The Necessity of Faith in Jesus Christ & the Possibility of Salvation for Non-Christians

Dr Joy discusses the intricacies of how non-Christians can be saved if it is indeed a dogma that 'there is no salvation outside the Church'.

From One Peter Five

By John Joy, STD

The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches both that faith in Jesus Christ is necessary for salvation (CCC 161) and that non-Christians can be saved (CCC 846–848). Since non-Christians are by definition those who do not have faith in Christ, it is not immediately obvious how this apparent contradiction can be reconciled. Let us have a look at the paragraphs in question.

The article on faith says this:

161 Believing in Jesus Christ and in the One who sent him for our salvation is necessary for obtaining that salvation. “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.’”[1]

Unlike later paragraphs in the Catechism about the necessity of baptism and of membership in the Church, this assertion of the necessity of faith “in Jesus Christ and in the One who sent him” is not qualified or restricted in any way. In addition, the following Scripture passages are cited in the footnotes as support for the teaching:

“He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned.” (Mark 16:16)

“He who believes in the Son has eternal life; he who does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God rests upon him.” (John 3:36)

“For this is the will of my Father, that every one who sees the Son and believes in him should have eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day.” (John 6:40)

Such passages drive home the point that faith in Jesus Christ is necessary for salvation, and yet when we come to the Catechism’s article on the Catholic Church, we find multiple clear assertions of the possibility of salvation for non-Christians. First, the Catechism refers to the famous formula “outside the Church there is no salvation” (extra ecclesiam nulla salus), which was first used by St. Cyprian of Carthage.[2] Commenting on this statement, the Catechism asks:

846 How are we to understand this affirmation, often repeated by the Church Fathers? 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.” (LG 14)

The text quoted is from Lumen Gentium, the Second Vatican Council’s dogmatic constitution on the Church, which expresses the Council’s teaching on the necessity of the Church for salvation. While re-affirming the necessity of faith and baptism, this text emphasizes that the primary application of the formula “outside the Church there is no salvation” is directed toward Christian believers. Those who know that the Catholic Church is the Church of Jesus Christ, and that membership in her is necessary for salvation, and who still reject her, cannot be saved. That much is uncontroversial. But what about those who have never heard of Jesus Christ and the Church? The Catechism continues:

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.” (LG 16)

The quoted text is again from Lumen Gentium, and it clearly asserts the possibility of salvation for non-Christians, that is, for those who “do not know the Gospel of Christ or his Church.” The difficulty is how to reconcile this teaching with the earlier assertion that faith in Jesus Christ is necessary for salvation. For how can it be simultaneously true that faith in Jesus Christ is necessary for salvation and that salvation is possible for those who have never heard of Jesus Christ?

Theologians generally try to resolve this apparent contradiction in one of two ways. One path, favored by most theologians of earlier generations, is to accept the necessity of faith in Christ at face-value and to qualify the assertion of the possibility of salvation for non-Christians: in brief, non-Christians can be saved by becoming Christians. Since it is possible for non-Christians, as long as they are alive, to hear the Good News of Jesus Christ and be converted to the Christian faith, it is therefore also possible that they can be saved by the acceptance of that faith.

The other path, favored by most theologians in more recent generations, is to accept the possibility of salvation for non-Christians at face-value and to qualify the assertion that faith in Jesus Christ is necessary for salvation. By analogy with the closely related doctrines of the necessity of baptism and membership in the Church (for which even an implicit desire can suffice in the case of those who are invincibly ignorant), many theologians argue that here too we can speak of those who are invincibly ignorant of Jesus Christ as having an “implicit” faith in him that would be sufficient for salvation. On this reading, non-Christians who “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” (LG 16) are already in a condition that suffices for salvation; they may be saved even if they die without ever having heard of Jesus or being converted to the Christian faith.

Which interpretation is correct? The hypothetical non-Christian who is invincibly ignorant of the Gospel of Jesus Christ but who sincerely strives to do the will of God as he understands it and to follow his conscience—all Catholic theologians agree that he can be saved. But can he be saved just as he is, in his condition of invincible ignorance? Or can he be saved only by hearing the message of salvation through Christ and responding in faith?

There are at least three indications from within the documents of Vatican II where this topic is treated that argue in favor of the latter interpretation, which also has the advantage of corresponding with the teaching on this subject of such Doctors of the Church as St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Alphonsus Liguori.

St. Thomas Aquinas on Christ’s headship over all men

First, paragraph 16 of Lumen Gentium, which contains the teaching on the possibility of salvation for non-Christians, opens with this line: “Finally, those who have not yet received the Gospel are related in various ways to the people of God” (LG 16). This sentence, which establishes the context for everything in the rest of the paragraph, concludes with a footnote referencing St. Thomas Aquinas’s Summa Theologiae III, q. 8, a. 3, ad 1. In this question, St. Thomas is considering Jesus Christ as the head of the Church, and the third article asks whether Jesus Christ is the head of all men. The first objection argues that Christ would seem not to be the head of all men: “For the head has no relation except to the members of its body. Now the unbaptized are nowise members of the Church which is the body of Christ (as it is written in Ephesians 1:23). Therefore Christ is not the head of all men.”[3] To this St. Thomas replies, and this is the text referenced in the first footnote of Lumen Gentium 16: “Those who are unbaptized, though not actually in the Church, are in the Church potentially. And this potentiality is rooted in two things—first and principally, in the power of Christ, which is sufficient for the salvation of the whole human race; secondly, in free-will.”[4]

What light does this shed for us on the possibility of salvation for non-Christians? It tells us that we should understand the relation to Christ of those about whom the rest of the paragraph speaks (Jews, Muslims, pagans, and all those invincibly ignorant of the Gospel, even atheists) as a relationship of potentiality toward union. They are not actually united to Christ as members, but they are potentially united to Christ. Now in the metaphysics of St. Thomas, the distinction between potentiality and actuality is an important one. Potential being stands in between actual being and non-being. A potential being, such as a child who has yet to be conceived, does not yet have actual existence; but the potential for the child to exist is already really present in the active power of the parents. Or consider the case of a married couple planning to adopt children. They are actually the parents only of those whom they have already conceived or adopted; but they are potentially the parents of any child in need of being adopted.

And this potential is rooted in two things: on the side of the parents, it is rooted in their power and decision to adopt; on the side of the children, it is rooted in their being adoptable. But crucially, this potential must somehow be actualized for an abandoned child to become an adopted child. It is not good enough to say that a child can be adopted just as he is. For him to be actually adopted, this potential must be actualized in a way that radically changes his condition, moving him from the state of being abandoned, with a mere potential for adoption, to the state of being actually adopted, with a new and real relationship to loving parents.

Similarly, in the text of St. Thomas, Christ is said to be actually the head only of those who are already somehow united to him; but he is also potentially the head of all those who could become united to him; and this potential is rooted in two things: on the side of Christ, it is rooted in his divine power, which is sufficient to save all; on the side of men, it is rooted in their free-will, which has the power to respond and cooperate with grace. In the body of the article, St. Thomas lists five degrees of relationship with Christ: first, there are those who are actually united to him most perfectly by glory in heaven; second, there are those who are actually united to him by charity in this life (i.e. living in a state of grace); third, there are those who are actually united to him by faith but without charity (i.e. Christian believers who are in a state of mortal sin); fourth, there are those “who are united to him merely in potentiality, which is not yet reduced to act, yet will be reduced to act”; fifth and finally, there are those “who are united to him in potentiality, which will never be reduced to act.” About this last category, St. Thomas says that they, “on their departure from this world, wholly cease to be members of Christ, as being no longer in potentiality to be united to Christ.”[5]

Hence, when Lumen Gentium 16 opens by saying that non-Christians are united to Christ in various ways, and then references the text of St. Thomas describing the nature of a potential rather than an actual union with him, this indicates that something must still be done, involving the power of God and the human free-will, to actualize this potential union with Christ if they are to be saved. And the minimum threshold for a relationship of actual union with Christ in the body of the article is said to be faith. Those who are invincibly ignorant of the Gospel have a potential to be saved. As it says in Lumen Gentium 16, “They are able [possunt] to attain to salvation,” but this potential for salvific union with Christ must be actualized by faith.

The Holy Office on the meaning of “Outside the Church there is no salvation”

A second indication supporting the same interpretation is contained in the next footnote, which is attached to the key sentence: “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” (LG 16). The footnote here references the 1949 Letter of the Holy Office to the Archbishop of Boston responding to the case of Fr. Leonard Feeney, who promoted a narrow interpretation of the dogma “outside the Church there is no salvation.”

Although this entire letter of the Holy Office is essential reading for a full and proper understanding of the dogma “outside the Church there is no salvation,” its primary purpose is to clarify the point that this dogma does not exclude from salvation those who desire to be members of the Church, whether explicitly, as in the case of Catechumens preparing to enter the Church, or even implicitly, in the case of those who are invincibly ignorant of the Church but who would wish to enter her if they knew of her.

This is exactly analogous to the sacrament of baptism, which is also required for salvation, but the fruit of which can be obtained either through actual reception of the sacrament or through the desire for baptism (the so-called “Baptism of Desire”), whether explicit or implicit.

In a similar way, the Catholic Church is necessary for salvation, but the fruit of membership in the Church can be obtained either through actual membership or through the desire for membership, whether explicit or implicit.

The error against which we are admonished by the Holy Office letter lies in thinking that “inside the Church” and “outside the Church” are the only possible categories into which a person can fall, when in fact there is a third possibility. Just as in a church building one may find some persons fully inside in the nave, as well as some persons fully outside (e.g. in the street), while still others are in the narthex awaiting entry, so likewise, there are some people who are fully inside as members of the Church (baptized Catholics professing the true faith, etc.), others who are fully outside of her (in the street, so to speak) where “there is neither salvation nor remission of sins,” where “no one at all is saved,”[6] while there are still others who are “united to her by desire and longing” (eidem voto et desiderio adhaereat).[7] These persons adhere to the Church without yet being formally members of the Church; they are neither fully “inside” nor fully “outside” the Church, but are as it were in the narthex awaiting entry. And importantly, in addition to the enrolled Catechumens and other candidates for entry, there can be some in this narthex, clinging spiritually to the Church, who are invincibly ignorant of the very Church to which they cling; they cling to her without knowing it.

Here we are led finally back to our original question: Can one who is ignorant not only of the Church but even of Jesus Christ still find a way of clinging to the Church and so be saved? Can the necessity for faith in Jesus Christ be treated in the same way as the necessity for baptism and membership into the Church? Is an “implicit desire” for faith enough to be saved?

Here is what the Holy Office letter says in the last paragraph specifically referenced by Lumen Gentium (by Denzinger [43rd ed.] number):

3872 Nor must it be thought that any kind of desire of entering the Church suffices for one to be saved. It is necessary that the desire by which one is related to the Church (ad Ecclesiam ordinetur) be animated by perfect charity. The implicit desire can produce no effect unless a person has supernatural faith.

Just as for St. Thomas, faith and charity are said to be those things that actually (as opposed to merely potentially) unite a man to Christ, here too we see that supernatural faith and charity are the minimum requirements that would make an implicit desire for membership in the Church effectual for salvation. Supernatural faith and charity are the intrinsic means by which one is actually united to Christ and by that very fact they are also the means by which even those who are invincibly ignorant of the Church may cling to her spiritually.

The Holy Office letter does not discuss the minimum contents of this supernatural faith (i.e. what or how much exactly must be believed), but it must in any case have the formal nature of supernatural faith, which was defined at Vatican I to be “a supernatural virtue whereby, inspired and assisted by the grace of God, we believe that what he has revealed is true, not because the intrinsic truth of things is recognized by the natural light of reason, but because of the authority of God himself who reveals them, who can neither err nor deceive.”[8] No one can have such faith without encountering divine revelation in some way.

More recently, Pope St. John Paul II (in Dominus Iesus) discussed the nature of supernatural faith and definitively – and thus infallibly – re-affirmed the essential distinction between theological (supernatural) faith and the forms of belief found in other religions:

The obedience of faith implies acceptance of the truth of Christ’s revelation, guaranteed by God, who is Truth itself: “Faith is first of all a personal adherence of man to God. At the same time, and inseparably, it is a free assent to the whole truth that God has revealed.” Faith, therefore, as “a gift of God”‌ and as “a supernatural virtue infused by him,” involves a dual adherence: to God who reveals and to the truth which he reveals, out of the trust which one has in him who speaks. Thus, “we must believe in no one but God: the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.”

The distinction between theological faith and belief in the other religions, must be firmly held. If faith is the acceptance in grace of revealed truth, which “makes it possible to penetrate the mystery in a way that allows us to understand it coherently,” then belief, in the other religions, is that sum of experience and thought that constitutes the human treasury of wisdom and religious aspiration, which man in his search for truth has conceived and acted upon in his relationship to God and the Absolute.

This distinction is not always borne in mind in current theological reflection. Thus, theological faith (the acceptance of the truth revealed by the One and Triune God) is often identified with belief in other religions, which is religious experience still in search of the absolute truth and still lacking assent to God who reveals himself. This is one of the reasons why the differences between Christianity and the other religions tend to be reduced at times to the point of disappearance (emphasis in the original).[9]

From this it appears that belief in other religions is not a way of having supernatural faith—the faith that is required for salvation; nor can it be merely some kind of vague sense of the divine or of the moral law or any such thing. If supernatural faith necessarily involves adherence to God “and to the truth which he reveals,” and if supernatural faith is absolutely necessary for salvation, then no one can be saved who does not receive divine revelation.

The parallel text of Ad Gentes 7

Finally, if the two previous considerations are insufficient to resolve the correct interpretation of Lumen Gentium 16 on the possibility of salvation for non-Christians, there is the parallel text from another document of Vatican II, the decree on missionary activity Ad Gentes, which the new Catechism places immediately after the text of LG 16 in order to shed further light on it:

848 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. (AG 7)

The context here is the same as in Lumen Gentium: tVatican II is speaking in both documents about the possibility of salvation for those who, through no fault of their own, have not heard the Gospel of Jesus Christ. In Lumen Gentium, where the context is the Church, it merely says that “they can attain to salvation” (LG 16) without specifying how. Here in Ad Gentes,though, where the context is the Church’s mission to non-believers, there is a little more clarity. The text mentions two ways in which non-Christians who are invincibly ignorant of the Gospel may attain to salvation: the more ordinary way is through the Church’s work of evangelization. Where this fails, however, there is a more extraordinary means of salvation available for non-Christians: “In ways known to himself God can lead” (adducere possit) them “to the faith” (ad fidem) that will save them (AD 7).

The key point for our purposes, however, is that Ad Gentes 7, when it says that God can lead those who are invincibly ignorant of the Gospel to the faith that is necessary for salvation, it implies that they do not yet have that faith. As we saw with St. Thomas, non-Christians can be saved, but not by simply remaining in their current condition. The potential for salvation must still be actualized by faith; they must be led to a faith that they do not yet possess, and what could that be other than faith “in Jesus Christ and in the One who sent him for our salvation” (CCC 161)?

St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Alphonsus Liguori on the ways in which God leads men to faith

A final argument in support of this reading of Lumen Gentium on the possibility of salvation for non-Christians, is that, instead of placing Vatican II and the Catechism in tension with the previous theological tradition, represented pre-eminently by the Angelic Doctor, it dovetails with it perfectly. St. Thomas discusses the necessity of faith for salvation in ST II-II, q. 2, where he concludes that since the time of Christ (in the age of grace), all are bound without exception to have explicit faith in the mystery of Jesus Christ and in the Trinity in order to be saved. In a parallel text in his disputed questions on truth, St. Thomas poses the same objection that would be raised immediately by every Catholic who considers the question seriously:

Obj. 1: It seems that it is not [necessary to have explicit faith], for we should not posit any proposition from which an untenable conclusion follows. But if we claim that explicit belief is necessary for salvation, an untenable conclusion follows. For it is possible for someone to be brought up in the forest or among wolves, and such a one cannot have explicit knowledge of any matter of faith. Thus, there will be a man who will inevitably be damned. But this is untenable. Hence, explicit belief in something does not seem necessary.[10]

To this he responds:

Reply to Obj. 1. Granted that everyone is bound to believe something explicitly, no untenable conclusion follows even if someone is brought up in the forest or among wild beasts. For it pertains to divine providence to furnish everyone with what is necessary for salvation, provided that on his part there is no hindrance. Thus, if someone so brought up followed the direction of natural reason in seeking good and avoiding evil, we must most certainly hold that God would either reveal to him through internal inspiration what had to be believed, or would send some preacher of the faith to him as he sent Peter to Cornelius (Acts 10:20).[11]

This corresponds exactly to what Ad Gentes says, although with less reticence about how God could lead those who are invincibly ignorant of the Gospel to faith in Jesus Christ. Where Ad Gentes refers obliquely to “ways known to God himself,” St. Thomas suggests two concrete possibilities, both known to have occurred throughout the history of the Church: private revelations and the sending of missionaries.

If God truly desires the salvation of all (as it says in 1 Timothy 2:4), then salvation must be concretely available to all, even to those raised far away from the preaching of the Gospel. At first glance, requiring faith in Jesus Christ and the mystery of the Trinity would seem inconsistent with God’s universal desire for salvation, but St. Thomas reminds us that God’s power is not limited as our human power is. One who seems unreachable from the human point of view is never out of reach of divine providence.

Granted that God desires to save all and therefore that salvation must be concretely available to all, there is no greater difficulty for divine providence to lead men to faith than there is to save them. The full text of 1 Timothy 2:4 says that God “desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” The two are inseparably connected. God’s desire to save all men is not greater than his desire to lead all men to the knowledge of truth; nor is his power to lead men to the knowledge of truth less than his power to save. Those who place no obstacle to the working of grace in their lives are led step by step both to the knowledge of the truth and by that means also to salvation.

St. Alphonsus Liguori, expounding on the above text of St. Thomas, gives a more complete account of what this step-by-step process looks like in the case of one raised in invincible ignorance of the Gospel. The text is from his refutation of Semipelagianism:

Still we answer the Semipelagians, and say, that infidels who arrive at the use of reason, and are not converted to the Faith, cannot be excused, because though they do not receive sufficient proximate grace, still they are not deprived of remote grace, as a means of becoming converted.

But what is this remote grace? St. Thomas explains it, when he says, that if anyone was brought up in the wilds, or even among brute beasts, and if he followed the law of natural reason, to desire what is good, and to avoid what is wicked, we should certainly believe either that God, by an internal inspiration, would reveal to him what he should believe, or would send someone to preach the Faith to him, as he sent Peter to Cornelius.

Thus, then, according to the Angelic Doctor, God, at least remotely, gives to infidels, who have the use of reason, sufficient grace to obtain salvation, and this grace consists in a certain instruction of the mind, and in a movement of the will, to observe the natural law; and if the infidel cooperates with this movement, observing the precepts of the law of nature, and abstaining from grievous sins, he will certainly receive, through the merits of Jesus Christ, the grace proximately sufficient to embrace the Faith, and save his soul.[12]

Conclusion

Does God truly desire the salvation of all and so make salvation concretely available to all? Yes.

But is explicit faith in “Jesus Christ and in the One who sent him for our salvation necessary for obtaining that salvation”? Yes.

Does that mean non-Christians cannot be saved? No; they can be saved.

But can they be saved without conversion to faith in Jesus Christ? No; they must be converted before they die.

Does that mean all those raised in invincible ignorance of the Gospel are necessarily doomed? No; for “Behold, the Lord’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save” (Isaiah 59:1).

How then can they be saved? God in his infinite mercy will not abandon to hell anyone who sincerely seeks to know, love, and serve him according to the best of his human ability (aided of course by the movements of actual grace); but Jesus Christ is the sole means of salvation, and faith in him is the indispensable “foundation and root of all justification.”[13] As it is written: “There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). Therefore, we must believe that God will lead all those whom he desires to save, and who place no obstacle to grace in the way, to the knowledge of the truth of Jesus Christ and of the Holy Trinity by which they may be saved.

How will God lead them to these truths? He may occasionally do so by the extraordinary means of a private revelation to a non-believer, but the ordinary means by which he works is through the internal promptings of grace within the hearts of believers, moving and inspiring them to proclaim the truths of the Gospel with courage, charity, and conviction to all those who do not yet know Jesus Christ, in whom “we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace which he lavished upon us” (Eph 1:7–8). To whom be glory and honor forever. Amen.

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[1] Catechism of the Catholic Church [CCC] 161.

[2] St. Cyprian of Carthage, Letter 72, To Jubaianus, Concerning the Baptism of Heretics, 21: “But if not even the baptism of a public confession and blood can profit a heretic to salvation, because there is no salvation out of the Church, how much less shall it be of advantage to him, if in a hiding-place and a cave of robbers, stained with the contagion of adulterous water, he has not only not put off his old sins, but rather heaped up still newer and greater ones!”

[3] St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae [ST] III, q. 8, a. 3, obj. 1.

[4] STIII, q. 8, a. 3, ad 1.

[5] STIII, q. 8, a. 3.

[6] These are two of the most solemn statements of the infallible magisterium of the Church on this topic: Lateran Council IV, On the Catholic Faith, against the Albigensians and the Cathars (1215): “There is indeed one universal Church of the faithful outside of which no one at all is saved” (Denz. 802); Pope Boniface VIII, Bull Unam Sanctam (1302): “That there is only one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church we are compelled by faith’s urging to believe and hold, and we firmly believe in her and sincerely confess her outside of whom there is neither salvation nor remission of sins” (Denz. 870).

[7] Letter of the Holy Office to the Archbishop of Boston (1949); Denz. 3870.

[8] Vatican I, Dogmatic Constitution on the Catholic Faith Dei Filius (1870), ch. 3; Denz. 3008.

[9] Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Declaration Dominus Iesus (2000), 7; Denz. 5085.

[10] St. Thomas Aquinas, De Veritate, q. 14, a. 11, obj. 1.

[11] De Ver., q. 14, a. 11, ad 1.

[12] St. Alphonsus Liguori, The History of Heresies, refutation 6, 11.

[13] Council of Trent, Decree on Justification (1547), ch. 8.