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No Salvation Outside the Church
Catholic Answers ^
| 12/05
| Fr. Ray Ryland
Posted on 06/27/2009 10:33:55 PM PDT by bdeaner
Why does the Catholic Church teach that there is "no salvation outside the Church"? Doesnt 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, doesnt the Churchs teaching greatly restrict the scope of Gods redemption? Does the Church meanas Protestants and (I suspect) many Catholics believethat 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 Churchs teaching was wrong. He so persisted in his error that he was finally excommunicated, but by Gods 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 Christs 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 Christs members throughout their lives. This is subjective redemption. If the benefits of Christs 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. 2:1213).
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.
Heres 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. 3:910).
According to John Paul II, in order to properly understand the Churchs teaching about its role in Christs 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 Gods kingdom and referred several times to Vatican IIs 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 IIs teaching that the Church is necessary for salvation.
In 2000 the CDF issued Dominus Iesus, a response to widespread attempts to dilute the Churchs 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 Christs 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 Gods 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 itthough in countless instances outside its visible boundaries. Recall John Pauls 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 21:1517). 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 Christs 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 Churchand those Christians whose minds have been closed to the truth of the Church by their conditioningare not necessarily cut off from Gods 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 consciencesthose 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.
TOPICS: Apologetics; Catholic; Ecumenism; Theology
KEYWORDS: catholic; church; cult; pope; salvation
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To: Petronski
Yes, let's believe Christ in
John 6:47 where He says:
Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life.
Is that not definitive? Whoever believes has eternal life. Short, simple, to the point. And it precedes your verse as well...;)
If anything I think this further confirms that Jesus spoke in parables and metaphors. Eating His flesh and drinking His blood means to take His words and Spirit inside ourselves. To become a new creation through Him. We must accept Jesus within to get eternal salvation.
To: PugetSoundSoldier
I think you must enjoy banging your head with a hammer. I tired of it yesterday and for some reason started doing it again today. Perhaps more prayer?
702
posted on
06/29/2009 5:35:49 PM PDT
by
driftdiver
(I could eat it raw, but why do that when I have a fire.)
To: driftdiver
Oooh, someone else who doesn’t understand what they’re talking about.
703
posted on
06/29/2009 5:38:52 PM PDT
by
Petronski
(In Germany they came first for the Communists, And I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist...)
To: Petronski
John 6:54-5 refers back to John 6:32-40 where Jesus says he is the bread of life.
40For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.”
47I tell you the truth, he who believes has everlasting life.
Besides which a little bread and grape juice are hardly truly Jesus blood and body.
704
posted on
06/29/2009 5:40:52 PM PDT
by
driftdiver
(I could eat it raw, but why do that when I have a fire.)
To: PugetSoundSoldier
Is that not definitive?I'm done answering your questions. Here's a quote:
By pulling a single phrase out from the entire lesson of the Lord you can corrupt the meaning of that phrase.
705
posted on
06/29/2009 5:41:23 PM PDT
by
Petronski
(In Germany they came first for the Communists, And I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist...)
To: Petronski
“Oooh, someone else who doesnt understand what theyre talking about.”
yes ONLY YOU have the answers
706
posted on
06/29/2009 5:41:56 PM PDT
by
driftdiver
(I could eat it raw, but why do that when I have a fire.)
To: driftdiver
John 6:54-5 refers back to John 6:32-40 where Jesus says he is the bread of life.I am not interested in your own personal interpretation of Scripture.
Besides which a little bread and grape juice are hardly truly Jesus blood and body.
The value of your opinion to me is vanishingly small.
707
posted on
06/29/2009 5:42:25 PM PDT
by
Petronski
(In Germany they came first for the Communists, And I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist...)
To: Petronski
Wait, didn’t you just do that a few posts ago. By golly yes you did.
708
posted on
06/29/2009 5:42:31 PM PDT
by
driftdiver
(I could eat it raw, but why do that when I have a fire.)
To: driftdiver
yes ONLY YOU have the answersFalse dichotomy.
709
posted on
06/29/2009 5:42:53 PM PDT
by
Petronski
(In Germany they came first for the Communists, And I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist...)
To: Petronski
Now who's backpedaling and playing gotcha in reverse...
In post 681 you stated:
The teachings of the Catholic Church are protected from error by the Holy Spirit. They are without error.
And in response in post 686 I stated:
That is not correct; not even the Catholic Church claims that! Anything from the Ordinary Magisterium is by definition fallible.
And in post 688 you responded with:
You are not the expert you claimed to be.
And I responded in post 691 with:
Apparently you do not understand the ordinary magisterium? I'd suggest learning about what your own Church believes. The ordinary magisterium is not infallible. Period. If you do not believe that, then you do not believe the teachings of your own Church.
And you stated in post 692:
The fault is yours.
Yet you have not shown any fault on my part, and you apparently disputed my assertion that the Church's teachings are not always infallible.
So backpedal, but the truth is that the teachings of the Church are NOT infallible. Only a small amount of the Church's teachings are infallible.
I suggest you take your Catechism again, and learn about your own Church.
To: driftdiver
Wait, didnt you just do that a few posts ago. You can't count either. Amazing.
711
posted on
06/29/2009 5:43:41 PM PDT
by
Petronski
(In Germany they came first for the Communists, And I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist...)
To: Petronski
“I am not interested in your own personal interpretation of Scripture.”
Not my interpretation but I’m not surprised you responded with that. You say that every time you have no argument.
“The value of your opinion to me is vanishingly small.”
Now that is a perfect example of un-christian like behavior. That is how I know you do not have God’s love in your heart. You display meanness like this instead of his mercy and grace.
712
posted on
06/29/2009 5:44:36 PM PDT
by
driftdiver
(I could eat it raw, but why do that when I have a fire.)
To: PugetSoundSoldier
I’m not backpedaling, I’m rebuking your rather un-Christian game of gotcha.
713
posted on
06/29/2009 5:44:58 PM PDT
by
Petronski
(In Germany they came first for the Communists, And I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist...)
To: Petronski
Just like a bottle of shampoo, wash, rinse, repeat.
714
posted on
06/29/2009 5:45:25 PM PDT
by
driftdiver
(I could eat it raw, but why do that when I have a fire.)
To: Petronski
OK, that’s fine. You don’t like learning. As a teacher I had (Father Peterson, sophomore English at Bishop O’Dea High School) used to say:
“Ignorance, I can fix. Attitude, not so much”.
Pride goes before the fall, and heresy is welcomed by the man who does not understand his own Church’s teachings.
To: Petronski
Then you admit that some of the Church’s teachings are fallible? Because your own Catechism and your own Pope teach as much.
To: PugetSoundSoldier
My head hurts, why do I keep doing it?
I’ve enjoyed your posts and your patience.
717
posted on
06/29/2009 5:46:59 PM PDT
by
driftdiver
(I could eat it raw, but why do that when I have a fire.)
To: driftdiver
You say that every time you have no argument.I say that every time an anti-Catholic bigot presents me with misinterpretation and malinterpretation of Scripture.Now that is a perfect example of un-christian like behavior.
You're mocking Holy Eucharist. You've no room to talk about "un-christian."
That is how I know you do not have Gods love in your heart.
Another vicious attack.
718
posted on
06/29/2009 5:47:13 PM PDT
by
Petronski
(In Germany they came first for the Communists, And I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist...)
To: PugetSoundSoldier
Did I not just say I rebuke your game of gotcha?
Do you imagine I will continue to submit myself to your cross-examination after you have demonstrated your bad faith?
719
posted on
06/29/2009 5:48:15 PM PDT
by
Petronski
(In Germany they came first for the Communists, And I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist...)
To: PugetSoundSoldier
You dont like learning. I don't much fancy learning from the ignorant.
720
posted on
06/29/2009 5:48:45 PM PDT
by
Petronski
(In Germany they came first for the Communists, And I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist...)
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