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.

[MEGoody]

Why does the Catholic Church teach that there is "no salvation outside the Church"?

This is absolutely true, of course. The problem comes in when someone thinks "the Church" refers to a specific sign on the door of the building you go into to worship, serve and fellowship with other Christians.

We become members of the church by an act of God when He baptises us with the Holy Spirit.

[MEGoody]

No, it was canonized by the Church.

Yep, God can and does use foolish, sinful men to achieve His will. He even used Balaam's ass. :)

The point I'm trying to make is that the church itself should not be taking credit for the bible. It is His doing. All we can do is open our hands and say "Here I am, Lord. Use me as You will." It is not by our power, but by His.

[CTrent1564]

Iscool

Ok fair enough.

Iscool, drifdiver, Mr. Rogers and Pugetsoundsolider:

With respect to the St. Peter and St. Paul question, and I am now at a lost with respect to who I had corresponded on this issue, I think one of you was with the Roman Rite and Eastern Rite Catholic issue, so have linked the 4 of you who have engaged in this thread.

I still stand that Paul in no way was correcting Peter for teaching false doctrine. If this were true, then Paul would also be guilty of what he was correcting Peter of doing. Again, no Father ever interpreted Peter as teaching unorthodox doctrine. The most we see is that some of the Fathers (St. Augustine being one of the) accused him of acting hypocritically, and thus sinning, which is what the text actually states (c.f. Gal 2:13).

St. Jerome’s Letter Number 112, addressed to his friend St. Augustine, which I have linked goes through the Scriptures and points out, correctly, the problem one has if one assumes that St. Peter was teaching false doctrine. I encourage you to read St. Jerome’s commentary and go back to the Scriptures and see how your interpretation in the end, is not correct.

http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1102075.htm

For example, St. Jerome points out that first, Biblical scholars and theologians need to read Acts 15 first, to understand Galatians in proper context. Some key texts from that chapter are as follows, first we read “After much debate had taken place, Peter got up and said to them, My brothers, you are aware from early days God made his choice among you that the Gentiles would hear the word of the gospel and believe…..on the contrary, we believe that we are saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, in the same way they are.”” (c.f. Acts 15: 7-11). We next read, “the whole assembly fell silent, and they listened while Paul and Barnabas described the sings and wonders”(c.f. Acts 15:12).

Now you and I can agree that St. James was the overseer/leader of the Church in Jerusalem, which was made up of ethnic Jewish-Christians. So, a theological question is who had more authority at the Council, Peter or James. However, I think the text is clear that St. James begins his statement in verse 13 after the council fell silent and he makes specific reference to St. Peter [called Symeon by James] as we read “After they had fallen silent, James responded, My brothers listen to me. Symeon has described how God first concerned himself with acquiring from among the Gentiles a people for his name.” (c.f. Acts 15:13-14). Thus, St. James assents to St. Peters doctrinal declaration, by specifically referencing Peter, and then as leader of the Church in Jerusalem, gives a pastoral plan on how the Jewish-Christian community can implement Peter’s decision and stay in communion with the gentile Christians coming into the Church [c.f. Acts 15:19-21]

Next, in the context of what we read in Acts 15, it is also important to note that the Jewish-Christians from the Church in Jerusalem were causing the friction in Galatia and having trouble accepting gentiles as Christians “came from James” (c.f. Gal 2:12 and Acts 11: 2-4). So, given the Jewish-Christians at Jerusalem having difficulty with the gentiles becoming Christians, it was important for St. Luke to record in Acts, that St. James accepted St. Peters decision recorded in Acts 15.

Now back to Galatians and St. Peter and St. Paul. Again, Acts 15 also shows that it was St. Peter who first came to see that the Jewish ceremonial laws were not longer in effect and that it is through Grace that God saves humanity (c.f. Acts 15:11). It is also true that the context of Galatians that ST. Paul does in fact regard ST. Peter has a great authority (c.f. Gal 1:18, 2:1-2) as he mentions those of repute several times and claims that those of repute “made me add nothing” (c.f. Gal 2:2; Gal 2:6). St. Jerome in his Letter 112 to St. Augustine quotes Galatians 2:11-14 and then writes:

“No one can doubt, therefore, that the Apostle Peter was himself the author of that rule with deviation from which he is charged. The cause of that deviation, moreover, is seen to be fear of the Jews. For the Scripture says, that at first he did eat with the Gentiles, but that when certain had come from James he withdrew, and separated himself, fearing them which were of the circumcision. Now he feared the Jews, to whom he had been appointed apostle, lest by occasion of the Gentiles they should go back from the faith in Christ; imitating the Good Shepherd in his concern lest he should lose the flock committed to him.”

So from St. Jerome’s writing, which was also consistent with Origen before him, it is clear that St. Peter was being a good shepherd and feeding the lambs, as Christ commanded him, and trying to strengthen the faith of the Jewish-Christians from Jerusalem. So it is clear that were still problems with the ethnically mixed Christian Churches that had both Jewish-Christians and Gentile-Christians, as was the case in Antioch. So, St. Jerome suggests that St. Paul rebuked St. Peter in a “figurative sense”, as a way to provide both an opportunity to stress again that gentiles are saved by Grace and no longer to keep the Jewish Ceremonial Laws. To argue that St. Peter was “literally wrong” and taught doctrinal error is problematic because later in Letter 112, St. Jerome shows that St. Paul, when confronted with similar situations did similar things that St. Peter did and cites three passages to make his point [c.f. Acts 16: 1-3; Acts 18:18; Acts 21: 18-26).

For example, in Acts 16: 1-3 we read “He reached [also] Derbe and Lystra where there was a disciple named Timothy, the son of a Jewish woman who was a believer, but his father was a Greek. The brothers in Lystra and Iconium spoke highly of him and Paul wanted him to come along with him. On account of the Jews in that region Paul had him circumcised, for they new that his father was a Greek.” So since Timothy was not fully Jewish, as he had not been circumcised and he had a gentile Father, Paul accepted circumcision so that Timothy could do missionary work among Jews, knowing that the ceremonial Jewish Laws were abrogated. Paul allowed this, while still maintaining what St. Peter declared in Acts 15” 6-12, that the Jewish ceremonial laws can’t be imposed on the gentile converts to Christianity.

In Acts 18:18 we read “Paul remained for quite some time, and after saying farewell to the brothers he sailed for Syria together with Priscilla and Aquila. At Cenchrea he had his hair cut because he had taken a vow.” (i.e. The Nazirite vow described in Numbers 6: 1-24). In Acts 21: 18-26, we see St. Paul giving instructions to four men to have their heads shaved and have themselves purified.

ST. Jerome goes on to say the reason that St. Paul did this [3 cases] was for fear of offending the Jews who had come to believe in Christ, the same reason St. Peter did. So, St. Jerome. In fact, St. Jerome comments that St. Paul sometimes had envy towards ST. Peter and boasted of things that he did not do. Remember, St. Paul himself notes that he struggled with a sin throughout his life, perhaps Jerome was telling us that this may have been the struggle St. Paul had, as St. Jerome writes with respect to Paul he “had written boastfully of things which he either had not done, or, if he did them, had done with inexcusable presumption.” Again, one can gather from reading Galatians that St. Paul is claiming that he settled the doctrinal question with respect to Gentile Christians and the Jewish Law, but as St. Luke records in Acts [and independent source], it was clearly St. Peter.

In closing, whatever interpretation one has with respect to Galatians 2, the entire biblical text does not allow for an interpretation that St. Paul was correcting St. Peter on “False Doctrinal Teaching.” In addition, St. Jerome in his closing sort of takes a friendly jab at his friend St. Augustine and asks Augustine to forgive him [Jerome] for this humble attempt to correct Augustine with respect to how Peter and Paul at Galatia.

[1000 silverlings]

Catholics think they save themselves, hence, no salvation outside the Roman Catholic church, which is not Christ, but each other. And after all, they pray to each other, and anyone and everyone but Christ, contending that the deceased are “in heaven”, when maybe they are and maybe they aren’t, no one knows. Then there’s that pesky purgatory where their deceased may or may not be and can’t help themselves out of, let alone anyone else. Theologica Absurdica

[Ottofire]

LOL, thanks.

I think I have been misusing that term for at least a few decades, and never been corrected! Again, thanks!

[wmfights]

As it was summarized in the 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith:

“1.7 Not all things in Scripture are equally plain in themselves, nor equally clear to everyone. Yet those things that are essential to be known, believed and obeyed for salvation are so clearly set forth and explained in one place of Scripture or another, that not only the educated but also the uneducated may attain a satisfactory understanding of them by using ordinary means.”

Beautiful!

In the end it comes down to who you want to trust as the Final Authority, Scripture or a church.

[Petronski]

Faith + Works

[Petronski]

I don’t make mindless posts. What do you take me for? An Elimbot?

[Petronski]

I laugh because I learned that one the hard way.

No, I won’t give the details.

[bdeaner]

Deuteronmy 4:19 & Malachi 1:11.

Could you elaborate on the point you wish to make regarding these verses? I don't see an obvious relevance to the article under discussion.

[PugetSoundSoldier]

This is just a test. Please ignore. I am having trouble posting for some reason.

Good, it wasn't just me! No new threads of viewing of posts for the last 4 hours... For a second there, I thought maybe we were ALL wrong and Vishnu got pissed...:)

[Mr Rogers]

Faith that results in you living a new life, doing the good works God prepared for you to do?

Excellent.

Faith, then do good works and see if you were good enough on Judgment Day?

Bad.

No one reading Paul’s Epistles could conclude that faith followed by a life wallowing in unrepentant sin is acceptable. Likewise, no fair reading allows that we need to do good works to see if we merit eternal life. Both Paul and James agree.

We must be born again, a new creation in Christ. We are justified fully then (”he has made perfect forever”), while sanctification continues (”those who are being made holy”).

And please note, it is God who works to sanctify us - we are ‘being made’ holy, not becoming holy.

[bdeaner]

For a second there, I thought maybe we were ALL wrong and Vishnu got pissed...:)

LOL!

[Petronski]

Faith, then do good works and see if you were good enough on Judgment Day? Bad.

I'm sure you're convinced of that.

[Petronski]

...no fair reading allows that we need to do good works to see if we merit eternal life. Both Paul and James agree.

Such is your own personal interpretation of Scripture.

[bdeaner]

Catholics think they save themselves, hence, no salvation outside the Roman Catholic church, which is not Christ, but each other. And after all, they pray to each other, and anyone and everyone but Christ, contending that the deceased are “in heaven”, when maybe they are and maybe they aren’t, no one knows. Then there’s that pesky purgatory where their deceased may or may not be and can’t help themselves out of, let alone anyone else. Theologica Absurdica

HAHAHAHA!!!! Wow, talk about a STRAW MAN!!!





The Straw Man fallacy is committed when a person simply ignores a person's actual position and substitutes a distorted, exaggerated or misrepresented version of that position. This sort of "reasoning" has the following pattern:

Person A has position X.
Person B presents position Y (which is a distorted version of X).
Person B attacks position Y.
Therefore X is false/incorrect/flawed.
This sort of "reasoning" is fallacious because attacking a distorted version of a position simply does not constitute an attack on the position itself. One might as well expect an attack on a poor drawing of a person to hurt the person.

To avoid embarrassing yourself with straw man arguments in the future, I recommend you read THIS.

God bless.

[PugetSoundSoldier]

Mark 16:16 Luke 7:50. Seems that - as far as Jesus was concerned - faith alone can save a person.

And in Acts 16:30-31 we see that Paul and Silas confirm that faith alone is sufficient to be saved.

[Petronski]

Faith without works is dead.

[Petronski]

Catholics think they save themselves...

False.

And after all, they pray to each other, and anyone and everyone but Christ...

Catholics pray to everyone BUT Christ?

Two filthy lies in one post. Amazing.

[Mr Rogers]

It is what Jesus taught.

"16 "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. 18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God."

Galatians 1:
"9 As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed."