This is the definition from Catholic apologist Matthew Warner who runs an excellent website called Fallible Blogma:
Salvation
In biblical language the deliverance from straitened circumstances or oppression by some evil to a state of freedom and security. As sin is the greatest evil, salvation is mainly liberation from sin and its consequences. This can be deliverance by way of preservation, or by offering the means for being delivered, or by removing the oppressive evil or difficulty, or by rewarding the effort spent in cooperating with grace in order to be delivered. All four aspects of salvation are found in Scriptures and are taught by the Church.
fallibleblogma.com/index.php/justification-vs-sanctification-vs-salvation/
Sounds good to me.
Scripture also teaches salvation can mean final salvation. And there are many others aspects of salvation found in scripture and taught by the Church. The problem is not that the Church includes all aspects of salvation in her teaching, the problem is the primary aspect, that is liberation from everything that oppresses man and especially liberation from sin IS NOT TAUGHT as the PRIMARY meaning by any Catholic scholar today. I wish it were. I searched for it. Even if there was one scholar, or a few, it would take more than a few to reverse the decades of erroneous teachings that have been presented as Catholic truth.
One day this will be recognized as one of the most damaging heresies ever taught.
Do you realize that Catholic Scholars today don’t know the primary reason God became man, suffered and died? Because God became man, suffered and died and rose again for our salvation. But, since the overwhelming majority of brilliant Catholic scholars don’t know and understand the primary meaning of salvation,
they don’t even know the primary reason God became man.
And thus they don’t know the primary reason Jesus instituded the Eucharist and thus the primary reason for the mass.
The primary way we are freed from the slavery to sin by the grace of salvation, is by lessening or removing concupiscence ( the inclination to sin), and secondarily by increasing our love for Jesus.
"… he has set our freedom free from the domination of concupiscence. And if redeemed man still sins, this is not due to an imperfection of Christ’s redemptive act, but to man’s will not to avail himself of the grace which flows from that act."
Veritatis splendor
Pope John Paul II
Before Adam sinned he had NO concupiscence. The Catechism teaches.
377 The “mastery” over the world that God offered man from the beginning was realized above all within man himself: mastery of self. The first man was unimpaired and ordered in his whole being because he was free from the triple concupiscence254 that subjugates him to the pleasures of the senses, covetousness for earthly goods, and self-assertion, contrary to the dictates of reason.
Once Adams sinned, he was no longer free from concupiscence. He became a slave to sin. Slave means man was no longer free.
The primary reason Jesus became man, suffered, died and rose was to lessen and take away this concupiscence, so that we are no longer slaves to sin. So that we can love God and others the way we should, and thus have happiness in this life. This can only be done by God’s grace, the grace of salvation, sanctifying grace, which lessens and removes this concupiscence. But we need this grace daily, that is why we are supposed to pray daily, and if possible go to mass daily.
When we quit praying and going to mass, we become slaves to sin again.
That is why when Luther quit praying and rejected the teachings of the Church he experienced a slavery to sin. It was such a strong inclination to sin, that he taught, in the end that man has no free will.
As one writer put it:
Luther in his book, The Bondage of the Will(138), Luther wrote:
“Thus the human will is placed between the two like a beast of burden. If God rides it, it will and goes where God wills, as the Psalm says: “I am become as a best and I am always with thee” . If Satan rides it, it wills and goes where Satan wills; nor can it choose to run to either of the two riders or to seek him out, but the riders themselves contend for the possession and control it.”
Without the sacraments and prayer Luther experienced such strong concupiscence that he taught man has no free will at all.
The Church teaches that our free will was very greatly weakened by Adam’s sin, but not totally eliminated. Thus, while teaching we are slaves to sin, it is not an absolute slavery. Thus even the Jews who had not yet received the grace of salvation, had some limited freedom from sin.
The Church teaches the primary reason God became man was to free us from this concupiscence, which makes us slaves to sin, so that we can have a totally free will, and thus obey and love God and others the way we should, and thus obtain happiness.
Again, I wish there was a good Catholic scholar who understood that this is the primary reason God became man. This scholar would be able to understand the Catechism of the Catholic Church and would be able to understand Pope John Paul II teachings and the teachings of Vatican II on the Church. This scholar could help me greatly. As it is, I am trying to teach myself by studying the teachings of JPII. Right now I am studing Veritatis Splendor. But since I never had a theology course in my life, and I am not brilliant, it has been very slow going. And the more I study, the more I realize this freedom from the slavery of sin is extremely important in the teachings of JPII. He says we cannot be free without the truth. The truth that comes from Jesus. It seems only Cardinal Dulles and Ratzinger, before he became Pope, understand and explain the teachings of Pope John Paul II
of God, as she does in her funeral rites for them. Indeed, the great mercy 