It was sufficient. That's all we can say with certainty.
From a thief who was going to die anyway, who had no test to endure and nothing to venture though everything to gain? Lucky break, in the eternal scheme of things...or the thief wasn't being held to a different standard than any other man.
Actually I think kmo has a point here:
I suppose I do, in a way. Each person and their circumstances are unique and I believe a just God will take that into account. Whether it is a person who has never heard the gospel (zippy mentioned) or a thief on a cross or someone who was raised in a Christian home and is a believer their entire life. Jesus said to take up our own crosses. What that cross is will be different for each person. The thief's cross could be nothing but a profession of belief and faith. People who are a believer their entire life will have a different one to bear.
As I was driving home last night I listened to some Catholic sermons. A few of them answered some of your concerns in my mind, but not in the way one might expect (
here is one you might like). I realized that I'd sort of been led into accepting Protestant presuppositions that were latent in the questions you asked. To clarify a bit:
1. I think kmo is right insofar as we cannot look at the thief, or anyone, and pretend to know all of the variables involved in the brush with an infinite God. Trying to establish positive 'rules of salvation' seems precarious to me here, though we could more easily draw negative facts.
2. I think the inherent Protestant presupposition I temporarily adopted is the idea that salvation is met via a set of rules or objective criteria. Like kmo said, that idea undermines the subjective relationship aspect of salvation, which is almost certainly the meat 'an potatoes of it.
I don't mean to say the conversation can't be fruitful, for it can. At the very least we can gain negative knowledge about salvation, i.e. salvation cannot be earned by purely human efforts. But when we start getting into positive rulemaking about salvation like sola fide we are in dangerous waters. And as has been noted, we both believe that the virtuous pagan is saved absent faith, so apparently that metric isn't sufficient either, at least in one interpretive sense. I think a better approach to the thing is found in that sermon I gave.
So I think that salvation could be described in an intentionally vague yet simple way: response to and acceptance of grace at each step of the way. It seems we are always called to a more intimate communion with God, and salvation is a sort of full communion, not just reconciliation or justification. More precisely, it is turning from sin toward God in repentance at each step of the way. Justification is very important because it grounds the possibility for actual communion with God, but it is certainly only a first step. And that receptivity to grace doesn't mean we never fall, that we never reject grace, that we never sin, that we never find ourselves back where we were at the beginning. It does mean that we do not give up and lose hope and turn away from God permanently in despair. In any case it seems to be a process, for I don't think any of us are content with ourselves and our relationship with God, nor is God content with the relationship. He wants to give us much more.
It seems to me that the reason you are unhappy with the description I've just given is because it isn't concrete enough, it doesn't make the criteria clear enough for you. That question "how much repentance and receptivity to grace is required? How close to God must I come?," is the wrong question. But I think I've just come full circle haven't I? We are both saying that one must not try to meet a standard, they must simply love God. We seem to differ in how that relationship is developed, though I'm guessing we both appreciate the other perspective to some extent.
:think: :chuckle: I realize now that some of what I wrote here mischaracterizes your position a bit, but I'll leave it since it reflects my train of thought and seems to progress the conversation. It does seem to me that with your focus on the thief you started doing a bit of what you believe Catholicism is in danger of doing, but I think we maybe understand each other at this point. :e4e:
:cheers:
lain: