What's up with post-Vatican II Catholics? Endless circular reasoning and rationalizations! Constantly hitting the "reset" button and re-inventing the wheel makes it very difficult for us Orthodox to have a constructive dialogue with the Catholic side.
Fr. Ryland may have missed something in his catechisis when he became Catholic: the Councils. he seems oblivious tot he ntion that the Church already considered all the biblical verses needed to define what the Church believes in: it's called the Symbol of Faith (aka the Nicene-Constantinopolean Creed) and it's been around for over 1,600 years.
Those who profess it have the faith of the one holy catholic and apostolic Church established by Christ; in other words they are our Christian brothers and sisters in Christ. Those who don't are not of the Church.
Can God save whomever he wants to save? By all means! Is it any of our concern? No at all. Christians are commanded to teach, and baptize into the Church in the name of the Holy Trinity. Leave salvation to God.
In his mercy, God desires to save all, but Christ shed his blood only for some, because only some will receive the benefit of his redemption. Read Matthew 25 and see why not all who call on Christ are our sisters and brothers in him.
Who can we identify, who do we know are our brothers and sisters in Christ? Only those who are in the Church, the Body of Christ, not some amorphous body of believers who call on Christ and reject the Church. Those outside of Church we cannot claim as brothers and sisters in faith.
Perhaps our Catholic-Orthodox convergence will happen when the post-Vatican II crowd retires. We cannot have a meaningful dialogue with people, such as Fr. Ryland, who may have left his Protestant assembly but didn't leave his Protestant mindset—trying to find answers in the Bible on his own rather than in the Holy Councils proclaimed by the Church.