Brief Overview of the Vexed "No Salvation Outside the Church" Issue

From my book, The One-Minute Apologist (pp. 90-91). Bracketed comments were in my manuscript but not in the paperback edition of the book.

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The Church teaches that all non-Catholics will go to hell

But Jesus said “If any one thirst, let him come to me and drink.” [Jn. 7:37]. Anyone who believes in Jesus can be saved

The One-Minute Apologist Says:

The Catholic Church has never held that only its official members can be saved. But we believe that all are saved through the Church in some fashion, whether they are aware of it or not.

What do Catholics mean by “no salvation outside the Church”? This issue is a bit complicated and confusing, and so it needs to be carefully explained. Catholics believe that the Church is central to God’s plan of salvation (1 Tim. 3:15: “the household of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and bulwark of the truth”), the earthly instrument through which, by the Holy Spirit, saving grace flows. Thus it benefits a man’s prospects for salvation to be part of that Church, in order to partake of those saving graces most fully.

But not everyone is Catholic, and not every non-Catholic is personally culpable for not being one. For this there are many reasons: ignorance, bad personal experiences, a formation in erroneous teachings, not enough time or opportunity to be received, life-long adherence to other seemingly correct Christian traditions, and so forth. Something along these lines is indicated in biblical passages such as Romans 2:11-16:

For God shows no partiality. All who have sinned without the law will also perish without the law, and all who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law. For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified. 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.

Catholics do believe it’s possible, then, to not be an official member of the Church and still go to heaven. St. Thomas Aquinas explains the Church’s teaching in such cases:

If, however, some were saved without receiving any revelation, they were not saved without faith in a Mediator, for, though they did not believe in Him explicitly, they did, nevertheless, have implicit faith through believing in Divine providence, since they believed that God would deliver mankind in whatever way was pleasing to Him. [, . . .]

With regard, however, to Cornelius [Acts 10:1-4], it is to be observed that he was not an unbeliever, else his works would not have been acceptable to God, whom none can please without faith. Now he had implicit faith, as the truth of the Gospel was not yet made manifest: hence Peter was sent to him to give him fuller instruction in the faith.

[ (St. Thomas Aquinas [1225-1274]: Summa Theologica, II, II, a. 2 q. 7 ad 3; 3 / II, II, q. 10, a. 4 ad 3 [in some editions ad 4] ) ]

A Protestant Might Further Object:

But what about Pope Boniface VIII and his famous bull, Unam sanctam (1302)?

That document stated: “Outside of which (the Church) there is neither salvation nor remission of sins. . . . But we declare, state and define that to be subject to the Roman Pontiff is altogether necessary for salvation.”

[The Fourth Lateran Council (1215) reiterated this.]

The One-Minute Apologist Says:

As with anathemas, these words are directed at other Christian churches, not individual souls, in order to make a theological point. As a point of historical fact, the Church has always painstakingly defended the valid workings of grace in non-Catholic churches. German theologian Karl Adam, in his 1924 book, The Spirit of Catholicism, elaborates on these questions:

[But, we may ask, does that mean that all heretics and non-Catholics are destined to hell? . . .] To begin with, it is certain that the declaration that there is no salvation outside the Church is not aimed at individual non-Catholics, at any persons as persons, but at non-Catholic churches and communions, [in so far as they are non-Catholic communions.] Its purpose is to formulate positively the truth that there is but one Body of Christ and therefore but one Church which possesses and imparts the grace of Christ in its fullness. [ . . . ]

Wherever the Gospel of Jesus is faithfully preached, and wherever baptism is conferred with faith in His Holy Name, there His grace can operate . . . The Church . . . upheld the validity of baptism in the Name of Jesus conferred by heretics [the fourth-century Donatists]. And it was Rome, Rome that is so violently attacked for her intolerance, and Pope Stephen, who [even at the peril of an African schism] would not allow heretical baptism to be impugned.

[. . . The Jansenists in the seventeenth century . . . advocated the . . . principle that “outside the Church there is no grace” (extra ecclesiam nulla conceditur gratia). But again it was Rome and a pope that expressly rejected this proposition.]

[ (The Spirit of Catholicism, 1924, Doubleday Image edition of 1954, translated by Dom Justin McCann, 175-177) ]

[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 . . .

(Fr. Ray Ryland, “No Salvation Outside the Church,” This Rock, Vol. 16, No. 10, December 2005) ]