Defending the Council

[Augustine3]

I was watching a movie on the life of Martin Luther and heard it mentioned the bishop of Carthage St Cyprian’s dictum: “nulla salvus extra ecclesiam — outside the church there is no salvation. Yet the Fourth Lateran Council allowed that Cyprian could be wrong and that salvation could exist outside the church, but not outside Christ”.

How do we Catholics reconcile this?

 

[dje101]

Here’s how I’ve heard it:

We as Catholics are limited to what God has established in the Church as a means of obtaining salvation due to Christ’s sacrifice, such as baptism, the Eucharist. If a Catholic KNOWS what the Church is and that this is the only way to get to Christ, yet chooses to walk away from the Church willingly and with full knowledge, then there can be no salvation outside of the Catholic Church.

GOD, on the other hand, is NOT bound by what He established in the Church as a mean to obtain salvation. In other words, he can save an unbaptized if He wishes (just as an example) that was not able to hear the gospel or come to the Catholic Church for some reason.

So, to say that salvation could exist outside of the Church is simply acknowledging God’s omnipotence and the fact that, though we as Catholics are bound by the Sacraments, God himself is not. So, in His omnipotence and mercy, God could choose to save whoever he desires based on whether they were following the law that was written on their heart.

That’s the way I’ve heard it and that I’ve explained it to a couple others. Please, anyone, if this is wrong in someway, please let me know.

 

[JRKH]

From The Catechism:

"Outside the Church there is no salvation"

846 How are we to understand this affirmation, often repeated by the Church Fathers? (335) Re-formulated positively, it means that all salvation comes from Christ the Head through the Church which is his Body:

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.(336)

847 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.(337)

848 “Although in ways known to himself God can lead those who, through no fault of their own, are ignorant of the Gospel, to that faith without which it is impossible to please him, the Church still has the obligation and also the sacred right to evangelize all men.”(338)

335 Cf. Cyprian, Ep. 73.21L 3,1169; De unit.L 4,509-536.
336 LG 14; cf. Mk 16:16; Jn 3:5.
337 LG 16; cf. DS 3866-3872.
338 AG 7; cf. Heb 11:6; 1 Cor 9:16.

 

[Verbum]

Hi Augustine,

That would be nulla salus.

Verbum