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.

[Petronski]

Those with an open mind will accept that both interpretations are valid; both traditions - transubstantiation and symbolism - lay equal claim. Meaning both positions are positions of dogma.

There can be only one truth.

[papertyger]

There is no need to "call Protestants back to the Church"; we never left. We just worship in a different way, with some small - but not critical - doctrinal issues.

There is when, like me, the people who are guiding you are actually guiding you AWAY from the Jesus of the Bible, which is the Jesus of the Catholic Church, and toward the Jesus of "Your Own Interpretation."

[Mr Rogers]

There can be only one truth, and I thank God that he will not administer a theology test when I stand before Him! That doesn’t mean it isn’t important to seek the truth - after all, we’re approaching post 800 on this thread alone - but I doubt I could score 100% if God Himself administered the test.

Fortunately, the test will be, “Do I know you?”

Not, “Did you correctly know everything about Me and My Church?”

[Cvengr]

There is lots of confusion between the different major Christian Churches, especially in their doctrine and vocabulary, building upon one another.

Redemption, properly stated, was directed at sin and performed by our Lord Jesus on the Cross. It was a universal redemption (not a universal salvation).

Redemption is required, in order for a Just and righteous God to provide salvation.

Forgiveness, now becomes the issue for the sinner, who now considers the Gospel.

Once we return to God and confess our sin to Him, even for the first acceptance of Him, then the believer is POSITIONALLY sanctified, i.e. saved by faith alone in Christ alone.

We are not saved because of our faith, rather we are saved through our Faith, by His work in us.

[Petronski]

On all of these discussions, it can be hard to separate genuine doctrine from the folks we’ve met who claimed things that just were not true.

I will submit with good will that you are far more likely to find genuine doctrine of the Catholic Church in the Catechism than any given statement by any Catholic poster or friend or priest or bishop.

[cva66snipe]

Do you think that confers on you an authority to contradict Christ's clear pronouncements?

Why did Christ say in Matthew 23 and to whom did He say it too and why? Believe me I'm not picking on any one church as all have them in positions of authority in the church. But here's some examples. Widows send your monthy pension to Brother Bubba who will pray for you. Brother have you done this, this, this, this, and this to recieve your salvation? No? You're going to hell then. Do you speak in tounges, roll in the floor, laugh into hysteria, handle deadly snakes without being asked of from GOD to do so? No? same answer. Do you invite your neighbor to church yet refuse them water to drink from your well which is full? {I saw a Deacon do this for years to a woman raising many kids alone}

Salvation through Christ is simple. Christ Himself stated the terms for our salvation in John 3:16. We are to come to him as children not as adults burdened down by church dogma's and laws our forefathers could not even follow.

[Mr Rogers]

I only recently came across a website with the Catholic Catechism. I need to spend some time reading it so I can understand what is Catholic doctrine.

It obviously is much harder to figure out what BAPTIST doctrine is, since most deny we have any...

;>)

[Mr Rogers]

You forgot, “Have you ever used a Bible other than King James? Then you are going to hell!”

I walked out on that one...to a LOT of hostile stares. But I was younger then, and would have made a fight of it!

[Petronski]

Unlike vatican.va, this site has a very clean interface (dark text on a white background).

[Lurker]

We know it's God's Word because the Church said so

Hahahahahahah....hohohohoho.....hehehehehe...

You mean the same Catholic Church that said it was ok to burn witches? That Catholic church? The same Catholic church that had to have a 'council' 500 years after Christ died on the Cross to decide which Books were 'permitted' and which were heresy?

That Catholic church?

Spare me...

[PugetSoundSoldier]

As long as you read the entire chapter, not just those few verses which support your pre-determined conclusion.

For example, John 6:40:

For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him may have eternal life, and I shall raise him (on) the last day."

Or John 6:47:

Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life.

Or even John 5:24:

Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes in the one who sent me has eternal life and will not come to condemnation, but has passed from death to life.

And when you consider the multiple other references where Jesus says that we are saved by faith. And the same claims made by Peter and Paul.

So either Jesus is lying because he claimed in one place that you must eat His body (taking John 6 literally) as well as faith being all that's needed (John 5 and John 6 literally)

- or -

Jesus is talking figuratively throughout about being consumed. That we must take His teachings internal to us to change our hearts.

Personally, I'll go with the interpretation where Jesus does not contradict Himself, but you can choose whichever you want. It's patently obvious you will ignore this anyway.

[papertyger]

Yes, your dogma. Considering you refuse to acknowledge the clear explanation of bieng “born again” that Christ gave...

If you think Christ is "explaining clearly" in John 3, you can not distinguish reality from rhetoric.

Now, if you are giving your interpretation the same authority of actual scripture, we have nothing to talk about.

I am content to rely on the words of Christ in the bible, not some interpretation contrived with no other goal than undermining the orthodox Catholic teaching.

[papertyger]

Those with an open mind will accept that both interpretations are valid

But only one of them is authoritative.

[cva66snipe]

You forgot, “Have you ever used a Bible other than King James? Then you are going to hell!” I walked out on that one...to a LOT of hostile stares. But I was younger then, and would have made a fight of it!

Indeed I did forget that one. One Bible I recieved as a gift means a lot. It was given to me by a friend where I once worked who was a Seventh Day Adventist. It's the NCV. The modern translations have helped many including myself study more. I just wish I could read and concentrate and put together thoughts like I once could. Now it takes me a while to do so. A lot of things I know and understand came from a window of about 5 years opened up to me where I had the time and ability to do intense reading. Now to even pray beyond a couple of complete thoughts I generally must go off alone meaning away from the house to seclusion.

[Petronski]

Personally, I'll go with the interpretation where Jesus does not contradict Himself...

Congratulations! You agree with the Catholic Church.

[Petronski]

That Catholic church?

No, not whatever it is you're describing.

THE Catholic Church.

[PugetSoundSoldier]

There is when, like me, the people who are guiding you are actually guiding you AWAY from the Jesus of the Bible, which is the Jesus of the Catholic Church, and toward the Jesus of "Your Own Interpretation."

Who here are you accusing of doing that? I know I've just been called a liar a few posts above, do you now call me a heretic or deceiver?

[Marysecretary]

Yes, I’ve noticed that with some of your folks here.