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.

[Mr Rogers]

If you get the urge to research Border Collies, herding and trials, you can start here: http://www.bordercollie.org/core.html

[D-fendr]

By thinking rationally, I cannot get my body to walk across a room.

I'd disagree, or refine that. I'll agree and then disagree with Kosta here.

Rational thinking, the intellect can get your body to walk - it is a navigator. It is not, however, the captain. It doesn't determine why what you walk for is better than not walking. Rational thinking alone cannot give you the purpose in walking across the room. It cannot even give you your purpose to get up in the morning. Not reason alone.

Reason is conditional, each reason has a reason.. as far you wish to go, it can only lead to another reason, until it reaches an axiom or absolute truth statement or knowledge.

You can go on infinitely in each conditional statement - but you would still sit - with reason alone.

Reason, the conditional, must stand upon the absolute - to move, to have a purpose. And absolutes cannot be known by reason - by definition, they have no "because". If they did they would be conditional, not absolute, and still you would sit.

[D-fendr]

thanks for your reply. I greatly appreciate and rely upon you knowledge of the teachings of the Church. I am still very much a learner in this.

no one who positively repudiates the Church can be said to belong to the Church in any sense

If one repudiates, semi-quoting: The Church including ALL of the instrumental means of salvation operating in the world through Christ and the Holy Spirit, no matter where that may be occurring… I can see the meaning. I would equate this rejection, or at least include in it: denying the reality of Goodness, Beauty, Truth. And I imagine such a person would not know anything of his connection with the divine or with anyone else and would experience this life as being abandoned in a deep and dark well. Hell.

But there is still hope.

[bdeaner]

But there is still hope.

Until death there is always hope, thank the Lord. Hell is really the impossibility of hope. Much worse even than literal fire.

[Cvengr]

just how do you and the author of Hebrews know things not seen (or detected) exist that you may have faith (trust) in them?

The soulish man presumes our knowledge of Him precedes our faith. Faith comes first. Through faith, He is free to further sanctify us.

[D-fendr]

Does the “faith that comes first” require no knowledge of Him? If not, what knowledge may precede faith? And must it always be in this order?

[kosta50]

bdeaner - this seems to be a side discussion to the main thread, since kosta50 wants to know how anyone can know anything about God or the world.

It's a sensible question considering that God is "beyond everything." As for the world, I never made such an inquiry.

He holds up logic, and asks for proofs. I tell him there are none, because God is revealed, not concluded.

Better logic then reflex or fancy gone wild. You will have to make up your mind about the revealed thing. You admitted, to my surprise, that faith is an a priori assumption, and now you are saying it's a 'revelation.'

He wants to know how someone can believe a revelation, since it is not logical.

No, you got that one wrong too. I want to know how can you believe a revelation without knowing what it is. As I said, it could be God, but it could be insanity or a brain tumor that's making you "see" and "hear" revelations. And if you do know what it is, how do you know what it is? I also asked you if you believe that "demons" cause diseases and you conveniently ignored that.

The mind operates quite effectively in many areas without resorting to logic or conscious thought

As in thoughtless and illogical behavior? How do you measure effectiveness of the mind in thoughless illogical mode?

it seems foolish to me to assume that logic is the rule that we can submit belief in God to. In such a discussion, logic is inadequate.

At least you practice what you preach. You say it seems foolish to assume that logic rules, but it is not foolish to assume the existence and knowledge of an inconceivable ontologically alien divine entity? Faith is an a priori assumption, remember? And based on that "logic" you conclude that logic is inadequate. Is that a fact?

I used dogs because I know something about Border Collies, and because even learned men like yourself ought to know something of a Lab’s behavior. If behavior - complex behavior - is inheritable, then we should be cautious in trusting our powers of logic

Inbreeding in humans does not result in specific behavior patterns. Identical twins separated shortly after birth develop different behavior patterns. Human behavior is not inbred; it is learned.  

If you knew more about Border Collies, you would know that top breeders breed for behavior, not looks or body

And if you knew more about humans you'd know that what we are not Border Collies.

I used an anecdote to illustrate, not to prove. I’m not going to try to teach you about Border Collie breeding or trials - feel free to research it on your own.

You used an anecdote of innate dog behavior and assumed a paralle with humans where there is none.

If you think your mind operates independently of your body, you aren’t very bright. Hunger and weariness obviously affect out thinking. Why? Because our mind is part of our body.

You are still building your strawman. I never even suggested such a  thing. Hunger and weariness affect our mind because our brain needs glucose to function, the way your car needs gasoline to run, and your electric fan needs electricity spin. You see, it's quite simple: no glucose, no brain activity, no mind.

How does this justify making an a priori presumptive leap of faith that there is God, that you know what God is, that you know how to "recognize" the ontologically unrecognizable, to detect the undetectable, to speak of characteristics of the invisible, etc? You have covered everything from Border Collies to unscientific claims about human behavior and your military service, but you have still not addressed these logical questions.

How do I know about God? The Holy Spirit.

Good. Now you can tell me how do you know it's the Holy Spirit?

Sorry that you don’t like that answer, but it is true.

Sorry that I don't "like the answer BUT IT IS TRUE?"  I can understand why logic is such a low item on your repertoire. It's much easier to use a sledge hammer approach as "proof." When all else fails, we will just declare it true and that "proves" it.

I pray you might someday learn the truth of it.

Why? So that I may dispense with reason and let myself be guided by a priori assumptions?

[kosta50]

The soulish man presumes our knowledge of Him precedes our faith.

What? You wake up one day and believe for no reason whatsoever?

Faith comes first

How do you know that?

Through faith, He is free to further sanctify us.

And how do you know that? How do you know "He" is limited to faith and why?

[kosta50]

Rational thinking, the intellect can get your body to walk - it is a navigator. It is not, however, the captain

I remind myself of that every day when I observe people's driving habits. Not using reason as your captain is a matter of habit or choice it seems. Perhaps using reason is also a badly neglected learned behavior, especially with people who buy things they don't need, with the money they don't have, to impress people they don't know.

And if mind is not the captain, what is?

Reason is conditional, each reason has a reason.. as far you wish to go, it can only lead to another reason, until it reaches an axiom or absolute truth statement or knowledge.

This is an epistemological issue...where is the limit to our knowing. One thing leads to another, but where does it end? I think the end of knowledge (not awareness) is when we have to make a leap of faith because we have run out of objective knowledge, and begin to construct reality in our own mind rather than simply accept that our 'box' is not big enough to know everything, and be humble enough to simply admit ignorance beyond a certain point.

Reason, the conditional, must stand upon the absolute - to move, to have a purpose

What absolutes? And why does anything have to have a purpose?

And absolutes cannot be known by reason - by definition, they have no "because". If they did they would be conditional, not absolute, and still you would sit

How do you know there are absolutes then? To assume that something preceded this existence doesn't mean it is an absolute. And if an absolute cannot be known by reason, by which means it is known?

[kosta50]

How do you know this? It is contrary to all my 50 years of experience with animals and humans

There is a highly observable chasm between animals and humans. Animals can do what we can't and vice versa. The main one is language and absence of innate behavior in humans.

Using one's own inner experience as the rule is solipsism. It basically denies the world around you. I can see why personal fancy can play a dominant role in such an approach.

[Mr Rogers]

Actually, rational thinking doesn’t allow you to walk. Walking requires dozens of decisions each second to maintain balance, and we do not and cannot use our conscious mind to make those decisions. That is why walking takes time to learn. The body needs those decisions to be made, but you cannot ‘think’ fast enough and at the level of muscular control required.

This is true in other areas as well. When you ‘see’ a couch, you don’t see a couch. You see a lot of colors in a pattern. Your mind then compares it to everything else it has seen and determines it is a couch. Before you can look at a room and have any sense, your mind needs to be able to make these comparisons and determine what is what.

That is why humans are so good at target recognition. A child can look at a severely scrambled picture of a tank in the woods and know it is a tank. Computers cannot - not at the level we can. That is why no automatic target recognition system has worked nearly as well as a human.

This is not ‘anti-rational’, for it is something we train for. In WW2, target recognition of planes was taught. With practice, a human could see a specific plane for 1/10 second, and ‘know’ exactly what it was. They were specifically taught not to think. Thinking was too slow and too unreliable. They had to train the subconscious mind to do the rational work of the conscious mind.

That is what I am trying to explain to kosta50. Every day, he makes thousands of ‘rational’ decisions without using logic to do so. If he didn’t, he would be insane.

So why does he insist that only his conscious, rational, logical mind is adequate to ‘know’?

This is also something they teach in self defense and in combat - trust your ‘instincts’. If it feels wrong, it probably IS wrong. Your mind can pick up on details, compare it to your experience, and make rational decisions without logic.

Can it go wrong? Of course. So can the logic of anyone I’ve met. You can make mistakes. But when I was training to go to Afghanistan in 2006/2007, our instructors said that NOT trusting our instincts was a sure way to die.

That is what I’m telling kosta50. Don’t be surprised if we make decisions about following God without having a clearly thought thru, logical, A proves B approach. After all, we do this all the time, every day, and it works well.

In combat, no one waits to move until they can prove something. You take what you’ve got and make the best decision you can, including your ‘instincts’ and ‘feelings’ as inputs. You make a ‘leap of faith’ and go (or stay). We do the same thing driving down the highway. And we do the same thing making decisions about God and faith.

Every day we make ‘leaps of faith’, most of which work. Those that don’t, or are based on inappropriate subconscious patterns, can kill us (read Deep Survival, or study USAF accidents). But we have to make them, so we do.

Faith in God is not anti-rational, but neither is it a conclusion. Obviously we make mistakes, just as we make mistakes when flying. But avoiding a decision until it is provable is a decision in itself.

[Mr Rogers]

“Human behavior is not inbred; it is learned. “

Based on our experience with animals, it is likely that I could breed a human for aggression or a drive to go running. It would take at least a few dozen generations, and probably more. But we can breed dogs, on average, for retrieving, hunting, herding, long or short outruns, use of ‘eye’, etc.

I’d love to hear WHY humans have a ‘chasm’ that makes us immune to the techniques used successfully in other animals for a thousand years.

[Mr Rogers]

“Using one’s own inner experience as the rule is solipsism.”

Wrong. You do it every day. It is an inescapable part of life.

[Cvengr]

What? You wake up one day and believe for no reason whatsoever?

The object of our thinking is in Him, not in our primacy of judgment. He is the object of our faith. In the Greek the same word is used which we find translated as for faith and belief. Believe in Him and we will be saved. We are saved by faith alone, not by works, lest any man should boast. Same word used in both cases.

How do you know that?(Faith comes first)

Because the Word of God tells us. That is why we study the Word of God, to know what He wants for us by what He reveals of Himself to us, all glorifying the Son.

Consider Hebrews 11.

[D-fendr]

why does anything have to have a purpose?

I don't know, but without one we don't ask such questions - or get up in the morning.

How do you know there are absolutes then?

I know they are necessary to fully use reason/logic in determining human decisions. Without them, real or assumed, we have no place to begin our reasoning. We all, at the least, act as though they exist.

In absolute values, our choices are 1) Absolute values and truths exist and can be known 2) We can only take someone else's word they exist and we consciously choose some. 3) Unconsciously do 2, our actions illustrating which absolute values are true for us.

The alternative to all of these, if we are making all decisions on logic-reason is to be frozen in an endless road "why/because" ?

if an absolute cannot be known by reason, by which means it is known?

You are not frozen, you have purpose and values. So you know or act as though you know absolute truth/values. Find what these, maybe one, are - a simple exercise will work - and ask yourself the same question. I think this is the most useful answer.

[D-fendr]

If God were objectively provable, we wouldn't be having this discussion. If He were, some would say that only proves it isn't God we have proved.

In any case, let's assume that a leap of faith of some sort is required. On what basis, what criteria do we use to choose where to leap?

In driving, or combat, we don't have full information, but we have clear criteria - what information we're looking for and how it it relates or is judged. We don't leap completely blind in driving or combat.

What is the data we're evaluating that goes into where and if we leap?

[kosta50]

That is what I am trying to explain to kosta50. Every day, he makes thousands of ‘rational’ decisions without using logic to do so. If he didn’t, he would be insane.

I never said everything we do is rational. I said human begavior is learned. That's not the same as rational. But it is only through reason that we may know, because through logic we estbalish relationships of the cause and effect (understanding).

[kosta50]

Based on our experience with animals, it is likely that I could breed a human for aggression or a drive to go running

You could ahcive the same thing well into one's lifetime by proper conditioning (learning).

I’d love to hear WHY humans have a ‘chasm’ that makes us immune to the techniques used successfully in other animals for a thousand years.

Because innate behavior doesn't exist in humans. We also don't know why gravity is, but we know it is.

[kosta50]

{solipsism] You do it every day. It is an inescapable part of life.

I differentiate my dreams from reality. I do not believe for one minute that just because something maskes sense it has to be true.

[kosta50]

The object of our thinking is in Him, not in our primacy of judgment

Who says? You do? Who is "Him" and how do you know "Him?"

He is the object of our faith

Why?

Believe in Him and we will be saved.

Saved form what? And how do you know that? Why do you fele you needor deserve to be saved?

Because the Word of God tells us

How do yoyu know it's the word of God?