Outside the Church there is no salvation"

[TULIPed]

I confess that I’m horrifically slothful. To say that I was made for a hammock is an understatement. I fear that if I were Catholic, I would spend most of my time in a confessional setting forth the myriad of ways I express my laziness (assuming I’d get off my rear to make it there in the first place of course). Thus, I’m always appreciative of someone who takes the time and effort to compile and research something for me (and source it helpfully as ELCore did).

That said, my slothfulness is only eclipsed by my breathtaking dullness. I am after all Protestant you know To whit, I’m embarrassed to say that much of what ELC put together was indeed news to me. (At least as far as the precise source material goes).

 

[giddyromilly]

It’s scary every simple sentence you have to read pages on the actual meaning and people wonder why people are so confused about the faith.

Well, since this statement wasn’t written originally in English, the context and meaning could be very different from what we would understand. Here’s the original: extra ecclesiam nulla salus. Ecclesiam does mean literally “church” in Latin, but also congregation, gathering, and assembly.

Such debates over “true meanings” take place over the works of Goethe that have been translated into English, as well as many other famous works. You need to comprehend the connotations and contexts of words and phrases outside of your English understanding to know how something was meant to be interpreted by the author.

 

[FOG]

can we at least revive the phrase “invincible ignorance”?

It doesn’t need to be revived, it never went away!

 

[stpurl]

Which subsists in the Catholic Church. IOW, it is still The Holy Catholic Church through which Christ offers salvation.

You have it slightly backwards in your estimation of which Church is ‘in’ the other.

 

[Hodos]

It is true in the sense that the Church is the only body that proclaims God’s word and administers the sacraments by which the Holy Spirit works in us to create faith unto salvation. That being said, we would probably differ on what constitutes the Church or whether the Church is limited to which denomination’s name is hanging over the door to the sanctuary.

 

[godisgood77]

outside the Church there is no salvation "

At one point, the Church taught that if you weren’t a member of the Church, you weren’t saved. With time and a deepening understanding, the Church changed that teaching to better reflect the truth.

 

[meltzerboy2]

It’s true according to the Church; HOWEVER, the exact interpretation of this statement has been controversial here on CAF, as well as among Catholics in general, I suppose.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

At one point, the Church taught that if you weren’t a member of the Church, you weren’t saved. With time and a deepening understanding, the Church changed that teaching to better reflect the truth.

They still pretty much teach that. They just keep moving the goal posts as to how far you can push the “membership” connection when it comes to God’s Church.

Also, unless you somehow have a list of who’s getting into Heaven on any given day, you don’t know what the “truth” is about who gets into Heaven, so I wouldn’t use that word.

 

[Genesis315]

Yes it’s true. And unfortunately, it seems too often emptied of practical meaning. As I understand it, in a nutshell there is no salvation outside the Catholic Church because the Catholic Church is the communion of souls united by faith and charity, and without those, one cannot be saved. It is possible for this faith and charity, which unites a soul to the Church, to exist outside the visibly delineated Church. Also, while there is no salvation outside the Church, everyone is offered the helps and means needed to partake of that salvation.

Faith properly orders our relationship to God: "By faith, man completely submits his intellect and his will to God. (CCC 143).

Because of this, faith is absolutely, without exception, necessary for salvation:

CCC

161 Believing in Jesus Christ and in the One who sent him for our salvation is necessary for obtaining that salvation.42 "Since “without faith it is impossible to please [God]” and to attain to the fellowship of his sons, therefore without faith no one has ever attained justification, nor will anyone obtain eternal life ‘But he who endures to the end.’"43

Faith is “a free assent to the whole truth that God has revealed.” (CCC 150). In particular, this means faith in Christ, since Christ “is the Father’s one, perfect and unsurpassable Word. In him he has said everything; there will be no other word than this one” (CCC 65); “what he spoke before to the prophets in parts, he has now spoken all at once by giving us the All Who is His Son” (CCC 65, quoting St. John of the Cross).

Even if in good conscience, people in non-Christian religions cannot have faith–they simply do not believe what God has revealed. Their belief is merely “religious experience still in search of the absolute truth and still lacking assent to God who reveals himself” and therefore “the distinction between theological faith and belief in the other religions, must be firmly held.” (Dominus Iesus 7).

Since they lack faith, persons who remain in such a situation until death could not be saved. However, we do acknowledge that, for those in good conscience seeking to follow the truth, “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.” (CCC 848)–this may happen even at the “eleventh hour” (Matt. 20:6).

But even if one has faith in Christ, deliberately denying any revealed truth (heresy–a sin of separation from the Church) destroys faith altogether, since one is no longer assenting to God the revealer, but trusting one’s own judgment: “Since faith is one, it must be professed in all its purity and integrity.” (Lumen Fidei 48). On the flip side, because faith is one, if one has faith in Christ–who is the fullness of revelation–faith is not destroyed by innocent ignorance about the various articles of faith: “there is no difference in the faith of ‘those able to discourse of it at length’ and ‘those who speak but little’, between the greater and the less: the first cannot increase the faith, nor the second diminish it.” (Lumen Fidei 47, quoting St. Irenaeus).

continued…

 

[Genesis315]

continued from above…

Of course charity is also necessary: “At the evening of life, we shall be judged on our love” (CCC 1022, quoting St. John of the Cross). Schism, another “sin of separation” ruptures ecclesiastical charity, as St. Augustine noted: “By false doctrines concerning God heretics wound faith, by iniquitous dissensions schismatics deviate from fraternal charity, although they believe what we believe” (On Faith and the Creed 9).

There is no salvation outside the Church because faith and charity are necessary for salvation and schism, heresy, and apostasy separate and are mortal sins.

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith recently issued an explanation of this doctrine from a different angle, which might be helpful. See the section titled “V. Salvation in the Church, Body of Christ” here:

http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/c...c_con_cfaith_doc_20180222_placuit-deo_en.html

 

[RomanChristian]

I’m a Catholic but not a Quote and unquote Roman Catholic. I belong to Orthodox Catholic Church also known as the Eastern Orthodox Christian Church. My Church is the One True Church.

 

[tseleehw]

This statement is technically true, but it doesn’t really mean much nowadays. Before, it used to be interpreted as, “You have to be Catholic or you are going to hell.” Today, it is interpreted as, “You have to be Catholic to go to heaven, but you will probably get there anyway even if you aren’t.”

Essentially, the hierarchy of the Church realized that it was not sustainable to continue the teaching that only people who join the Church can go to heaven, so they added in some extra interpretation so that it would not seem that they are condemning non-Catholics, while technically maintaining the prior teaching.

 

[ioannes_pius]

Yes. It is true that there is no salvation outside the Church.

 

[Jimbo]

The Real Presence has kept me in the Church when I wasn’t convinced of much else. Why go anywhere else?

I know folks who have gone to non denom churches because they feel more included, or the music is better. And I get that, I don’t discount the emotional appeal. But the cost…

 

[Jimbo]

I beg to differ slightly. I like the ‘two lung’ approach.

That said, I have a huge amount of respect for the Orthodox Church; and love her history and beautiful liturgy.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

The Real Presence has kept me in the Church when I wasn’t convinced of much else. Why go anywhere else?

This is also why I go. If Jesus in His Real Presence wasn’t at Mass, I could just pray in my room and watch sermons by people like Bishop Barron, Archbishop Sheen or Fr. Ripperger on Youtube.
I don’t understand Protestants despite being in a relationship/ married to one for over three decades and I don’t think I ever will understand why they stay separated brethren. Mine is not to reason why.

I like a lot of Orthodox stuff too and I wish they didn’t dislike Catholics so much.

 

[yankeesouth]

Yes, of course outside the Catholic Church there is no salvation.

Jesus Christ and the Catholic Church are One and the Same.

795 Christ and his Church thus together make up the “whole Christ” ( Christus totus ). The Church is one with Christ. The saints are acutely aware of this unity:

A reply of St. Joan of Arc to her judges sums up the faith of the holy doctors and the good sense of the believer: “About Jesus Christ and the Church, I simply know they’re just one thing, and we shouldn’t complicate the matter.”

You don’t necessarily have to be Catholic to get to Heaven, but everyone in Heaven is Catholic.

(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)

 

[CarloCristofori]

With the ambiguous watering down of this doctrine after Vatican II the Church has lost all its energy as an Evangelizing force.

 

[7_Sorrows]

John121:

outside the Church there is no salvation "

At one point, the Church taught that if you weren’t a member of the Church, you weren’t saved. With time and a deepening understanding, the Church changed that teaching to better reflect the truth.

And what is that teaching now? @godisgood77

 

[chessnerd321]

I think there’s much to be said about “no salvation outside the church” and historical context. For example, when the church was unified, it was much easier to say that pagans didn’t have the best chance of heaven.

But in our own time. Where we have millions of people who by merit of baptism are in the church, that seems murky. 50th generation Lutherns aren’t the same as the apostates themselves. So the doctrine of invincible ignorance developed. (Luke 12:47-48 is pretty clear here.)

And the next question people always ask is “well if the Protestants or even non Christains can be saved, and ignorance is what allows it, why would we evangelize at all?”

In short, because the extra grace God pours out through the church is infinitly more powerful than the extra responsibilities. For example, Protestants are relying on being able to drum up perfect contrition for sins. But confession allows grace to extend farther, as it’s the ordinary means of reconciliation.

In the end, it seems far, far more problematic to say that God sends all people to hell except Catholics, than to say “God has mercy on who he chooses.”