My (IEE) answer
Actually it is more of a both/and. First,
nothing we can do can save us, no matter how exemplary. Only Jesus's death for us can atone, and atonement is needed. We are ALL saved through Jesus alone (including lots now in Heaven who never knew Him on earth. (His laws are written on all of our hearts; when we love His laws we love Him). But Catholics, Orthodox and the vast majority of Protestants agree: We are saved by faith, and that by the
grace of God alone[/B]. The "and" is that we must grow in holiness, we must do right, and follow God's ways.
We are actually called to be perfect - that is the race we are to run. How can we be perfect? All things are possible with God.
God helps us with supernatural graces to do His will. We just have to have SOME sort of will to do His will, even if we are completely unable on our own. Sometimes our painful past prevents growth, and there are all kinds of unseen enslavements, but God helps! God is
involved; He is in relationship with us, ever present, supporting and helping us, not sitting back, just watching and judging - that's not fatherly. He rewards our faltering efforts and does not demand overmuch of us. An eternal truth:[I]"My burden is easy and my yoke is light." He is the perfect Father who makes us feel perfectly loved just as we are, and guides us gently with perfect timing.
Growing in holiness is a process, and we are to keep our eye on our own path not others' paths, because everyone has different challenges and has real reasons for doing wrong things we wouldn't do, and there iks no end to the wrong things we do ourselves to focus on. God invites us to relationship, and because we love Him, we seek to do His will.
But if we spurn Him all our lives, we don't love Him. We cannot serve two masters, God and the world, because if we love one, we will hate the other. Die hating God, and as far as I see it, even with a last chance to repent (that God surely gives) a life lived hatign God can becoem a habit you don't want to give up, and you could
want to choose eternal misery.
Truly, no one goes to Hell without choosing it for themselves. It is an INFORMED choice, since God is perfectly just, so we know we are choosing
joy forever or
eternal torture forever. Goodness and love forever, vs. evil and hate forever. That is our choice - only that. On earth we must live with the existance of both, but
there is no "both" in eternity. In eternity they are eternally separate. Both realties we see now will continue to exist forever, except that they are eternally separated. There is nothing that exists on earth that transforms to an alternative state of nothingness (just like nothing on earth does). Good and evil exist forever in eternity - eternally separated, never ever to meet again.