How easy is it for one outside the Church to be saved?

[FuzzyBunny116]

The CCC states:

**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.
Does this mean that if one hears of the Catholic Church, yet does not convert, they are damned?

 

[Ghosty]

It’s impossible to say. Just hearing of the Catholic Church may not be enough if the information is tainted in other ways, for example if you were to hear that the Catholic Church murders infants in their sleep. No rational person would join such a Faith. It gets a bit more “dangerous” for people who have heard about it in a context that doesn’t immediately rule out any further investigation, however.

Regardless, it’s impossible to say with any certainty what a person’s culpability is, because even those who haven’t heard of the Church can still sin mortally.

Peace and God bless!

 

[thogg85]

Wait a minute…I thought Jesus said, “whoever believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life.” (Jn 3:16)

 

[JimG]

thogg85:

Wait a minute…I thought Jesus said, “whoever believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life.” (Jn 3:16)

Yes, but he doesn’t give us any information about those who have never even heard of or will ever hear of Him. God, in his infinite salvific will, is able to accomplish His will in ways unknown to us, especially since He is under no obligation to reveal everything to us.

 

[thistle]

thogg85:

Wait a minute…I thought Jesus said, “whoever believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life.” (Jn 3:16)

That is not sufficient. Even Satan believes in Jesus but he is not going to be saved!

 

[Flopfoot]

FuzzyBunny116:

Does this mean that if one hears of the Catholic Church, yet does not convert, they are damned?

No. There is a difference between hearing about the Church and actually knowing it to be true.

On one end of the spectrum is the people who have never heard of the Church, these people then definitely qualify as ‘don’t know it through no fault of their own’.

On the other end of the spectrum is people who know the CC to be the one true Church yet choose to remain out of it. As the Baltimore Catechism says, these people can not be saved.

Most people, however, would be in between. You can tell someone about what you, as a Catholic, believe, but that doesn’t mean that they will straight away understand that what you are saying is true, or they may not straight away be able to accept it, or whatever. Why should they believe just because you say so?

An example of this is when a country is settled by Christians from somewhere else and they tell the natives of that country about Jesus. Now these natives have just been invaded, maybe some of them even killed, by the settlers. Do you expect them to just believe the settlers anyway? Do you think the message has really been passed to them in such a way that they are likely to really know Christ and His Church the way it really is?

I reckon that only God and the person themself can know for sure whether they are truly ignorant or whether they are ‘expected’ to know but just choose not to believe. It’s a hard line to draw.

 

[Reformed_Rob]

Depends by what you mean by “Outside the Church”

Like, this is something you could read and read and read about, and even the best theologians are going to disagree to some extent, unless they’re all best friends.

However, there has been, especially since the Council of Trent it seems, maybe based in Thomistic distinctions, a trend developing regarding “in re” and "in votu" that is, “in reality” and “in desire.” This is often applied to receiving forgiveness while not receiving the sacrament of reconciliation (assuming perfect contrition and intention to confess to a priest). Also, baptism of desire and spiritual communion utilize such distinctions.

A related distinction is in the “body” of the Church and in the “heart” of the Church. While it’s understood that the one Church that Christ founded, His mystical body, subsists in (continues from then to today) and only in the Roman Catholic Church, under the successor of Peter, it’s admitted that there are at least “elements of church” outside the formal bounds of the Catholic Church.

What that leads to… the Cardinals are still out. Some people have it all “figured out”, but they aren’t necessarily in the Church’s body, because they aren’t submissive to the Pope.

Certainly, if someone can be saved outside the “body” of the Roman Catholic Church, that does not necessarily mean they are saved outside the “heart” of the Roman Catholic Church. Also, doesn’t the CCC mention about God not being limited to the norms He set down, like water baptism to infuse grace for salvation??

But for someone who “knows” the RCC is the true Church, and chooses to remain outside, they can’t be saved. So the reasoning is now, at least. I believe the complexity is due to allowing so many distinctions, and the intricacies of the psychological element involved in the human mind. But, we wouldn’t have it any other way, would we?? I’m not becoming Catholic because it teaches what I want to believe, I’m becoming Catholic because it teaches truth, regardless of what I believe.

 

[Reformed_Rob]

FuzzyBunny116:

The CCC states:

**847 **This affirmation is not aimed at those who, through no fault of their own, do not know Christ and his Church:

Does this mean that if one hears of the Catholic Church, yet does not convert, they are damned?

The title thread question “How easy is it…?” and the above question “Does this mean that…?” are in a way 2 different questions. Here’s what I mean.

Like Ghosty said, you could hear bad things about the Church. Also, in regard to questions regarding the “discovery of the New World” (the Americas), Dominican theologians had to work through the eternal state of those many Native Americans who lived before Columbus and company got there (notwithstanding St. Brendan centuries before).

For instance, Benedectine theologian Francisco de Vitoria, wrote and taught concerning the Native Americans in the 16th century,

It is not sufficiently clear to me that the Christian faith has yet been so put before the aborigines and announced to them that they are bound to believe it or commit fresh sin. I say this because (as appears from my second proposition) they are not bound to believe unless the faith be put before them with persuasive demonstration. Now, I hear of no miracles or signs or religious patterns of life; nay, on the contrary, I hear of many scandals and cruel crimes and acts of impiety.

(Francis Sullivan “Salvation Outside the Church?” p. 72, quoting De Indes, p. 144)

That’s not to say that there weren’t wonderful Christian preachers and many Native American converts to the Church, but he’s speaking of what he hears about as a general rule. And what is one of the foundations for him thinking that??? St. Thomas Aquinas’ commentary on the Book of Romans and the Summa, about the culpability or inculpability of the sin of unbelief if you don’t actually know the Gospel, in order to believe it. You don’t commit the sin of unbelief, if you arent’ “called” by the preaching of the Word!

Now, such people may be guilty of plenty of other actual sins, and of course, Original Sin, yes, but the thinking regarding that is that God is able to enlighten anyone to perfect contrition at any point in life. The natural world attests to God, insofar as is necessary to believe from** Hebrews 11:6**.

However, without the Sacraments, I think the general Catholic concensus is that it is indeed very difficult to be saved.

Worth thinking about:

Children at Churches and like groups that practice infant baptism. Such as Eastern Orthodox, Anglican, Methodist, Presbyterian, etc. They receive the Sacrament of Baptism, are saved at least until they reach the age of reason… correct? And that’s due to nothing that they do, it’s all by grace from God via the Sacrament. In a way they’re as much “in the Church” as any other Catholic, notwithstanding the visible separations.