Replies

- I call progress in the life of a believer "sanctification."
- I see "salvation" as the end goal - the entry into heaven - though this may be a distinction without a difference since "whosoever calls (present continuous) upon the Name of the Lord shall be (future) saved."
- "Point of salvation" is taken to an extreme among many Protestants. However, there comes a point of internalization, when one realizes, aha!, God has specific intentions concerning my life and I have an individual call to respond from the heart.
- "Justification" is what Jesus does when he grants us "the right to be called the Children of God." (not very precise but, I figured I'd include it.)
- Where Protestants disagree with the other branches (not the only place) is in the degree to which the Church, the Saints, etc. can act vicariously on behalf of the individual believer. Catholics and Orthodox disagree about the way in which the Father, the Son, the Liturgy, etc. interact, as well. I personally find much of this to be an argument about words. For example, I don't follow the details of Rome's transsubstantiation, and Protestants disagree on this one as well. But, after having faithfully participated in the Eucharist, we all may say of ourselves "I have partaken of the body of Christ." (I don't want to get off on this in particular. Point is, God does what He does whether we know the right way to describe it or not.)

Your thoughts?

"However, there comes a point of internalization, when one realizes, aha!, God has specific intentions concerning my life and I have an individual call to respond from the heart."

We call this "metanoia", when we become totally changed such that our focus shifts from ourselves to God. This may be the conscious beginning of the process of theosis. As you may know, Orthodoxy does not accept Blessed Augustine's concept of Original Sin nor its Protestant expression of the utter depravity of the unbaptized soul. Thus, Orthodoxy holds that there subsists in the soul of every fallen human ever so much of a "spark" of our pre Fall state that yearns for God. It is that "spark" which responds, cooperates, very individually, to the first call of God's grace in baptism.

"Catholics and Orthodox disagree about the way in which the Father, the Son, the Liturgy, etc. interact, as well"

We have thought for about 1000 years that we disagree on the "internal dynamics" of the Trinity and indeed we might, but its beginning to appear that the filioque controversy may have its origins in a failure of Latin to speak clearly about a concept which was defined in Greek. I am unaware of any differences between Rome and the East on what is going on in the Liturgy, but I will say that transubstantiation seems to be a particularly inadequate, because it is human thought, way to describe or explain the great Mystery of the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist.

Tell me, do you believe that the average person, you, me, the rest of us here on FR and not spiritual super athletes like holy hermits, can be saved, or attain theosis, outside the boundaries of the visible Church on earth. When I use the term Church here, I am meaning, for the purposes of this question, any organized collection of Trinitarian Christians?