Salvation Outside the Church: Tracing the History of the Catholic Response

by Francis A. Sullivan

When in 1949 Fr. Leonard Feeney, SJ accused the Archbishop of Boston, Richard J. Cushing, of heresy for holding that Jews and Protestants could be saved, he backed up his charge by producing passages from the writings of fathers of the church such as St. Augustine, of eminent theologians such as St. Thomas Aquinas, and from the decrees of popes and councils, to prove that it was a dogma of faith that there is no salvation outside the Catholic Church. He did seem to have the weight of evidence on his side, and it was not easy to see how the modern idea that non-Catholics can be saved could be reconciled with the church's traditional doctrine that excluded them from salvation. Many in the Catholic Church have felt that while Feeney must surely have been wrong, the questions he raised were never satisfactorily answered. Is it really a dogma of Catholic faith that there is no salvation outside the church? Can the optimism of Vatican II about the universal possibility of salvation be defended as an example of homogeneous development of doctrine? Or would it be more honest to say that the Catholic Church has recognized that its previous teaching was mistaken? The author is convinced that the only way to answer such questions is by a thorough study of the history of Christian thought about the salvation of those "outside the church" Rev. Sullivan makes this historical study a lively reading experience while drawing conclusions that will impact ecumenical thinking for years to come.

Genres: Theology, Catholic, Christianity

Paperback

First published May 1, 1992

Reviews

[Paul · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book completes a cycle that began with me when I took a course from Fr. Joseph Brusher in college called Renaissance and Reformation. It was there that I first heard of the papal bull Unam Sanctam and the teaching that there is no salvation outside the [Catholic] Church. I resolved that for myself early on. I had too many non-Catholic relatives whom I did not wish to consign to hell and I had read a line in Chesterton somewhere that there would be many a Catholic who would wake up in hell knowing where they were and many an atheist who would wake up in heaven wondering where they were.

My basic belief, and that of all mainline Christians, is that our Lord died for every human being and that his grace would be with those who had not make an explicit, sinful choice against explicit faith. I left that judgment to God, since that is what the challenge, judge not, lest you be judged, means. We do have to judge externals, and sometimes the internal insofar as we can, but we cannot make the ultimate determination ourselves.

This book is a learned book, superbly done intellectually, and a book of faith as well. He uses well the notion of historical conditioning, not as a way of dismissing truth, but as a way of understanding how we human beings lurch towards truth, including the church itself. See:

p. 27 "Three points stand out in the thinking of the writers of this period [Fathers prior to St. Augustine]. The first is their generally positive attitude on the possibility of salvation for both Jews and Gentiles who had lived before the coming of Christ. The second is their uniformly negative attitude about the possibility of salvation for Christians who were separated from the great church by heresy or schism. These they judged guilty of grave personal sin against charity, since they identified the communion of the church with love, and saw everyone who adhered to a schismatic group, and not merely its founders, as guilty of the sin of schism. The third point is that it is only toward the chose of the fourth century, when Christianity had become the official religion of the empire, and the majority of its citizens adhered to it, that we find the axiom "No salvation outside the church" being explicitly applied to pagans and Jews. Here the negative judgment was based on the assumption that by now everyone had had the opportunity to accept the Christian message, that is truth was evident t all, and those who refused to accept it were closing their eyes to the truth by which they could be saved."

[Josiah · Rating 2 out of 5]

To Paul, another reviewer on this thread,

I would be very careful saying things like, "I had decided that for myself early on." God judges hearts, not us. You liking your non-Catholic, or Catholic family members, has zero bearing on whether or not they are in Heaven. We don't go to Heaven just for being likable or being a good cousin. I don't mean to attack you, but you sound like you are arrogating the powers of Jesus to yourself. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you.

As for the book, it was fine, not as wacky as expected. Fr. Sullivan's own opinions I did not agree with, but it's speculative theology that happens. It was light on Scripture which should be the basis of any talk of Church Dogma.

[Nelson Sanchez · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book was an excellent walkthrough Church history regarding the doctrine of Salvation Outside of the Church. Sullivan does a great job in tracing the development of the different foundational principles as they arise in the thought of the different theologians throughout history. The book not only gives insight into the specific doctrine, but also how development of doctrine happens through a historical example.

Sullivan does not shy away from examining the views of those who disagree with each development, which in my view makes for a more thorough survey of the data.

Overall, excellent book. I would recommend to anyone interested in the topic.

[Thatcher Milton · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very problematic topic so I was hesitant even logging this lol. Very good book in terms of the research set forth. I kinda wish he engaged with more Ecclesiologists especially around the time of Florence but still great research of the history. 3 stars cause I think he takes a pretty odd conclusion coming from Vatican 2 and the Papal stances after. Oh well, I’m just a layman.

[Amanda Marie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good up to the nineteenth century when Sullivan begins bringing in his own theological insight which is not necessarily what the Church teaches...

[Julia Hanley · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had to read this for my university course and found it enlightening.

[Grace Joy · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was a good summary of the historical shifts and how that impacted the perspective of councils and church fathers, but I didn't agree with Father Sullivan's theological conclusions at the end.

[Erik]

Listed by Patrick Madrid in the Reading Plan of Search and Rescue in Phase 2 (Intermediate).

[Casper Denck · Rating 4 out of 5]

http://nicodemist.wordpress.com/2009/...