment is all about. It is onyl after we are dead that we are either in a state of torment or bliss.
What Protestants consider as "saved" is something like: God gives the "saved" a divine ticket. Those who have it (i.e. the believers) are therefore "saved," for God's ticket is always valid. It goes neatly with the pseudo-Paulean theology of redemption that Luther invented.
Obviously, for us Protestants, things must actually look extremely bleak in their eyes
I wouldn't worry too much. If we are the condemned, it will be all our doing (of rejecting God). Do no harm. Be pure in heart. Be poor in spirit. Be merciful.
God's message is clear.
I don’t recall being at all concerned about your Salvation.
God says those WHO SEEK HIM SHALL FIND HIM.
You seem to have an earnest, sincere, authentic, devotion to Jesus Christ. He is well able to keep us who seek and claim Him as Savior and Lord.
I’m happy and honored to consider your a Bro.
A lot of the other stuff is noise and lesser priorities.
Love God wholly; others as self; do unto others . . . Therein is The Gospel according to HE WHO IS The Gospel.
Of course, no man comes to The Father but by Christ.
But you believe that, as I understand it.
According to pretty much the 2,000 year-old Church teaching on salvation, one is either saved or condemned after he is dead. The life we lead in belief or disbelief is the road that leads us to that end. That's what judgment is all about. It is only after we are dead that we are either in a state of torment or bliss.
What you describe is exactly my understanding of theosis, which you have done much to teach me, thank you. :) HOWEVER, I think it would be a huge strain to construe the Catholic position that has been taught to me as matching this. According to my understanding, certainly, a Catholic will agree that nothing is final until Judgment. But I see big differences in how what happens during life is expressed.
With the agreed upon premise that our sovereign God can make any exceptions He wants for any reasons, if a baby gets baptized in a Catholic Church and then dies on the way home, the presumption is that he was saved and goes to Heaven. For all intents and purposes, he was "saved" at that moment, UNTIL that status changed (if ever). If that same child grew up and never went to Church, then the presumption would be that he is doomed for not having taken of the sacraments. The really big one is that it has been made categorically clear to me that if someone dies in a state of mortal sin, the presumption is damnation. ALL of those (latter) conversations were in the context of one who was otherwise on the road to Heaven (saved), but for the intervening mortal sin. This is from the CCC:
The sacrament of forgiveness
1446 Christ instituted the sacrament of Penance for all sinful members of his Church: above all for those who, since Baptism, have fallen into grave sin, and have thus lost their baptismal grace and wounded ecclesial communion. It is to them that the sacrament of Penance offers a new possibility to convert and to recover the grace of justification. The Fathers of the Church present this sacrament as "the second plank [of salvation] after the shipwreck which is the loss of grace." (emphasis added)
My interpretation is that a Catholic would say that one who dies, and who is objectively "justified", would presumably have the "ticket" that you describe below. Therefore, in Catholicism salvation can be either held or lost. If lost, once held, it can be recovered.
What Protestants consider as "saved" is something like: God gives the "saved" a divine ticket. Those who have it (i.e. the believers) are therefore "saved," for God's ticket is always valid. It goes neatly with the pseudo-Paulean theology of redemption that Luther invented.
While I would say it is a VERY-Paulean theology, thus no invention was necessary, your synopsis is correct. There are extra things that must happen, but are "wrapped up" within the ticket.