Saved . . . ?

Before I was Catholic, I experienced a lot of different types of religious practice. Most of them had some way of encouraging a person to figure out whether he was "saved" or not: did you say the "sinner's prayer" (something not found in Scripture anywhere!), did you acknowledge Jesus as your "personal-lord-and-savior" (that last part is one word), or maybe even, do you "feel like it"?

Every one of us desires, down deep, to be saved. Nothing wrong with that. The problem exists when we use all the wrong methods to determine whether we are saved or not. Since the Scriptures never give a clear checklist for what constitutes "being saved" (something that is not accidental, and which more people ought to take into consideration). There is a reason for that: He does not want you to be certain of that right now.

Think of it: if any of us were to be told definitely that we are going to be saved, we would (because we are prone to sinful responses) get lax and compromise our faith. It is only in the fact that we, as Catholics, have learned that it is actually a good thing that we do not know at any one minute if we are saved. Rather, we are to be striving, at all times, to achieve salvation at the end of history.

Not knowing if you are saved should not cause fear but rather confidence. This "ignorance" means that your pride has not overtaken you and blinded you to your own weaknesses. Yes, actually! When we get prideful we get presumptuous and then our thinking is blinded so that we cannot see our own selfishness. In this state it is easy (especially if our theology allows for it) to presume upon our own goodness and/or God's forgiveness.

Catholic doctrine says that presumption on the goodness of God is a grave sin, and it always stems from pride. Yes, we may desire to know if our eternal home is going to be Heaven, but that is not the same as presuming on one's own goodness. If we look at ourselves and cannot imagine that we are doing it wrong, then we have fallen into prideful presumption. This is one of the reasons why Jesus so often critcized the Pharisees in His day: the were overly confident in their own goodness.

Let us take encouragement from our lack of knowledge, and recognize that only God knows our ultimate end. In the meantime, He wants us to strive for perfection and give Him all the credit.