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.

[Iscool]

Just to give three examples: Baptists, Episcopalians, and Church of Latter Day Saints are about as far apart as you can get without rejecting Christ as our savior.

Mormons are far closer to you than to us...They have their own scriptures as you have your own tradition...They, like you, are the one true church...

I admit, I shouldn't say Protestant...I should say non-Catholic...The Episcos and Anglicans are Catholics without a pope...

[Dr. Eckleburg]

For men to call themselves "another Christ" (alter Christus) is blasphemy. They need to cease and repent of it.

"For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many." -- Mark 13:6

[Alex Murphy]

Just to give three examples: Baptists, Episcopalians, and Church of Latter Day Saints are about as far apart as you can get without rejecting Christ as our savior. They are each individually closer to the Catholic Church in teaching than they are to each other, with perhaps the exception of LDS, which is frankly out to lunch.

Just about the ONLY thing that unites them, other than belief in Jesus Christ, is their rejection of the Catholic Church. That's really the one thing all PROTEST-ant sects have in common -- their PROTEST against the Mother Church established by Our Lord, the Catholic Church.

Ping for later

[bdeaner]

Your post serves to demonstrate my point.

Mormons are far closer to you than to us...

They are similar ONLY in that they also reject sola Scriptura. But they do not have true Apostolic succession and do not have the authority to protect and preserve the true Deposit of Faith. That's obvious. Any idiot can claim to have spoken with Jesus and write a book. But only one Church can claim legitimately to have Apostolic succession. Even if you disagree with the concept of Apostolic succession, one must at least admit that the Catholic Church is really the only body of believers that has any historical claim to it.

I admit, I shouldn't say Protestant...I should say non-Catholic...The Episcos and Anglicans are Catholics without a pope...

Says a lot.

[Petronski]

For men to call themselves "another Christ" (alter Christus) is blasphemy.

You don't even know what it means.

[Dr. Eckleburg]

For you to rebuke that statement puts you outside orthodox Christianity. We are saved by Christ’s righteousness and not our own.

[Petronski]

He said "Believe in me and my righteousness; in the work I do on the cross for your sake."

Christ didn't say that. YOU did.

[Petronski]

Nope, I’ve looked. I don’t see the work Catholic in the Bible.

So you reject the Trinity too.

[Petronski]

For you to rebuke that statement puts you outside orthodox Christianity.

Rebuking your words puts one outside orthodox Christianity?

LOLROFLMTO

YOUR words?

LOL

[Dr. Eckleburg]

RCs belabor the physical world because that seems to be all they know of God -- various rituals and rites and icons and trinkets and statues and "another Christ" in front of them "forgiving" their sins. Yes, God created everything good, and then our first father, Adam, fell, forever staining mankind with the blemish of that indelible disobedience.

It took the coming of our second father, Jesus Christ, to redeem us from that sin by standing in our place before God and taking on the punishment rightly due us so that we now stand acquitted before the eyes of God.

The RCC used to better understand original sin. Lately it seems the double speak has extended even to this basic Christian belief.

"Your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit"

Is our body made from bricks and mortar? No, Paul is speaking of the spiritual body. We are spiritual beings and you want to remain carnal.

But the fact that we are spiritual beings most definitely effects our physical life on earth by the good fruits produced by the Holy Spirit within us. We are His children. We were created to mirror the joy of Christ in all things.

The Scriptures overwhelmingly support the Catholic position with regard to enacting physically our spiritual sanctification.

That sentence doesn't even make much sense. All you're doing is grasping at straws hoping to justify your pagan ritual of transubstantiation which is idolatry in God's eyes. Christ is in heaven, not being served up in temples made with hands. He made His sacrifice for His lost sheep and that one-time, completed sacrifice has been accepted by God and marked "paid-in-full."

"Spiritually" for St. Paul means acting genuinely from within rather than just externally

lol. How does a man "act genuinely?" How does a man perform righteousness if what is "within" him is rebellious by nature?

Answer: he must be born again, spiritually, by the free gift of the Holy Spirit, according to the will and purpose of God.

[papertyger]

For you to rebuke that statement puts you outside orthodox Christianity.

Since when is taking the name of the Lord in vain a measure of orthodox Christianity?

Jesus didn't say that: you did.

[Mr Rogers]

The LDS do not believe in Jesus. They use the name, but they define Jesus in a way that denies everything that Christians believe. Jesus is not the brother of Satan, and we will not someday be Gods of our own little world...

It would take a long post to discuss...I lived in Utah for 6 years, and had many LONG talks with Mormons.

[papertyger]

Answer: he must be born again, spiritually, by the free gift of the Holy Spirit, according to the will and purpose of God.

Sorry, it doesn't work that way. If I had a nickle for every "saved" person I know that has been set free of nothing but their guilt, I could have retired in my first year of "salvation."

[papertyger]

Let me add my voice to Mr. Rogers’. He knows what he’s talking about.

[Iscool]

Even if you disagree with the concept of Apostolic succession, one must at least admit that the Catholic Church is really the only body of believers that has any historical claim to it.

Not accurate at all...From the accounts of the scripture as well as the accounts of your Catholic history and non-Catholic history, there were many churches in the beginning...And these churches were far closer to the teaching of Jesus and the apostles than your church has ever been...

Your religion burned their scriptures, labled them as heretics and murdered a great many...

By looking at your current church and your church history, it's clear to very many that yours is the group that Jesus and the apostles warned us about...

Sure, your group has been there for a long time...

And you guys never mention your church split when half the bunch turned completely left and went with Rome and it Pagans with Constantine at the head...

[Mr Rogers]

“And the part YOU’RE missing is the bible isn’t comprehensive enough to be the “final authority.”

And yet, for hundreds of years, we’ve been content to settle - or at least discuss - issues using the Bible as our ultimate authority.

What non-scriptural excuses are you writing about?

[Mr Rogers]

“I’m familiar with the “once saved” doctrine. It’s unscriptural. “

If you will cite the scriptures it contradicts, I’ll be glad to discuss it with you.

[Mr Rogers]

I’m copying, but folks put a lot of work into thinking this out, and I agree with them.

4.1 The grace of faith (by which the elect are enabled to believe to the saving of their souls) is the work of the Spirit of Christ in their hearts. It is normally brought into being by the ministry of the Word. It is increased and strengthened by the ministry of the Word, and by the administration of baptism and the Lord’s supper, prayer, and other means appointed by God.

14.3 This faith may differ in degree, and may be weak or strong, yet even at its weakest it is different in kind and nature (as is all saving grace) from the faith and common grace of temporary believers. Therefore, though it may be frequently attacked and weakened, it gains the victory, and develops in many until they attain full assurance through Christ, who is both the author and finisher of our faith.

Faith without works IS dead! Works without faith have no value in any way! Our salvation results in our becoming a new creation.

All of us - including Catholics - have seen impostors come into the ‘church’, who claim to have faith but who do not. I’ve known both Catholics and Baptists who never lost a chance to commit adultery, but I’ve never known a Christian who lived that way!

[papertyger]

there were many churches in the beginning...

Baloney. There isn't a single, solitary verse to support the idea any given city had more than one congregation of people calling themselves Christians.

That kind of duplicity is unconscionable.

[Petronski]

All you're doing is grasping at straws hoping to justify your pagan ritual of transubstantiation...

Holy Eucharist is Christ's gift to us, partaking of it is His command. It is by definition Christian, not pagan.

...which is idolatry in God's eyes.

So says you. Christ commands it and you say it is idolatry--idolatry to worship Him!--in His eyes.

I'm going to have to go with what Christ teaches, not you.