from Catholic Answers
What "No Salvation Outside the Church" Means
One of the most misunderstood teachings of the Catholic Church is this one:
"Outside the Church there is no salvation" (Extra ecclesiam nulla salus).
Those trying to grasp the meaning of this teaching often struggle with its formulations by various Church Fathers and Church Councils down through history. Of course, to understand an isolated formulation ofany Church teaching, one must study the historical context within which it was written: why it was written, what was going on in the Church at the time, who the intended audience was, and so on. One must discover how the magisterium (teaching office) of the Church understands its own teaching.
Lionel:The magisterium has made a mistake. It has assumed hypothetical cases are objectively known in the present times. It then postulates that these known cases are practical exceptions to the traditional teaching on outside the Church there is no salvaion.
It also uses this irrational thinking in the interpretation of Vatican Council II, to project the Council as a break with the dogma extra ecclesiam nulla salus and the rest of Tradition.
Of course Catholic Answers also makes this same error with reference to Outside the Church there is no salvation and also in the interpretation of Vatican Council II.
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If someone fails to do this and chooses, rather, to simply treat a particular formulation as a stand-alone teaching, he runs the risk of seriously misunderstanding it.
Lionel:
The official teaching of the Church, of the contemporary magisterium, is official heresy. It is break with the magisterium of the Church before the Council of Trent.It uses an irrational premise and conclusion.It depends on philosophical subjectivism to change the traditional teaching in salvation theology.Where are the baptism of desire cases objectively visible for them to be exceptions to the traditional interpretation of the dogma outside the Church there is no salvation? Who can subjectively know of someone saved in invincible ignorance and without the baptism of water in the Catholic Church?Who can meet someone saved outside the Church?
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In recent times, the Church has recognized that its teaching about the necessity of the Catholic Church for salvation has been widely misunderstood, so it has "re-formulated" this teaching in a positive way.
Lionel: It has discarded the traditional de fide teachings.The Nicene Creed has been changed.The Athanasius Creed has been put aside.Vatican Council II is re-interpreted as a break with Tradition, even though a rational choice is available.
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Here is how the Catechism of the Catholic Church begins to address this topic: "How are we to understand this affirmation, often repeated by the Church Fathers? Reformulated positively, it means that all salvation comes from Christ the Head through the Church which is his Body" (CCC 846).
Lionel: This is the new theology.This is Cushingism.It is accomodating the baptism of desire and blood and being saved in invincible ignorance.It assumes these hypothetical cases are explicit and so are relevant or exceptions to the dogma extra ecclesiam nulla salus.This is the Anonymous Christian theory of Rahner and Ratzinger.
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In keeping with the Church’s current spirit of ecumenism, this positive reformulation comes across less harshly than previous negative formulations. Even so, it remains quite controversial.
Lionel:The new theology is based on there being explicit exceptions to the dogma on outside the church there is no salvation.So it has made the dogma obsolete. It has created a new ecclesiology on non Catholic and non Christian religions. This is the new ecclesiology based on the objective error in the second part of the Letter of the Holy Office 1949.Unfortunately the tradtitionalists and sedevacantists are still unaware of it.
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Jesus, the Way
So, let’s see how this new formulation squares with Scripture.The first part of the reformulated teaching—"all salvation comes from Christ the Head"—is quite easy for all Christians, even non-Catholics, to understand and embrace.
Lionel: Yes but the dogma does not restict salvation to a vague belief in Christ. It demands belief in Christ in only the Catholic Church and according to the Catholic Church.
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It echoes Jesus’ own words recorded by John: "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but by me" (Jn 14:6).
Lionel: Jesus was speaking to a community, in the first Church, the Catholic Church. They all needed the baptism of water in the Catholic Church. They all needed to believe in Jesus' teaching in the community, the Church.There was no independent belief in Jesus .There was no Jesus without the community.No baptism of water without the Church.
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So, Christians unanimously agree on this first part.
Lionel:
No we do not !
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But is this all that needs to be said about how one may be saved? The Catholic Church has historically recognized the importance of explaining further the means through which salvation is offered through Christ.
When speaking of salvation, Jesus offered more details than just his words quoted above. For example, consider these three verses:
- He who believes and is baptized will be saved. (Mk 16:16)
- [U]nless you repent you will all likewise perish. (Lk 13:3)
- [H]e who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. (Jn 6:54)
Notice that in these three verses Jesus associated salvation with baptism, confession, and the Eucharist, respectively.
Lionel: Yes here salvation is linked with the Church.
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Catholics recognize that these sacraments are administered through the Church. In fact, in the case of the latter two, a validly ordained priest isnecessary for their administration, so the sacrament of ordination must also be associated with salvation. A primary role of the Catholic Church in conjunction with salvation is becoming quite clear.
Lionel:So being a member of the Catholic Church is necessary for salvation.Outside the Church there is no salvation.
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This brings us to the second part of the Catechism’s formulation of the doctrine being considered: ". . . through the Church which is his Body."
Lionel. Yes we cannot separate Jesus from the Church, nor can we separate the Church from the Kingdom of God, says Pope John Paul II's Dominus Iesus (2000).
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With Him or Against Him
Since the sacraments are the ordinary means through which Christ offers the grace necessary for salvation, and the Catholic Church that Christ established is the ordinary minister of those sacraments, it is appropriate to state that salvation comes through the Church.
Lionel:Yes salvation comes through Jesus and the Catholic Church. Every one needs to be a formal member of the Church, every one needs faith and baptism, every one needs to be a physically visible member of the Church to avoid Hell.
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This is not unlike the situation that existed prior to the establishment of the Catholic Church. Even before it was fully revealed that he was the Messiah, Jesus himself taught that "salvation is from the Jews" (Jn 4:22). He pointed the woman of Samaria to the body of believers existing at that time, through which salvation would be offered to all mankind: the Jews.
Lionel:Salvation was from Jesus, a Jew, the Messiah of the Jews.The Messiah founded a new Church, he made a new Covenant, and those who followed him in the Church which He founded would be the new people of God (NA 4), the Elect.They only would be saved. In Heaven there are only Catholics.
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In a similar fashion, now that the Messiah has established his Church, Jesus might say, "salvation is from the Catholics"!
Lionel:Catholics are the new people of God.(Vatican Council II, Nostra Aetate 4).
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Recognizing this, we can see why the Church, especially during times of mass exodus (such as has happened in times when heresies have run rampant), has been even more forceful in the way it has taught this doctrine. Instead of simply pointing out how God offers salvation from Christ, through the Church, the Church has warned that there is no salvation apart from Christ, outside his Church.
Lionel:Yes.
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Since Jesus established the Catholic Church as necessary for salvation, those who knowingly and willingly reject him or his Church cannot be saved.
Lionel:Since Jesus established the Catholic Church all need faith and baptism for salvation.(Ad Gentes 7). To say those who knowingly and willingly reject him ONLY cannot be saved, is to fall into the error of the new theology. This is the Cushingite error which comes from the second part of the Letter of the Holy Office 1949. It wronly assumed that a person in invincible ignorance who was saved, was not a hypothetica case but it was someone personally known.So then it was wrongly concluded that a person in invincible ignorance could be saved and was an exception to the dogma on outside the Church there is no salvation. Fr. Leonard Feeney was criticized by the Holy Office.
So since the new doctrine was that a person in invincible ignorance could be saved without the baptism of water in the Catholic Church, only those who were not ignorant , who 'knew' and did not enter the Church, were considered to be on the way to Hell.So we have LG 14 in Vatican Council II contradicting AG 7 and the dogma outside the Church there is no salvation.LG 14 says only those who know while AG 7 says. The confusion comes the contradiction in the Letter of the Holy Office 1949. The first part of the Letter is Feeneyite and the second part is Cushingite.The second part contradicts the first part.Similarly we have orthodox passages and ambigous passages in Vatican Council II.The ambigous passages are Cushingite passages.
So since the new doctrine was that a person in invincible ignorance could be saved without the baptism of water in the Catholic Church, only those who were not ignorant , who 'knew' and did not enter the Church, were considered to be on the way to Hell.So we have LG 14 in Vatican Council II contradicting AG 7 and the dogma outside the Church there is no salvation.LG 14 says only those who know while AG 7 says. The confusion comes the contradiction in the Letter of the Holy Office 1949. The first part of the Letter is Feeneyite and the second part is Cushingite.The second part contradicts the first part.Similarly we have orthodox passages and ambigous passages in Vatican Council II.The ambigous passages are Cushingite passages.
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We see this in Jesus’ teaching: "He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me scatters" (Mt 12:30).
Lionel: This afirms the dogma outside the Church there is no salvation, without the Cushingite theology; without the new theology of Rahner,Ratzinger, Congar, Dupuis and others.They built upon the philosophical subjectivism which was created the new theology. They followed up on the work of Cardinal Richard Cushing, Fr.John Courtney Murray and the other Jesuits.
The precedent set by Cardinal Gibbons when he considered the desire for the baptism of water by a hypothetical case of a catechumen, who dies before receiving it, as being a personally known case. So it was called a baptism and placed in the Baptism Section of the Baltimore Catechism. This was even though there was no known case of the baptism of desire and there could not be any known case. Also the baptism of desire was not physically visible like the baptism, of water and it could not be repeated like the baptism of water.
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Also: "[I]f he [a sinning brother] refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector" (Mt 18:17). Paul warned similarly: "As for a man who is factious, after admonishing him once or twice, have nothing more to do with him, knowing that such a person is perverted and sinful; he is self-condemned" (Ti 3:10-11).
Having said all this, we must recognize that this doctrine is not as far reaching as some imagine it to be. People will sometimes ask, "Does this means non-Catholics are going to hell?" Not necessarily.
Lionel:Not necessarily? Catholic Answes knows of an exception?
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Invincibly Ignorant
The Church recognizes that God does not condemn those who are innocently ignorant of the truth about his offer of salvation.
Lionel: So do we know any such case ? Is this not theoretical speculation ? It is a reference to a possibility which is only theoretical.
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Regarding the doctrine in question, the Catechism of the Catholic Church(quoting Vatican II document Lumen Gentium, 16) states:
This affirmation is not aimed at those who, through no fault of their own, do not know Christ and his Church: 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 conscience—those too may achieve eternal salvation. (CCC 847)
Lionel: Here we have the new theology.This is the Cushingite theology.However a weakness of the Cushingite theology is that we can re- interpret it to support orthodoxy. We can assume that hypothetical cases are just hypothetical. So they do not contradict the dogma outside the Church there is no salvation.I call this the Feeneyite theology. 'Those who, through no fault of their own, do not know Christ and his Church' and who are allegedly saved, refers to an invisible case.So an invisible case, a speculative case cannot be an exception to the dogma outside the Church and the old ecclesiology.We are back to the old theology.
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What are the Origins of Baptism?
Vatican II document Gaudium Et Spes teaches similarly on the possibility of salvation:
All this holds true not only for Christians, but for all men of good will in whose hearts grace works in an unseen way. For, since Christ died for all men, and since the ultimate vocation of man is in fact one, and divine, we ought to believe that the Holy Spirit in a manner known only to God offers to every man the possibility of being associated with this paschal mystery. (22)
Lionel.Here once again we see the fruits of the new theology, it comes from the Letter of the Holy Office 1949.'All men of good will in whose hearts grace works in an unseen way' and who are saved are hypothetical cases for us. They cannot be personally known.So the Cushigite theology mixes up what is invisible as being visible.
Here we have the basis for the Anonymous Christian.It speculates that there is salvation outside the Church and that it is known.So Gaudium er Specs 22 does not contradict the dogma outside the Church there is no salvation, once we are aware that hypothetical cases are not explicit for us, they cannot be objectively known.So without the error of the Cushingite theology we are back to the old ecclesiology.There is no known Anonymous Christian who is saved outside the Church.
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This teaching is consistent with Jesus’ own teaching about those who innocently reject him: "If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have sin" (Jn 15:22).
But once a person comes to know the truth, he must embrace it or he will be culpable of rejecting it.
Lionel . Yes!___________________
We see this in Jesus’ words to the Pharisees: "If you were blind, you would have no guilt; but now that you say, ‘We see,’ your guilt remains" (Jn 9:41). Paul taught likewise concerning the Gentiles:
When Gentiles who have not the law do by nature what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that what the law requires is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness and their conflicting thoughts accuse or perhaps excuse them on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus. (Rom 2:14-16)
Notice Paul’s carefully chosen words: "their conflicting thoughts accuse or perhaps excuse them." Paul did not say that those who are innocently ignorant of the truth will be saved; he simply keeps open the possibility of it.
Similarly, he wrote: "[I]s God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, since God is one; and he will justify the circumcised on the ground of their faith and the uncircumcised through their faith" (Rom 3:29-30).
Necessary for Salvation
As we have seen, God introduced salvation to the world through his chosen people, the Jews. God’s revelation to the Jews found its fulfillment in Christ, the Messiah, who established the Catholic Church. The grace necessary for salvation continues to come from Christ, through his Church.
Lionel: All need to visibly enter the Church for salvation was the centuries old teaching before the contemporary magisterium was influenced by the Cushing theology.
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Those who innocently do not know and embrace this might still attain salvation but those who knowingly and willingly choose to reject it, reject salvation on God’s terms.
Lionel:'Those who innocently do not know and embrace the Church might still attain salvation'. O.K this is accepted theoretically, however it has nothing to do with the dogma outside the Church there is no salvation.
Similarly ' those who knowingly and willingly choose to reject it, reject salvation on God’s terms' does not refer to any one personally known. We cannot say that a particular person is in invincible ignorance and is saved and so is an exception to the dogma extra ecclesiam nulla slaus.We cannot say that only those who knowingly and willingly choose to reject being a Catholic will be damned, and not all in general who do not have the baptism of water in the Catholic Church.If we knew of someone in particular then we could call out the exception.
All need to enter the Church for salvation or be damned. This was the dogmatic teaching.Who knows and who does not know can only be decided by God.We cannot use this criteria as a judgement or to postulate an exception or a new doctrine.This was the mistake of the new theology.
The Catechism (once again quoting Lumen Gentium) summarizes all this as follows:
Lionel: This is the traditional teaching of the Church :Basing itself on Scripture and Tradition, the Council teaches that the Church, a pilgrim now on earth, is necessary for salvation: the one Christ is the mediator and the way of salvation; he is present to us in his body which is the Church. He himself explicitly asserted the necessity of faith and baptism, and thereby affirmed at the same time the necessity of the Church which men enter through baptism as through a door.Basing itself on Scripture and Tradition, the Council teaches that the Church, a pilgrim now on earth, is necessary for salvation: the one Christ is the mediator and the way of salvation; he is present to us in his body which is the Church. He himself explicitly asserted the necessity of faith and baptism, and thereby affirmed at the same time the necessity of the Church which men enter through baptism as through a door. Hence they could not be saved who, knowing that the Catholic Church was founded as necessary by God through Christ, would refuse either to enter it or to remain in it. (CCC 846)
However the following is the Cushingite part and it should not have been mentioned here.It is a mistake.
Hence they could not be saved who, knowing that the Catholic Church was founded as necessary by God through Christ, would refuse either to enter it or to remain in it. (CCC 846)
-Lionel Andrades
Jim Blackburn is a Catholic Apologist, Author, and Speaker. He holds a Masters Degree in Theology from John Paul the Great Catholic University and is the author of several books including 101 Quick Questions With Catholic Answers: Marriage, Divorce, and Annulment, 20 Answers:...
http://www.catholic.com/magazine/articles/what-no-salvation-outside-the-church-means
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