The Reformed Pastor
Contents
[Outside] the Church There is
Flickr photo by Icadrew
no Salvation... Sort of
[T]
he doctrine that "Outside the Church there is no salvation" (Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus), first expressed by the third century martyr/bishop, Cyprian, and to this day by the Roman Catholic Magisterium, is a matter of much confusion. At face value (when expressed by Rome) it points to the Catholic Church institution as the single location where humanity encounters divine grace. But it’s not that simple. In what follows, we will briefly consider how the exclusivity of Cyprian’s dictum relates to the inclusive emphasis of today’s Catholic Church. The Vatican II document Lumen Gentium, promulgated by Pope Paul VI in 1964, is a helpful place to start: Those also can attain to salvation
who through no fault of their own do not know the Gospel of Christ or His Church, yet sincerely seek God and moved by grace strive by their deeds to do His will as it is known to them through the dictates of conscience. Nor does Divine Providence deny the helps necessary for salvation to those who, without blame on their part, have not yet arrived at an explicit knowledge of God and with His grace strive to live a good life. (Lumen Gentium, 2.16; cf. Gaudium et Spes 1.22) The necessary foundation of implicit knowledge is “invincible ignorance”—the state in which one is without access to Christian revelation. This is, for example, the pigmy, aborigine, or post Christian European who has never heard the gospel. Since such people have not received
by
Chris Castaldo
an opportunity to understand and respond to the explicit teaching of Christ, they are “inculpable.” Assuming this ignorance is genuinely outside of their control (that it is not due to prejudice or neglect) and that there is perfect contrition and a desire to do God’s will, then, moved by divine grace, these persons may pursue and lay hold of salvation through their conscience. Perhaps the biggest exponent of this concept was the twentieth century theologian, Karl Rahner: The “anonymous Christian” in our sense of the term is the pagan after the beginning of the Christian mission, who lives in a state of Christ’s grace through faith, hope, and love, yet who has no explicit knowledge of the fact that his life is orientated in grace-given salvation to Jesus Christ… There must www.credomag.com | 11