Church and Society - Avery Cardinal Dulles

Church and Society: The Laurence J. McGinley Lectures, 1988-2007 (Hardcover)
Avery Cardinal Dulles, SJ

Chapter 38 - Who are saved?

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I went into B & N to read the next few chapters of a book I started there last month by Dinesh D'Souza, What's so Great about Christianity? But, alas, they are out of stock. So, this book caught my eye. I perused through the pages of the book, as well as the Table of contents, and this chapter caught my eye. I read through it and was thoroughly impressed by this theologian's brevity and clarity in presenting this topic. I think he makes very little of his own assertions, but did well to present the established and popular treatments of the issue, as the doctrine of "extra ecclesiam nulla salus" developed over the centuries. He goes through it chronologically. He points out that early on, the Church's undertsanding of salvation was pretty black and white. Either you were in the Church or you werent. All those, ignorant or otherwise, were not saved, if they were not formal members of the Church. Some abberant understanding came from the likes of Origen, who believed that at some point, all the inhabitants of Hell will be saved, and Hell would be destroyed. This idea was condemned by the Church later on. After the discovery of the "new world" some time later, there developed an understanding of membership as membership in re, and membership in voto, that is, in formal membership, and in desire. I know that we can find this language in the canons of the Council of Trent with regard to the doctrine of Justification. The theologians had to deal with the question of what happned to all those who lived all those years between the time of Christ and the discovery of these new lands? At that point, theologians, including St. Thomas Aquinas taught that even if these persons were ignorant of the Gospel, their only way of salvation was a direct illumination of their intellect by God, or God would send a missionary to those who would be saved, either naturally or supernaturally. Some theologians of the 19th century were then influential in the development of Pius IX's contribution to this doctrine with his explanation in two documents, that even though "outside the Church, there is no salvation", this does not refer to the person who through no fault of his own, did not know the Church, and thus, its necessity for salvation. This was called invincible ignorance, that is, ignorance which could not be overcome. Then we come to the teachings of Vatican II, which gave us the understanding that there is indeed elements of truth, and goodness, in various world religions. It also taught that the Church of Christ subsists in the Catholic Church. The elements of truth found in other religions, and more so the other Christian communions, is due to the Catholic Church, as the "universal sacrament of salvation". Any who are saved, outside of the true Church, is nevertheless saved because of the Churh, and by Jesus Christ. Furthermore, through the ideas of Karl Rahner (at this point, this is where I clearly disagree), I believe it was, he gave us the understanding of the "anonymous Christian". He taught that God gave grace to all men, and as such, insofar as they respond to that grace, by whatever name the God is named in their culture, they may nevertheless be "anonymous Christians". He then recaps, his main points, and then gives us some statements of what we can say, and not say, according to the teachings of the Church.