To the Father through Jesus

[Jade]

Hello Again!

I’m just brimming with questions these days!

I was discussing God and salvation with a friend of mine and we were talking about all of those people who are not Christians, but try their best to live a moral, just life. We were both finding it difficult to imagine God condemning all those to Hell who may not have full concept of God, but live unbeknownst to them, very Christian and good lives. Then we talked about “No one gets to the Father except through Me.” While I think it is quite obvious what is stated here, that it is through Jesus Christ and what He did for us, that allows us to attain eternal life, could it also be possable that Jesus might have also been talking on a deeper level- that it is through Jesus and what He did for us that, as I have already stated, we enter into eternal life, but that this also applies to those people who live Christian, good lives to the best of their ability even if they do not know God, because by His death, ressurection and raising, He has enabled us to go to the Father.

Any comments would be greatly welcomed.

 

[JackmanUSC]

**This is the Catechism **

**“Outside the Church there is no salvation” **

[846](javascriptpenWindow(‘cr/846.htm’) 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](javascriptpenWindow(‘cr/848.htm’)** "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

 

[Jade]

Jack,

Thanks!