No Salvation Outside the Church

Catholic Answers ^ | 12/05 | Fr. Ray Ryland

[bdeaner]

Why does the Catholic Church teach that there is "no salvation outside the Church"? Doesn’t this contradict Scripture? God "desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth" (1 Tim. 2:4). "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but by me" (John 14:6). Peter proclaimed to the Sanhedrin, "There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved" (Acts 4:12).

Since God intends (plans, wills) that every human being should go to heaven, doesn’t the Church’s teaching greatly restrict the scope of God’s redemption? Does the Church mean—as Protestants and (I suspect) many Catholics believe—that only members of the Catholic Church can be saved?

That is what a priest in Boston, Fr. Leonard Feeney, S.J., began teaching in the 1940s. His bishop and the Vatican tried to convince him that his interpretation of the Church’s teaching was wrong. He so persisted in his error that he was finally excommunicated, but by God’s mercy, he was reconciled to the Church before he died in 1978.

In correcting Fr. Feeney in 1949, the Supreme Congregation of the Holy Office (now the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith) issued a document entitled Suprema Haec Sacra, which stated that "extra ecclesiam, nulla salus" (outside the Church, no salvation) is "an infallible statement." But, it added, "this dogma must be understood in that sense in which the Church itself understands it."

Note that word dogma. This teaching has been proclaimed by, among others, Pope Pelagius in 585, the Fourth Lateran Council in 1214, Pope Innocent III in 1214, Pope Boniface VIII in 1302, Pope Pius XII, Pope Paul VI, the Second Vatican Council, Pope John Paul II, and the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in Dominus Iesus.

Our point is this: When the Church infallibly teaches extra ecclesiam, nulla salus, it does not say that non-Catholics cannot be saved. In fact, it affirms the contrary. The purpose of the teaching is to tell us how Jesus Christ makes salvation available to all human beings.

Work Out Your Salvation

There are two distinct dimensions of Jesus Christ’s redemption. Objective redemption is what Jesus Christ has accomplished once for all in his life, death, resurrection, and ascension: the redemption of the whole universe. Yet the benefits of that redemption have to be applied unceasingly to Christ’s members throughout their lives. This is subjective redemption. If the benefits of Christ’s redemption are not applied to individuals, they have no share in his objective redemption. Redemption in an individual is an ongoing process. "Work out your own salvation in fear and trembling; for God is at work in you" (Phil. 2:12–13).

How does Jesus Christ work out his redemption in individuals? Through his mystical body. When I was a Protestant, I (like Protestants in general) believed that the phrase "mystical body of Christ" was essentially a metaphor. For Catholics, the phrase is literal truth.

Here’s why: To fulfill his Messianic mission, Jesus Christ took on a human body from his Mother. He lived a natural life in that body. He redeemed the world through that body and no other means. Since his Ascension and until the end of history, Jesus lives on earth in his supernatural body, the body of his members, his mystical body. Having used his physical body to redeem the world, Christ now uses his mystical body to dispense "the divine fruits of the Redemption" (Mystici Corporis 31).

The Church: His Body

What is this mystical body? The true Church of Jesus Christ, not some invisible reality composed of true believers, as the Reformers insisted. In the first public proclamation of the gospel by Peter at Pentecost, he did not invite his listeners to simply align themselves spiritually with other true believers. He summoned them into a society, the Church, which Christ had established. Only by answering that call could they be rescued from the "crooked generation" (Acts 2:40) to which they belonged and be saved.

Paul, at the time of his conversion, had never seen Jesus. Yet recall how Jesus identified himself with his Church when he spoke to Paul on the road to Damascus: "Why do you persecute me?" (Acts 9:4, emphasis added) and "I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting" (Acts 9:5). Years later, writing to Timothy, Paul ruefully admitted that he had persecuted Jesus by persecuting his Church. He expressed gratitude for Christ appointing him an apostle, "though I formerly b.asphemed and persecuted and insulted him" (1 Tim. 1:13).

The Second Vatican Council says that the hierarchical structure of the Catholic Church and the mystical body of Christ "form one complex reality that comes together from a human and a divine element" (Lumen Gentium 8). The Church is "the fullness of him [Christ] who fills all in all" (Eph. 1:23). Now that Jesus has accomplished objective redemption, the "plan of mystery hidden for ages in God" is "that through the Church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places" (Eph. 3:9–10).

According to John Paul II, in order to properly understand the Church’s teaching about its role in Christ’s scheme of salvation, two truths must be held together: "the real possibility of salvation in Christ for all humanity" and "the necessity of the Church for salvation" (Redemptoris Missio 18). John Paul taught us that the Church is "the seed, sign, and instrument" of God’s kingdom and referred several times to Vatican II’s designation of the Catholic Church as the "universal sacrament of salvation":

"The Church is the sacrament of salvation for all humankind, and her activity is not limited only to those who accept her message" (RM 20).

"Christ won the Church for himself at the price of his own blood and made the Church his co-worker in the salvation of the world. . . . He carries out his mission through her" (RM 9).

In an address to the plenary assembly of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (January 28, 2000), John Paul stated, "The Lord Jesus . . . established his Church as a saving reality: as his body, through which he himself accomplishes salvation in history." He then quoted Vatican II’s teaching that the Church is necessary for salvation.

In 2000 the CDF issued Dominus Iesus, a response to widespread attempts to dilute the Church’s teaching about our Lord and about itself. The English subtitle is itself significant: "On the Unicity and Salvific Universality of Jesus Christ and the Church." It simply means that Jesus Christ and his Church are indivisible. He is universal Savior who always works through his Church:

The only Savior . . . constituted the Church as a salvific mystery: He himself is in the Church and the Church is in him. . . . Therefore, the fullness of Christ’s salvific mystery belongs also to the Church, inseparably united to her Lord (DI 18).

Indeed, Christ and the Church "constitute a single ‘whole Christ’" (DI 16). In Christ, God has made known his will that "the Church founded by him be the instrument for the salvation of all humanity" (DI 22). The Catholic Church, therefore, "has, in God’s plan, an indispensable relationship with the salvation of every human being" (DI 20).

The key elements of revelation that together undergird extra ecclesiam, nulla salus are these: (1) Jesus Christ is the universal Savior. (2) He has constituted his Church as his mystical body on earth through which he dispenses salvation to the world. (3) He always works through it—though in countless instances outside its visible boundaries. Recall John Paul’s words about the Church quoted above: "Her activity is not limited only to those who accept its message."

Not of this Fold

Extra ecclesiam, nulla salus does not mean that only faithful Roman Catholics can be saved. The Church has never taught that. So where does that leave non-Catholics and non-Christians?

Jesus told his followers, "I have other sheep, that are not of this fold; I must bring them also, and they will heed my voice. So there shall be one flock, one shepherd" (John 10:16). After his Resurrection, Jesus gave the threefold command to Peter: "Feed my lambs. . . . Tend my sheep. . . . Feed my sheep" (John 21:15–17). The word translated as "tend" (poimaine) means "to direct" or "to superintend"—in other words, "to govern." So although there are sheep that are not of Christ’s fold, it is through the Church that they are able to receive his salvation.

People who have never had an opportunity to hear of Christ and his Church—and those Christians whose minds have been closed to the truth of the Church by their conditioning—are not necessarily cut off from God’s mercy. Vatican II phrases the doctrine in these terms: Those who, through no fault of their own, do not know the gospel of Christ or his Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart, and moved by grace, try in their actions to do his will as they know it through the dictates of their consciences—those too may achieve eternal salvation (LG 16).

Since Christ died for all, and since all men are in fact called to one and the same destiny, which is divine, we must hold that the Holy Spirit offers to all the possibility of being made partakers, in a way known to God, of the Paschal mystery (Gaudium et Spes 22).

The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches:

Every man who is ignorant of the gospel of Christ and of his Church but seeks the truth and does the will of God in accordance with his understanding of it can be saved. It may be supposed that such persons would have desired baptism explicitly if they had known its necessity (CCC 1260).

Obviously, it is not their ignorance that enables them to be saved. Ignorance excuses only lack of knowledge. That which opens the salvation of Christ to them is their conscious effort, under grace, to serve God as well as they can on the basis of the best information they have about him.

The Church speaks of "implicit desire" or "longing" that can exist in the hearts of those who seek God but are ignorant of the means of his grace. If a person longs for salvation but does not know the divinely established means of salvation, he is said to have an implicit desire for membership in the Church. Non-Catholic Christians know Christ, but they do not know his Church. In their desire to serve him, they implicitly desire to be members of his Church. Non-Christians can be saved, said John Paul, if they seek God with "a sincere heart." In that seeking they are "related" to Christ and to his body the Church (address to the CDF).

On the other hand, the Church has long made it clear that if a person rejects the Church with full knowledge and consent, he puts his soul in danger:

They cannot be saved who, knowing that the Catholic Church was founded as necessary by God through Christ, would refuse either to enter it or remain in it (cf. LG 14).

The Catholic Church is "the single and exclusive channel by which the truth and grace of Christ enter our world of space and time" (Karl Adam, The Spirit of Catholicism, 179). Those who do not know the Church, even those who fight against it, can receive these gifts if they honestly seek God and his truth. But, Adam says, "though it be not the Catholic Church itself that hands them the bread of truth and grace, yet it is Catholic bread that they eat." And when they eat of it, "without knowing it or willing it" they are "incorporated in the supernatural substance of the Church."

Extra ecclesiam, nulla salus.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR



Fr. Ray Ryland, a convert and former Episcopal priest, holds a Ph.D. in theology from Marquette University and is a contributing editor to This Rock. He writes from Steubenville, Ohio, where he lives with his wife, Ruth.

[Dr. Eckleburg]

You take yourself way toooo seriously. Nobody sits around thinking of ways to reject the catholic church.

lolol.

"Paranoia runs deep
Into their life it will creep..."

What unites us is our love for Jesus and desire to share that love with others.

Lol. Amen!

[Dr. Eckleburg]

Then the Catholic Church is leading you astray if you believe that you will go to hell for not fulfilling your religious obligations. That, my friend, is heresy. You will only go to hell if you reject the Lord Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. Period.

Amen, Mary!

[Dr. Eckleburg]

How does a man "act genuinely?"

He can't. We cannot be good enough or do enough good works to be saved and spend eternity in Heaven.

Amen. Mercy triumphs over judgment.

[Iscool]

Do you profess to the Nicene Creed? Yes or no?

Do you mean the one where your religion injected the word 'Catholic'??? You mean the creed that you guys claim confirms your apostolic succession??? Nope...Besides my creed is the Gospel...

[Dr. Eckleburg]

The Calvinist threads are like a frickin ghost town. I think I?m the only Catholic that ever responds to them.

Lololololololololol

(((gasping for air)))

lololololololololol

[bdeaner]

Do you mean the one where your religion injected the word 'Catholic'??? You mean the creed that you guys claim confirms your apostolic succession??? Nope...

You reject the Nicene Creed. Speaks for itself. No further comment necessary.

[Dr. Eckleburg]

Amen! Great post.

[bdeaner]

Put your money where your mouth is. I am calling for a bet. Are you in or not? I could use the money.

[Mr Rogers]

bdeaner,

The link not only fails to demonstrate purgatory, but it blatantly conflicts with scripture in many places.

"What does Scripture say about entering heaven? In Revelation we read that "nothing impure will ever enter it" (Rv 21.27). But are we not all made pure by our justification, by the blood of the Lamb? Again, such a view is incompatible with the doctrine of sanctification."

This confuses justification with sanctification. I know I've quoted it before, but it is such a GREAT verse:
Hebrews 10:

"12 But when this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God. 13 Since that time he waits for his enemies to be made his footstool, 14 because by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.

"he has made perfect forever" - not he will make perfect, or maybe if we are contrite enough - no, Jesus Christ HAS MADE PERFECT FOREVER! Justification! Not good enough until the next sin, but PERFECT FOREVER!

And who is it? "those who are being made holy" Sanctification. We are being made holy - set apart. And not 'who are becoming holy', but 'are being made holy' - an act being done to us, by God.

I have been forgiven for every sin I WILL commit.

Ephesians 2 "6 And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus,"

Not will raise us up, or will seat us, but SEATED US WITH HIM! It is finished! It is done!

I could quote verses ad nauseum. However, it was so pervasive that people twisted it to believe that Paul's teachings "serv[ed] as a license to commit whatever act we so desire since forgiveness is already received or gotten without contrition", to quote your link. And Paul repeatedly defends himself by explaining that we've been born again, a new creation - not a creature of sin, but one of good deeds.

About the Judgment of Christians, your link uses 1 Corinthians 3 to say "Paul plainly tells us that Christians with bad deeds who approach Christ the Judge will find themselves in a fire, burning away those deeds. Such a place is not hell for Paul is speaking of saved Christians: "he himself will be saved." It cannot be heaven for there is suffering: "he will suffer loss . . . as one escaping through flames."

But what Paul says is, "11 For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. 12 If any man builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, 13 his work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each man's work. 14 If what he has built survives, he will receive his reward. 15 If it is burned up, he will suffer loss; he himself will be saved, but only as one escaping through the flames."

It is our ministry that will be put to the flame, to see if we built on the foundation well ("using gold, silver, costly stones") or poorly ("wood, hay or straw"). And if the latter, we enter with nothing to show our Lord, for while WE have been forgiven, our works - our ministry, building the church on the foundation of Jesus Christ - will be shown to be nothing.

I will try to write more tomorrow.

[Dr. Eckleburg]

And I've been a Baptist long enough to know I wouldn't want to live in a country run by Baptists...

Don't fall for that secular prejudice. If God is real and faith is true, then God-fearing men of faith are exactly who should be leading our country. Resist the call to hand over our society and culture to godless men.

[bdeaner]

The EUCHARIST is the RE-REPRESENTATION of the Lord's ONE-TIME and ETERNAL SACRIFICE.



The EWTN website is correct -- it IS a sacrifice. Petronski is correct -- it is a non-bloody, re-representation of the Lord's eternal, singular sacrifice. Try reading the Catechism. You might learn something.

[Dr. Eckleburg]

Only the Catholic Church can claim Apostolic succession, which is where the Church gets it's teaching authority

There is no such entity as "Apostolic succession;" only the faith of Jesus Christ as learned and preached by the apostles according to the Scriptures.

[Iscool]

Petronski, here's your Catholic sacrifice you couldn't find...

In short, then, God cannot create something, including time and space, that can limit Him.

1Co 3:19 For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, He taketh the wise in their own craftiness.

The Catholic Mass transhistorical nature is first illustrated when Christ offered His glorified Body and Blood at the Last Supper, the day before He actually died on the Cross

Scripture doesn't say that...Where do you get that from???

Mat 16:17 And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.

1Co 15:50 Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption.

Oh Oh...No flesh and blood in heaven??? Now what???

Sure Jesus appeared in the flesh to his disciples...Jesus appears as a lamb that was slain in Revelation...Jesus can appear as anything He wants when He wants to...But does He have flesh and blood in heaven??? Apparently not...

The Eucharistic Sacrifice is foreshadowed by the prophet Malachi: For from the rising of the sun to its setting my name is great among the nations, and in every place incense is offered to my name, and a pure offering; for my name is great among the nations, says the LORD of hosts (Mal. 1:11).

The Church sees these verses as a prophecy of the Sacrifice of the Mass, for what other truly pure sacrifice could there be that Christians can offer throughout the world every day?

Problem is, Jesus never asked anyone, including your religion to off Him as a sacrifice...You have any scripture where Jesus said for you to offer Him as a sacrifice???

This is clearly future prophecy that has not been fulfilled...It will take place during the Millennial reign of Jesus Christ on this earth where EVERY NATION ON EARTH will know that Jesus is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords...

Jesus sacrifice on Calvary is thus once for all, yet never ending; it is timeless. Thus, when we re-present Christ’s one sacrifice at Mass, God actually enables us to make ourselves present to this timeless offering.

How in the world is eating Jesus flesh a re-presentation of HIS sacrifice on the Cross...No one ate His flesh on the Cross...

It started out that if you eat Jesus' flesh, you will have eternal life...Even tho you don't get it, it's as least in the scriptures...How did you guys turn it into YOU sacrificing Jesus???

What??? You guys just read this stuff, park your brain at the door and somehow just blindly believe it???

[bdeaner]

There is no such entity as "Apostolic succession;" only the faith of Jesus Christ as learned and preached by the apostles according to the Scriptures.

False dichotomy. Apostolic succession is based faith in Jesus Christ as learned and preached by the apostles according to the Scriptures.

See HERE.

[Dr. Eckleburg]

You forgot the blasphemous part -- "pray for us now and at the hour of our death."

The extent of the idolatry Rome encourages is illustrated in this link...

PADRE PIO AND THE MOTHER CO-REDEMPTRIX

...the Mother Coredemptrix who immolates herself with the Son on the Cross in order to bring to pass the universal Redemption...

The rest only gets worse. They need to repent. Fast.

[Dr. Eckleburg]

If it's so simple, why do none of the THOUSANDS of Protestant sects agree on it?

Most agree on the fundamentals, and NONE of them gets as much wrong as Rome.

None.

[Iscool]

You know that I am Lutheran right?

Didn't know that...My inlaws are Lutheran...My wife is a former Lutheran...

[bdeaner]

The rest only gets worse. They need to repent. Fast.

Repent? So much for your soteriology. You don't even put your own theology into practice! Nice. LOL.

[bdeaner]

FEW Most agree on the fundamentals, and NONE of them gets as much wrong as Rome have the authority to infallibly preserve and teach the Lord's Deposit of Faith in Holy Scripture and Tradition.

[Dr. Eckleburg]

Ridiculing our justification by the righteousness of Christ puts one outside orthodox Christianity.