jasJis Posted October 1, 2004 Share Posted October 1, 2004 "Outside the Church there is no salvation" 846 How are we to understand this affirmation, often repeated by the Church Fathers?335 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.336 847 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.337 848 "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."338 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HartfordWhalers Posted October 1, 2004 Share Posted October 1, 2004 LOL, how is the CCC the be-all, end-all source? If we are basing what we believe on FALLIBLE pronouncements, there are 1000s more for a "rigorist" interpretation, and in addition to that, the 3 times it has been defined infallibly, there have been no exceptions, and there has been no room left for exceptions. That is, an exception is possible in what the Church has defined, except for God, Who could save whomever He wishes, but we know that He doesn't, just as He doesn't save the obstinant sinner. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Apotheoun Posted October 1, 2004 Share Posted October 1, 2004 The following text is from the schema on the Church from the First Vatican Council: "Furthermore, it is a dogma of faith that no one can be saved outside the Church. Nevertheless, those who are invincibly ignorant of Christ and the Church are not to be judged worthy of eternal punishment because of this ignorance. For they are innocent in the eyes of the Lord of any fault in this matter. God wishes all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth; and if one does what he can, God does not withhold the grace for him to obtain eternal life. But no one obtains eternal life if he dies separated from the unity of faith or from communion with the Church through his own fault." [Vatican I, [u]Schema on the Church of Christ[/u] (chapter 7), presented to the Fathers of the council on 24 April 1870] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IcePrincessKRS Posted October 1, 2004 Share Posted October 1, 2004 No exceptions, huh? There is already another thread about this so I'm closing this one (the other is longer already). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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