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As to the heretic being the Church's problem: I like to say,"It's not your fault, but it's your problem." Yeah, I tend to ward the codependent end of the spectrum, so I think that if one of my sheepies is sick, it's my problem. But you're right. I HAVE been known to put a sheep down (in my REAL, not parabolical, flock, I hasten to add ...) You can lead a horticulture, but you can't make her think, and some chose to be ill and cannot give up their choice.

Ah, the "Culpability and thesosis" comment prods me to remember the appearance we give of being legalistic. (Not saying it's NOT a reality, leaving that open, thus saying "appearance" only.)

The 'will' to me is conceptually problematic. But I do think what one might call spiritual sicknesses of the will abound. Theosis, I would suggest, can by said at some point to involve, even to require, the will to self-abandonment, the will to be filled with something other than oneself.

I think there are demonic "intelligences" who can chain or cripple the will. I think further this can happen, sometimes, "just because", but other times because the possessed has been monkeying around where he ought not to have been monkeying around.

IN the latter case, once the demon is driven out, there may still be some illness of the will that led the victim to make himself vulnerable to possession -- even if it's only a failure to take advantage of the usual spiritual prophylaxis. If that okay to say?

The money phrase in the question about Baptism is "according to the sacrament of the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church...or according to the sacrament of the Oriental Orthodox Churches, ...". For us all you need is (a) An intention to baptize - and that could be merely "I am trying to do whatever it is the Church does when she baptizes." (b) Water. (c) A baptismal formula in involving the Trinity, such as, "I baptize you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit." IF all that has happened, the catechumen is sho' 'nuff a member of the Church and, to say the same thing another way, grafted into the mystical Body of Christ. Whether he perseveres to the end is another story.

And so a person can be a member but in "bad standing" or in what you might call "imperfect standing", like a child who is not admitted to all the sacraments because of age and discretion and such, or like Alamo-Girl who (I assume she is baptize as specified above) does not agree that the Church that we're talking about is more than an institution of men and does not agree with what we hold to be de fide. A member, to be sure, but not yet appropriate for "all the rights and privileges thereunto appertaining".

The question you did not understand, rephrased: We say that in Baptism God grafts you into the body of Christ, forgives all your sins up to that point, grants you Spiritual rebirth (whether you feel it or not), and like that. What do you all say happens at Baptism?

We're on the same page about heresies and theosis, I think.

I don't get the Atheism as a result of Western heresies because I would have thought there were atheists before the Church. However I do think many atheists say"I don't believe in God," because they don't believe in some cartoon figure presented by crappy catechesis in the West, among us papists as well as among the separated brethren. I often find myself trying to explain that I don't believe in the god they don't believe either.

Thanks for the conversation.