And here's the attack: How many who "backslide" thought they were saved before they died in their sins?
The simple answers to these simple questions are easily found in the scriptures...
1Jn 2:1 My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous:
1Jn 1:8 If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.
1Jn 1:9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
1Jn 1:10 If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.
If any, then how does this or that Christian KNOW (with the 'blessed assurance' so often spoken of) that he is not mistaken to think himself saved?
Another simple question with a simple answer...
Rom 8:15 For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.
Rom 8:16 The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God:
I can only assume that you don't have the witness of the Spirit in your life...
Interesting thought: A parent can legally disown his natural born children, but lawfully, a parent can not disown an adopted child...
Interesting thought: does that mean some have a good lawsuit against God?
I think maybe you do not understand the nature of discourse among people of varying views? Just asking how it looks like from over there is no indication that the same thing is being viewed from over here.
Those quotes neither answer the question I am asking nor explain your opinion to someone who has questions about it.
I mean this: We papists can look at a text in I John and triumphantly wave it about as ‘proof’ that there is a Biblical distinction between mortal and venial sin. Guess what. Our opponents will not be persuaded. We have to do more if we are to make out point clear and believable.
Similarly, those texts may ‘prove’ something to you, but they are not clear answers to my question. If I work at it, I can see that you are saying something like, “If you have to ask if you are saved, you aren’t.”
But there are ample texts which SEEM to propose the idea that one could be like St. Paul and still lose out at the end; one could call on the name of the Lord but still be denied by Him at the end; one could be summoned before Him and be sent away not on the basis of ‘faith’ but on thee mercy shown to the least of His brethren.
In one of those collections of “I was was not a Catholic and now I am,” stories a young lady got “saved” many times because she was not SURE she was saved.
Now I can read that as possibly some kind of psychiatric disorder, depression or somesuch. Because of such illnesses, I hesitate to tell somebody a feeling or an assurance of some kind is diagnostic of one’s soul’s health. For some of us, faith, is an “infused virtue” a given strength which we have to exercise with determination while our family, friends, and internal chemistry cry out against it.
Such folks to not FEEL assurance. They clutch to the proposition that God loves them, in spite of the shrieking witnesses to the contrary, NOT because they FEEL loved but, well, for some other reason. [Hint: grace.] They hold on though beset by doubts and uncertainties. IMHO their faith is a true miracle because it is unaccompanied by any ease or satisfaction. They truly keep their eyes on the prize.