Again bringing it to my point, if it's just a gift, how is it dogmatic? How does that gift necessitate salvation?
It depends on how you understand what is "necessary to salvation"....
Most people understand it as they understand air being necessary for them to live...or food...or water...all taken separately and individually.
As I was taught something being "necessary for salvation" is a reference to one's relationship to the Church and the Church's relationship to the universal truth of revelation, from Tradition and Scripture. So it really is a reference to the wholeness or catholicity of Church teaching with each element being important in either being central to or supportive of the truths of salvation, the truths of revelation.
It is not a juridical term at all. Dogma are pieces of the truth that are defined more clearly that other parts of doctrine in order to help make them more clear to the faithful. That is their function, although they are seen as some sort of greater truth-lesser truth...or something. I really do not understand how most of you folks here see these things actually.
I have attached my notes from Seminary in regards to Dogma & Dogmatics. They tend to jump around a lot b/c the professor jumped around a lot. To me though, it's a point to start. Obviously it would seem to me to be a much bigger conversation now that we are truly delving into it. Do you WANT to delve into it? Because if you don't, i'm not going to waste your time.
The way you talk about it is very foreign to me. The fact that you insist you are right ranges my emotional responses somewhere between annoyance and amusement.
Right back at you. On all fronts. The way that this information is being presented, what it is saying, the language that is being used, are completely foreign to me. I honestly thought I was not insisting anything, but rather asking & therefore approaching the question from what I know. If you see that as an insistence, that's your personal choice. I see a question as always leaving the door open to being wrong, or seeing the issue differently. That's not insistence to me.
The only thing that gets me is that the schism is kept alive active and bleeding by attitudes that are fed by this kind of crippled understanding...not just on the Orthodox side. I hear the same kind of senseless nonsense coming from Catholics who have no experience of Orthodoxy.
It's also kept alive & bleeding by real life issues as well, such as the 4th Crusade & the sack of Constantinople. There have also been great bridges made such as the revoking of the Anathemas. I'm trying to make bridges at least for myself b/c that's the only thing I have 100% control over....me & my understanding. Just trying to better myself in this regard with my Roman Catholic brethren. If you see that as keeping something bleeding & bad attitudes...that's your choice.
I will only add this as an additional thought: We were taught in seminary that Dogmas are limited to what the ecumenical councils have said about HS, Jesus Christ and God Himself. If we have that understanding, this would make the more modern interpretation of the IC more difficult.