That is an incredibly sadistic question for Calvinists when you think about it…a good one nonetheless.

Personally: I have no clue. I guess that’s why God placed me demographically where He did.

I think whether we were catholic or not, if God called us into a relatioship with Him we could come up with the same convictions that we each hold now. By being obedient by reading scriptures and praying we would get to know God and He’d reveal things to us.

I don’t know if this answers anything, but I think it is fair to say that people can go the other way and do it for love of God and his written Word. To me, the real irony is that so many of the hardcore Calvinists I have known get angry when I don’t simply accept their theology as a given. If they are right and we are all predestined to whatever our future will be, then why can’t they accept that I am predestined to be a Catholic and believe in free will? Why do they get angry when I ask this?

-Patrick

But in any case, I think the question unduly privileges individual study of the Bible. What matters first of all is the proclamation of the Gospel by the church in the preaching of the Word and the administration of the Sacraments (see Article V of the Augsburg Confession – http://www.bookofconcord.org/augsburgconfession.html#article5 – and parallels in other Reformation confessions such as the Thirty-Nine Articles).

The question really is: “Would the preaching of the Gospel have awakened faith in me had I been born in a Roman Catholic Church?”

The answer would have to be: “Maybe. But equally, there are false teachings in the RCC that could have diverted me away from the Gospel, from faith in Jesus Christ alone as my Saviour”.

I’ve had a post in mind for a couple of weeks that may be relevant to this question: this discussion may help me get round to posting it. Let’s give away some of the punchline: the impetus for reformation, and for preserving the pure Gospel, is not so much the salvation of people who could not otherwise be saved – though that is a part of it – as zeal for the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and a desire not to see Him misrepresented or misdescribed.

In other words, the question is not, “Can a Roman Catholic be saved?” (which is equivalent to the question, “Can the Gospel be found *at all* in the Roman Catholic Church?”), but: “Where can that Gospel be found in its fullest and purest form?”

The approach you advocate sounds suspiciously like LibCath cafeteria Catholicism – “I want to be regarded as a good Roman Catholic, even though my personal opinions differ radically from Church teaching” – and, as has been pointed out on a number of occasions since the election of Benedict XVI, “the cafeteria is now closed”.

I am not particularly educated on the history of the Reformation, but I do know that if you are excommunicated and hold any sort of stock in the need to make the visible Church a single, identifiable entity, than rather than start your own church, the faithful thing to do would be to respect the authority which excommunicated you and persistently seek restoration.

…but I won’t let that stop me!! I apologize if I’m not your intended audience.

Assuming that my character and motivation would not change overly much, then I’m a guy of roots – I think the best understanding is that which builds off the primitives. And while I recognize the importance of the Bible in spiritual formation, I have never accepted it as merely being dropped out of heaven as many are apt to do. Rather I saw it being transmitted down throughout the generations, and so I sought to understand the generations that had maintained and brought me my faith and their understanding of Scripture.

The short of it is that I see why the Catholic Church is as it is today, and I see it as the best attempt at maintaining the transmission of faith through the generations from the time of Christ and the Apostles. I don’t know how my faith would be manifested in me differently (or at all) had I been another person in another place and time – but if I came to a faith in Jesus and kept the same kind of desire for an understanding rooted in beginnings, I imagine I would have come to Catholicism regardless.