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.

[driftdiver]

DING!

[Iscool]

I hope you do not believe Arius was correct in his belief that the Son was created. Do you? Of course not. So let me emphasize again: Arius presumably "compared Scripture with Scripture," but nonetheless arrived at an erroneous conclusion. If this was true for Arius, what guarantee do you, or does ANY Protestant have, that this is not also true for your (their) interpretation of a given Bible passage? If you know for certain that Arius' interpretations were heretical, this implies that an objectively true or "right" interpretation exists for the Biblical passages he used.

No matter how far off Arius may have been, he wouldn't have been within miles of your religion's private and error laden interpretations of scripture...

[Petronski]

The quality of your posts is beginning to ramp upward. Three or four in a row now with no anti-Catholic lies.

[bdeaner]

Jesus created the Church that is comprised of believers.

Yes, that's what the article says! ALL believers in Christ are part of the Mystical Body of Christ that is the CHURCH. BUT only one Church institution has the teaching authority to preserve and teach the Deposit of Faith, which is objectively TRUE, and that is the Church established by Christ as the Catholic Church. This is supported both by Scripture and by the writings of the early church Fathers. If someone is a heretic, pagan or schismatic, they are not in FULL communion with the Truth of the Church, but if they are sincerely seeking the the Truth of Christ, they can be saved even if not in full communion. God doesn't send you to Hell if you don't pass the theology exam, as Mr. Rogers (a Baptist) has pointed out in a number of post, essentially in agreement with Catholic teaching, especially in the recent Vatican II Council. That's the major take home point of the article.

[driftdiver]

DING!

[CTrent1564]

driftdiver:

Thanks and no problem, I appreciate the intellectual honesty you have, once provided with the facts and evidence, to realilze that the Catholic Church is the “Catholic Church” and “Roman Catholic” only in Church canon law applies the the Western half of Catholicism, which non-Catholics, and to be honest, some less than well informed Catholics, think describes the entire Catholic Church.

Regards

[bdeaner]

No matter how far off Arius may have been, he wouldn't have been within miles of your religion's private and error laden interpretations of scripture...

All talk, no substance. Pfft.

[driftdiver]

And thats where I take issue. Jesus came and gave his life for our sins. He is our mediator to God. Nothing else is needed.

So for a man to say you must seek through and can only receive salvation through a man is false in my mind.

And of course I’m not in full communion with the Church. That being your Catholic (or Roman Catholic) Church. Why deal with a handicapped middle man and not the Man himself?

[Petronski]

He is our mediator to God. Nothing else is needed.

Good thing you never seek the help (by asking the prayers) of handicapped middlemen among your family and friends.

Straight to Christ and nothing else.

[bdeaner]

Why deal with a handicapped middle man and not the Man himself?.

I am not questioning your sincerity. But the danger is clear. EVERYONE thinks his or her own individual interpretation of the Bible is the correct one. There is a lot of pride to go around. Do you think Jesus would have just left the ship without a rudder? No teaching authority on the earth, inspired infallibly by the Holy Spirit, to help people get it right? To find out the REAL and OBJECTIVE and INFALLIBLE Truth revealed in the Scriptures? If you cannot find this teaching authority in the Catholic Church, where do you find it? Sincere question.

[MarkBsnr]

***Jesus saves***

And He passes up to Moses on the left wing past the defense; Moses skates down in a two on one with David; Moses fakes a shot and passes over to David; he shoots, HE SCORES!!!!

***The Church mentioned by Christ is not the Catholic Church***

Yes, it is.

***I’m not part of the Catholic church and my salvation is not dependent on anyones interpretation of the Word.***

If you don’t understand what Jesus said, how can you be saved?

[CTrent1564]

driftdiver:

In no place does Catholic Theology ever state that salvation comes through a man, salvation is the work of the Holy Trinity and is accomplished through the paschal mystery of Christ. Sacraments, in Catholic Theology are the normative means that God gives us Grace, and as such are celebrated rightly in the Church, which is Christ’s body. So Christ, who is head of the Church, sanctifies those of us incorporated into his body [i.e. the Church], via the Sacraments/Holy Mysteries, as the East calls them

So, how does the Catholic Church affirm the repeated teaching of the Church Fathers, that the outside of the Church, there is no salvation. The Catholic Church’s understanding of the Church (i.e. its ecclesiology) is linked to its Theology about God. The Holy Trinity reveals the nature of God, which is God is a God of perfect communion and love and relationship. The Father eternally generates the Son and the Son returns of the love of the Father and the bond of love is the Holy Spirit. The second person of the Trinity, Christ, became incarnate (i.e. Christ has a fully human and divine nature) and founded a Church (see, Mt 16) which St. Paul describes as the pillar and foundation of Truth (1 Tim 3: 15). The Church is described by St. Paul as the body of Christ (1 Cor 12: 12-14), the Bride of Christ (Eph 5: 26-27) and by St. Peter as the People of God (1 Pet 2: 9-10). So using the typological reference of the Old Testament, where God says the Jewish People are his people, the Church understoodo, with reference to the person of Christ, is the instrument tht God uses to gather all people into a communion with the Holy Trinity. Since Christ has one Body, and One Bride, and one people, and since God is a God of perfect communion (Holy Trinity), the Church then is ontologically also one.

So again, the Catholic Church’s doctrine of the nature of the Church is tied to its theology of God (Trinity), and its theology about Christ (Christology). Christ, who is A Divine Person, who through the incarnation has a fully human nature along with his Divine Nature then, again, has implications for the Doctrine of the Church as Christ’s Body (c.f. 1 Cor 12:12-14) and thus from Catholic Theology, the Church is both a visible and spiritual community of faith, hope and charity which Christ communicates Truth and Grace to all men (see Catechism of the Catholic Church 771). Thus, the Church, in Christ, the Head of the Body [The Church], is like a sacrament, a sign and instrument of communion with God and thus is Christ’s instrument for salvation for all people.

In the early Church, the Church Fathers saw the Church as the means of salvation as it was often stated that outside of the Church, there was no salvation. For example, St. Irenaeus of Lyons [140 to 202 AD] writes:

“In the Church God has placed apostles, prophets, teachers, and every other working of the Spirit, of whom none of those are sharers who do not conform to the Church, but who defraud themselves of life by an evil mind and even worse way of acting. Where the Church is, there is the Spirit of God; where the Spirit of God is, there is the Church and all grace” (Against Heresies 3:24:1 [A.D. 189]; cited from Fr. Jurgen’s The Faith of the Early Fathers Vol. 1).

Origen [182 to 254AD] in his Commentaries on the Book of Joshua (ca 249-251 AD) writes [again cited from Fr. Jurgen’s Faith of the Early Fathers, Vol..1]:

“If someone from this people wants to be saved, let him come into this house so that he may be able to attain his salvation. . . . Let no one, then, be persuaded otherwise, nor let anyone deceive himself: Outside of this house, that is, outside of the Church, no one is saved; for, if anyone should go out of it, he is guilty of his own death”

St. Cyprian of Carthage, writing in 250 AD would write “He cannot have God as is Father and not have the Church as his mother.” The Catholic Church still holds to this doctrine and re-formulates is in a positive fashion by stating “All salvation comes from Christ, the Head through the Church which is his body” (see Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 846).

So, from the Catholic perspective, it is Catholic Church, as Christ Body, that is endowed by Christ as the fullest means of Grace [i.e. 7 Sacraments] for the justification and sanctification of humanity. So, Christ is bound to the sacraments and thus the fullness of salvation is found in the Catholic Church.

I think the issue you may be having is what happens to those who are not fully in communion with the Catholic Church. Those who are baptized into the Holy Trinity, outside of visible communion with the Catholic Church are incorporated into the Holy Trinity and thus are in some communion with the Catholic Church.

While the fullness of salvation is found in the Catholic Church given all 7 sacraments [Orthodox have the 7 Holy Mysteries as well], thus while Christ is bound to the sacraments, which are the normative means of Grace, Christ is not bound by them [see Catechism of the Catholic Church, para 1257] and thus in ways known to God alone, God’s Grace can still is available. Again, this idea is in line with the Apostolic Tradition of the early Church. It was Tertullian, writing as an orthodox Catholic around 200 AD [he later embraced the Montanist heresy] that there is a baptism of blood [martyrdom] which is like the sacrament of Baptism. St. Augustine writing in City of God would state that we have a second laver, which is a laver of blood. He goes on to state that whoever dies from confessing Christ without the laver of regeneration, it avails as much for the remission of the persons sins as if they had been washed in the sacred font of Baptism (City of God, Book 13, Chapter 7). St. Augustine also spoke of a “baptism of desire”.

So, in closing from the Catholic perspective, God has acted in History and through history through the revelation of God through Christ Jesus. Thus, the sacraments, nature of the Church, Liturgy and Worship are bound to the reality of the Incarnation of Christ, which took place in the context of the Roman-Greco world in the 1st century and thus how the Doctrines related to sacraments, the nature of the Church, etc were understood by the early Church Fathers is foundational for Catholics. Accordingly, from the Catholic perspective, the notion that an individual should seek to find a community that fits him are work with others to create a community to fit ones views is, in my humble opinion, a deconstructist/Marxist notion that history is to be rejected, because it is based on outdated values, philosophies, etc, and thus we can re-create a new community and world. I think this is going on in many Protestant communities, and was embraced in some Catholic circles as a political liberation theology [which was rejected outright by Pope John Paul II].

For example, Pope Benedict cites Psalm 104, which mentions bread, wine and oil. Of course, these elements are the matter used in Catholic sacraments and Pope Benedict responds to the criticism that these elements make sense in the Mediterranean and other elements should be used in other cultures and regions. As such, as Pope Benedict writes, “God has acted in history and through history and given the gifts of the earth [Bread, wine, oil] their significance. The elements become the sacraments through connection with the unique history of God in relation to Christ…..Incarnation does not mean doing as we please. On the contrary, it bounds us to the history of a particular time and while outwardly, that history might seem fortuitous, it is the form of history willed by God and for us it is the trustworthy trace he has imprinted on the earth, the guarantee that we are not thinking up things for ourselves but are truly touched by God and come into touch with him [Spirit of the Liturgy, p. 224]

So taking Pope Benedict’s point further, the sacraments are rightly celebrated in the Church, which was founded by Christ, and as his body, is the instrument that God uses to save humanity and thus, since the Church is Christ’s body, outside of it, there is no salvation. Looking at it from a different angle, all who are saved are saved by Christ and brought into his body, which is the Church.

So, I hope my post, in some way, at least gives you the Catholic perspective, with cites to Catholic authoritative sources, to better help you understand why the Catholic Church affirms “outside of the Church, there is no salvation”

Regards and God’s peace

[Iscool]

968 - Her role in relation to the Church and to all humanity goes still further. "In a wholly singular way she cooperated by her obedience, faith, hope, and burning charity in the Savior's work of restoring supernatural life to souls. For this reason she is a mother to us in the order of grace."509

Like I said, how do people fall for this stuff???

I realize many are born into it but what of the rest??? Actually we know the answer...These are folks who honestly think they can be good enough to get to heaven on their own...They have not been brought to the place where they have figured out that only God is righteous...And only God CAN be righteous...That His righteousness was given to us as a gift because no matter what we do, we will never measure up...

[Iscool]

Spreading mistrust and unbelief of the Bible is the work of Satan.

Amen to that...The Father of Lies at work...

[Iscool]

There’s nothing “crude” about that face. I thought it was hilarious. Very Robert DeNiro-ish.

As I did as well...I use that maneuver on some of the people at my work...lol

[PugetSoundSoldier]

Thanks to God, I'm not a "reformed" Calvinist.

Nope, you're a Roman Catholic. In the common vernacular, a Roman Catholic is a Catholic who follows the Pope, rather than a Eastern Catholic who follows the Patriarch.

The term "Roman" modifies Catholic to indicate one who follows the Pope who sits in the Vatican inside Rome.

You want to play little word games to deflect from the facts you cannot address...

[cva66snipe]

EVERYONE thinks his or her own individual interpretation of the Bible is the correct one.

That included who? Peter perhaps? The Chosen Twelve after the death of Christ for years were not doing what they were told and had to be corrected among them Peter who was told to accept the Gentiles. Paul was the actual organizer of Roman Churches much more than Peter. The Chosen Twelve had many differences and disputes amongst themselves as did others like Paul and Barnabas.

The Disciples after Christ went into the heavens were not doing what they were told to do in The Great Commission thus came the persecution to scatter the flock. The disagreements also scattered the flock. Disagreements that were not Blasphemy but rather personal ones as to even individual beliefs. Jesus Himself settled the question of which followers were right when His chosen Twelve were JEALOUS {note that event} over another sect casting out demons and healing people in Jesus name and they asked Christ if they should make the stop. What was His answer to them.

There is the answer to to Orange and Green jealousy which is all it actually is JELOUSY. It is as much a jealousy as the Gentile vs the Jewish. Paul had a teaching on that jealousy and why it was to be so. Churches need to stop wasting precious time and strength trying to convert each other to each others churches. That fight is 2000 years old and will not be settled until all are united as one when Christ comes for His chosen to take them.

But these debates do serve a useful purpose though. They make a person sharpen up on their reading of scripture which is good and take stock of their own beliefs and faith in Christ which is also good. Be careful though not to weaken the faith of one less able to handle such or has the measure of faith ourselves or others may have. These debates should not be aimed at making one fall in their beliefs where GOD through the Holy Spirit has placed them. If GOD wants Catholic to be Baptist or Pentecostals to be Methodist and vice versa that is HIS sovereign business not ours. Work in the laboring field where GOD has placed you. If He has need of you elsewhere He Himself vis The Holy Spirit will guide you there and not man.

[Petronski]

Nope, you're a Roman Catholic.

When I say I'm not, over and over, and you disagree, YOU are the one who is wrong.

It IS interesting to see how many people resort to throwing the term "Roman Catholic" like an accusation, though. That's been informative.

...the Vatican inside Rome.

Vatican City is an independent city-state. It is not part of Rome.

[Petronski]

In the common vernacular, a Roman Catholic is a Catholic who follows the Pope, rather than a Eastern Catholic who follows the Patriarch.

Who are the Eastern Orthodox?

[PugetSoundSoldier]

You do realize that to live in Rome one must first go to Italy, right?

And you do realize that to get to the Vatican (where I have been), one must first go through Rome, right?

The Vatican is located within Rome; that is the physical location. Protestations notwithstanding!

But back to a question posed earlier that you have refused to answer: what is the Biblical basis for the papacy? Either the succession or the ability to speak ex cathedra? Either part...