One of the more controversial teachings of the Second Vatican Council deals with the salvation of non-Christians. Summarizing the teachings of the Council Fathers, the Catechism says “’Since Christ died for all, and since all men are in fact called to one and the same destiny, which is divine, we must hold that the Holy Spirit offers to all the possibility of being made partakers, in a way known to God, of the Paschal mystery.’ [GS 22] Every man who is ignorant of the Gospel of Christ and of his Church, but seeks the truth and does the will of God in accordance with his understanding of it, can be saved” (CCC 1260). The controversy arises not so much in the letter, but in the spirit that followed. It was interpreted as a softening of the Church’s traditional stance that salvation comes only through faith in Christ. Once softened, the way became clear for a belief in universal salvation. While this clearly goes beyond the text, nevertheless the evangelical aftershocks have left the Church’s missionary zeal in the rubble. In an age where exceptions, rather than proving the rule, become the rule, a certain amount of clarity surrounding this issue will help to reignite the evangelical fires of the Church.
It must be admitted at the outset that like many of the statements of the Council, the teachings surrounding this issue suffer from a certain ambiguity. That the ignorant can be saved does not mean that they will be saved nor does it even make it probable. It simply opens a door, something that only the most hard-hearted fundamentalist would refuse to admit. For nothing is impossible for God. It is not salvation, at least according to St. Thomas Aquinas, that is improbable but ignorance.
What is Faith?
A few preliminary points are in order at the outset. First when we speak of faith, we must make the distinction between the object of faith and the act of faith. The object of faith is a statement about reality and the act of faith is an assent to the reality that has been opened by the statement. Belief requires an object of belief—no one just believes, he must believe something. When we speak of having “faith in Jesus” we can only mean that we believe that “there is no other name under heaven and earth by which man can be saved” (Acts 4:12). So when St. Paul declares we are justified by faith (c.f. Romans 3:23-25), he means that we believe the reality that was opened to us by the Incarnation of the Son and by our assent conform our lives to it.
The saving power of faith illuminates a second necessary point. The author of the Letter to the Hebrews says that “without faith it is impossible to please Him for anyone who approaches God must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who seek Him” (Hebrews 11:6). St. Thomas is pointing out what he sees as the content for a “minimum” of faith. He calls these two fundamental dogmas, that God exists and that He rewards those who seek Him, the credibilia because they contain, at least implicitly, all that God has made explicit through revelation and the Church.
Once he has drawn attention to it, he combines it with the belief that God wishes all men to be saved and concludes that the credibilia have been offered in one way or another to all mankind that has lived apart from Judeo Christian revelation via either the ministry of angels or direct illumination (c.f ST II-II, q.2 art 7). But he doesn’t stop there because he says that implicit faith is not enough. It is only an explicit faith in Christ that saves. The Angelic Doctor says that once the person responds to the credibilia through the workings of Providence He leads the new believer to explicit knowledge of Christ. With the interior assent to the credibilia and the gift of faith, comes the gifts of the Holy Spirit which perfect that faith. In other words, ignorance is improbable because, as the Thomist Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange puts it, “if anybody were to follow the guidance of natural reason in the pursuit of goodness and flight from evil, God would by an interior inspiration reveal not only the prime credibles but also the redemptive power of the Incarnation.”
Salvation and the Man on the Remote Island
St. Thomas rejects the “man on a remote island” narrative because it is too natural of an explanation. Faith is a supernatural gift by which God, who desires all men to be saved, saves us. He uses the example of the conversion of Cornelius to demonstrate the principle:
“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).”
De Veritate q.14 a.11 ad 1
In short, if God wills all men to be saved then He would not allow ignorance to get in the way. Faith comes from hearing, but sometimes it is God Who does the talking.
There is an important corollary to this that, despite not being ecumenically correct should not be overlooked. Bear with me on this one. If God moves each and every man from implicit to explicit faith then there are men who, if they remain within certain religions that openly reject Christ as Redeemer, will not be saved. Push always comes to shove because you cannot both implicitly accept Christ and simultaneously explicitly reject Him. God’s invitation, for it to be truly accepted, must come with full knowledge and full consent. Love would have it no other way. That is why I say this not from a judgment seat but bedside to put to rest the prevailing mentality that non-Christians are “just fine”. It is time we stoke the embers of the evangelical fires and enter the fray and fight for souls. We need to stop apologizing for being Christians and start apologizing again for Christ.