Let’s presuppose the basics. Salvation consists
of at least the following: (1) the forgiveness of sins through the redemption
offered in Jesus Christ, (2) the healing of human nature by the grace of
Christ, (3) the elevation of human nature to participate in the life of God, by
grace in this life, and ordered toward the beatific vision and the resurrection
of the flesh in the life to come. Any definition that leaves out one of these
elements is necessarily incomplete.
The Second Vatican Council affirms a number of
traditional teachings on “who will be saved,” but also leaves open important
questions. We should clarify why this is the case, and how it continues to
effect the subject of evangelization today.
First, then, consider four traditional
teachings that the Council affirms:
(1) God offers the possibility of salvation to all
human beings. This idea is present in Gaudium
et Spes 22 and Lumen Gentium 16.
It is not really a new idea in Catholic theology. In the 1658, Pope Innocent X
condemned the Jansenist opinion that Christ died only for the elect. In other
words, the Church affirmed that Christ died for all men, a teaching that
entails that the grace of Christ is offered to all. This teaching has its
origins in Scripture (I Jn 2:2; I Tim 2:4-6) and is found in the thought of Doctors
of the Church, including Thomas Aquinas. The idea is not an innovation.
(2) However, the Church also insists that the grace
of Christ can be rejected or refused.
This is the unambiguous teaching of the Council of Trent. (6th Sess., can. 4
and 17.) Consequently, the fact that grace is offered to all does not mean that
all will be saved. On the contrary, the universal offer of grace opens up the
possibility of the culpable refusal of grace, and the possibility of eternal
loss. Again, the idea is scriptural (Mt. 11:20-24; 12:41-42). We find it in Lumen Gentium 13-14: “All men are
called to be part of…the people of God…[yet] the Church…is necessary for
salvation…. Christ himself affirmed the necessity
of faith and baptism (Mk 16:16) and thereby affirmed also the necessity of the
Church, for through baptism as through a door men enter the Church. Whosoever,
therefore, knowing that the Catholic Church was made necessary by Christ, would
refuse to enter or to remain in it, could not be saved.”
(3) The Church teaches that there are seven
sacraments that were instituted by Christ, and which are instrumental causes or
channels of grace. This idea also was affirmed by the Council of Trent (7th
Sess.) and is reiterated in Lumen Gentium
11. This is significant, because the teaching clearly implies that it is not
enough to be baptized in order to be saved. The Christian who commits a mortal
sin after baptism (losing the grace of charity) and who culpably fails to avail
himself of the sacrament of reconciliation (confession) cannot be saved. The
reason for this is that only confession restores the grace of charity to a
baptized person who has sinned gravely. (Trent, 14th Sess.) To seek
purposefully to return to God without going to confession is itself a form of
disobedience toward God, and thus not a remedy for sin. Meanwhile, baptism and
confession are ordered toward communion in the Eucharist, a communion with the
Bishop of Rome, the successor of Peter. Christians who knowingly refuse to
enter into or to remain within the Catholic Church forsake union with the body
of Christ, and so cannot be saved (Lumen
Gentium, 14).
(4) However, God’s grace does work outside of the
sacraments in many cases. For Catholic Christians this can occur when they are
deprived of the sacraments through no fault of their own, or when they pray for
grace outside the sacraments, even while also regularly receiving them.
Likewise, a catechumen who dies without baptism can be saved from the “desire
for baptism.” Outside the Catholic Church, those who are in invincible
ignorance regarding the nature of the Church and the sacraments can still
receive the offer of salvation. This was an explicit teaching of Pope Pius IX
in the 19th century, and it has clear precedents in the teaching of 13th
century scholastic theologians like Aquinas.
Lumen Gentium 15-16
presents this idea in a complex and nuanced way. (We find complementary
teachings in Unitatis Redintegratio
and Nostra Aetate.) Notice the
emphasis on the conditional. The Eastern Orthodox Churches can communicate life in the grace of Christ, a grace that tends
implicitly toward plenary communion with the Roman Church. Protestant
Christians might live in a state of
grace (with charity in their hearts) based upon their baptismal life in Christ,
and his forgiveness of their sins, but they face potential setbacks due to
problematic beliefs and seriously erroneous moral practices. It is possible
for the grace of God to be at work among those who believe in the one God (Jews
or Muslims), and also in those who, through other religious traditions, “in
shadows and images seek the unknown God.” Grace may even be at work in the hearts of those who do not believe in
God.
Nevertheless, the text goes on to say that we should not be
presumptuous: “often men, deceived by the Evil One, have become vain in their
reasonings and have exchanged the truth of God for a lie, serving the creature
rather than the Creator. Or some there are who, living and dying in this world
without God, are exposed to final despair. Wherefore to promote the glory of
God and procure the salvation of all of these, and mindful of the command of
the Lord, ‘Preach the Gospel to every creature,’ (Mk. 16:16) the Church fosters
the missions with care and attention” (Lumen
Gentium, 16).
All of this leaves us with a key theological question: how
intensive is the activity of grace outside of the sacramental sphere?
The influential modern Catholic theologians Karl Rahner and
Hans Urs von Balthasar have read Lumen
Gentium in a more maximalist way, as if to suggest that effectively saving grace is present in
all persons irrespectively of the sacraments, such that they should necessarily
be saved. In other words, they have pushed for the idea of the effective
universal salvation of all. However, this view leads to a kind of Gnosticism
that ignores the signs of spiritual poverty and human callousness in the real
world we live in. When secular cultures demonstrate indifference to the
teachings of the Gospel and become increasingly non-sacramental, they also
become less human and more estranged from God. We cannot be sure of the state
of grace of any particular person. But there are probable signs of the presence
of spiritual death, as well as spiritual life.
Who will be saved? We do not know. However, in the 1994 Catechism
of the Catholic Church (n. 836-56) and in the document Dominus Jesus, the Magisterium
has insisted that the means instituted by Christ in the Catholic Church (her
teachings and sacraments) remain the
ordinary means of salvation in the world we live in. People can be saved
without these means, but it is greatly to
one’s advantage to receive their graces in order to be saved. The ignorance
that many people live in is a dangerous one, not purely inculpable, but
“affected ignorance.” They are alienated from God due to the consequences of
original sin (CCC, 402-409). In this state, human beings partially recognize
religious and moral truths that they nevertheless reject culpably. Here, the
Church’s clear preaching and teaching are necessary in order to enlighten human
consciences, and so that the grace of God can convict hearts and invite them to
real conversion.
Vatican II gives us a number of sound principles on the question, “Who
can be saved?” But the documents must be read carefully in the light of sacred
tradition. This tradition, meanwhile, underscores the necessity for salvation
of Christ and the Church. Consequently, we who live in a secular age should
take note: we have a joyful obligation to evangelize. What is at stake is
nothing less than the salvation of human beings. However, Christ is with us even
in the midst of our secular age! Accordingly, we can evangelize with vigorous
hope in the grace of God to illumine human minds, and to inflame human hearts
with charity.
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