Explaining NO Salvation Outside of the Church

One of the more challenging dogmas of the Catholic faith is the belief that outside of the Church, there is no salvation. This phrase originates with the 3rd-century theologian Origen of Alexandria, who wrote:

If anyone wishes to be saved, let them come to this house, just as they once came to the house of Rahab (Josh 2:15). If anyone of that people wished to be saved, they could come to that house, and they could have salvation as a result. . . Let no one therefore be persuaded or deceived: outside this house, that is, outside the Church, there is no salvation.(1)

This dogma, expressed in the plainest language possible, teaches that one must be in the Church to be saved, and those outside it cannot be saved. 

At first glance, this doctrine can appear to be unfair, and it leaves the most glaring question unanswered: “What about all the people who died without an opportunity to join the Church?” Is it really fair to say that those who never had an opportunity to hear about Jesus go automatically to hell? Before trying to answer this question, we need to recognize who this dogma is aimed at. For starters, this dogma is not aimed at the general population of human beings. The Catechism of the Catholic Church says: 

This affirmation is not aimed at those who, through no fault of their own, do not know Christ and 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.(2)

The person living in North America in the 12th century who did not know Christ and his offer of salvation is not the intended audience of this particular Church teaching. This person who does not know Jesus Christ can still seek God according to what He has revealed of Himself in creation and is not barred from salvation because of the deficiency of his resources. God judges us according to what we know, not according to what we don’t know. 

Instead of being aimed at humanity in general, the dogma of no salvation outside the Church is specifically aimed at those who have broken away from the Church, what are called schismatics. The original formula of “no salvation outside the Church” was used as a chastisement of those who sought to break the common unity of Christ’s Church and go their own way, and there is a big difference between those who break away from the Catholic Church and those who are born outside of it. Saint Augustine rightly observed that those who inherit error or schism from their parents are not of the same guilt as those who broke away.(3) It is those who refuse to heed the correction of the Church that are to be treated as pagans (Matt 18:17), not those who have never heard said correction. Saint Justin Martyr said it like this:

Those, therefore, who lived according to reason [Greek, logos] were really Christians, even though they were thought to be atheists, such as, among the Greeks, Socrates, Heraclitus, and others like them. . . . Those who lived before Christ but did not live according to reason [logos] were wicked men, and enemies of Christ, and murderers of those who did live according to reason [logos], whereas those who lived then or who live now according to reason [logos] are Christians. Such as these can be confident and unafraid.(4)

This still leaves a question unanswered. If salvation is found only in the Catholic Church, how can there be salvation outside of it, even for those who remain outside the Church through no fault of their own? The simple answer is that those who are outside the visible boundaries of the Church, through no fault of their own, and who sincerely seek God according to what they know about him are not outside the Church. 

One's membership in the Church is not synonymous with physical membership. In other words, one does not need to be a registered member of their local parish to be a member of the Catholic Church. So long as their lack of membership is caused by ignorance or inability rather than the sinful root of negligence. Saint Augustine once said that “there are some who enter into the Church in such a mind as to have their body there, but their heart anywhere else.”(5)  In other words, one can be in the Church with one's body but not with one's heart. It therefore follows that someone's heart can be in the Church even though their body is elsewhere, and if their heart is in the Church, they are in the Church. This interpretation is confirmed by Augustine himself. In his treatise Against the Donatists he said, “Certainly it is clear that, when we speak of within and without in relation to the Church, it is the position of the heart that we must consider, not that of the body, since all who are within in heart are saved in the unity of the ark through the same water, through which all who are in heart without, whether they are also in body without or not, die as enemies of unity.”(6) In the words of Cardinal Henri De Lubac, they are saved “by means of a very real though indirect and more often hidden bond with Christ’s body the Church.”(7) The Catholic Church teaches that you have to be in the Church to be saved, but a person can be in the Church without being in it physically. One example of this is the baptism of desire.

In ancient times as well as today, the Church teaches that an unbaptized person who dies suddenly would still be saved by a baptism of desire.(8) The same principle applies to non-Catholics and non-Christians. If they desire to follow God, even with an incomplete understanding of him, they desire baptism and therefore belong to the Church by way of their desire. Remember, we are judged according to what we know, not what we do not know. Therefore, the typical run-of-the-mill Protestant Christian who attends a non-denominational Church and loves Jesus but has never been confronted by authentic Catholic teaching and arguments would be a member of Christ’s Church by virtue of their desire. The same can be said for the non-Christian who is following God through the exercise of right reason according to what they know. They are a member of Christ’s church because their heart is in the Church.

1. Origen of Alexandria, Homilies on Joshua III, 49-50.

2. Catechism of the Catholic Church, 847.

3. Augustine of Hippo, Letters 43.1.

4. Justin Martyr, First Apology 46.

5. Augustine of Hippo, Sermons on Selected Lessons of the New Testament 12.17.

6. Augustine of Hippo, Against the Donatists 5.28.39.

7. Henri De Lubac, Catholicism: Christ and the Common Destiny of Man, 240.

8. CCC, 1259.