The Faith Connection promotes universalism

In a post entitled "The Faith Connection promotes God as 'Mother'" (May 23, 2005), I addressed (to the attention of Bishop Peter Jugis of the Diocese of Charlotte) a critique of a bulletin insert produced by RCLweb.com and regularly used by our church in the Diocese of Charlotte, NC, carried the title: "Why Is it Okay to Call God 'Mother'?" The Faith Connection is written by Bob Duggan and published by Resources for Christian Living, 200 E. Bethany Dr., Allen, Texas 75002 (877-275-4725).

Earlier this year, the January 2, 2005 issue for Epiphany Sunday (Year A) was devoted to the question, "Who Can Be Saved?" What I find depressingly tendentious about the issue, like many, is that although the writing generally falls within the broad limits of what may conform to Church teaching, it often skirts the edges of these limits precariously, suggesting ecclesiastical support for prevailing social opinions distinctly at odds with Catholic orthodoxy.

Take the title article, "Who Can Be Saved?" It reads as follows:

In the year 2000 the Vatican issued a document with the Latin title Dominus Jesus [sic.] (The Lord Jesus) that caused a good bit of consternation, both within Catholic circles and among members of other religions. According to reports in the popular press, it seemed that this highly technical theological essay was suggesting that only those who believed in Jesus Christ and were members of the Catholic Church could be saved.

This portrayal was over-simplified to the point of being in error, but even on a more careful reading some commentators wondered if the Catholic Church was backing away from its decades-old commitment to ecumenical and interreligious dialogue.

Leaders of non-Christian religions in particular asked if Catholic dialogue partners were now trying to "convert" them rather than enter into sincere conversation. Some fundamentalist Christian groups, on the other hand, applauded what they saw as a position more in line with their own interpretation of sacred Scripture, that is, that only those who make an explicit confession of faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior can be saved.

Subsequent clarifications from Vatican officials and other Catholic theologians have helped to calm fears that the document was trying to reverse the church's understanding of the place of separated Christians and non-Christians in God's universal plan of salvation as it was taught at the Second Vatican Council. Far from an attempt to change official teaching, the teaching in this document sought only to nuance and refine the Catholic Church's understanding that Jesus is the Savior of all people everywhere.

You see the drift. Not many Americans believe in hell anymore. At least not many think that anyone need actually fear hellfire, since they all know that the notion of "the fires of hell" must be merely a symbol for something fairly benign, like "alienation from other people"; and, in any case, John Lennon assured them (in his song Imagine) that there's "no hell below us" to worry about. So it's inevitable that being "saved" won't mean anything so drastic as being spared from the hell of eternal separation from God. For that matter, who's to say what "God" means anyway, or even whether he (or she, or whatever) actually exists as a distinct being. So being "saved" must also mean something quite benign, like having a sense of "community" in which we get along with and are accepted by others, if it means anything at all. Something like that would be the prevailing opinion.

So what does Bob Duggan suggest to his readers? Not to worry, folks: whatever being "saved" means, we're all people of good will here, and everyone can be "saved." One hears echoes of the Rainbow Coalition's nice, neighborly sentiments here. We are the world. We are family. Now of course there's nothing formally incorrect about anything he's explicitly said, as opposed to what he's suggesting here. He hasn't exactly denied the existence of hell or heaven or divine judgment. He's not even asserted that anybody outside the Church or that anybody who doesn't explicitly believe in Jesus Christ necessarily is saved, so he hasn't given explicit grounds for offending even the most reactionary traditionalist or fundamentalist. He even plays it safe by crediting the popular press with the misunderstanding that Dominus Jesus was teaching some sort of exclusivity, thereby deflecting attention from his own opposition to the exclusivist dimension of that document's message.

Note that Duggan suggests here that even on a "more careful reading" of Dominus Iesus (that is, an accurate reading), people worried whether the Church was backing away from it's commitment to "dialogue" with members of non-Catholic Christian communities of faith and members of non-Christian religions. Notice that this commitment is described as "decades-old," which on first reading sounds like it's saying "ancient," but actually means thirty or forty years, since this commitment emerged only after Vatican II in the 1970s (it would be more accurate to speak of the "novelty" of the Church's commitment to interreligious "dialogue"). Notice also how he emphasizes that this is a "commitment" of the Church, which might suggest to the careless reader the comfortable conclusion that the pleasant, inclusive sentiments enshrined by liberal post-modernity are happily supported by Church -- perhaps yielding even a new understanding of "evangelization."

Then comes the crux of the matter: if anyone was worried that Catholic Christians might actually still believe that God has revealed His unique Gospel of salvation to them and actually rejoice in the prospect of others "converting" to the Christian Faith through repentance and change of life, he need no longer fear. All Catholics really intend to do is engage in "sincere conversation" -- as though carrying the light of salvation to non-believers, like St. Patrick did to the Irish, was incompatible with "sincere conversation."

But it gets worse. In the a box at the bottom of the page, a heading reads: "Why is this important?" Duggan writes:

Catholics were once taught, without careful qualification, that outside of the church there is no salvation. Theological developments stretching back hundreds of years have helped to refine this assertion and allow us today to realize that all people of good will who in good faith follow their conscience--regardless of their religious affiliation--are within the circle of those called to salvation by God's love. This is important because it is a very different viewpoint than that of millions of fundamentalist Christians who still believe that only with a specific acceptance of Jesus Christ can one be saved.

Well, now -- let's sort this out. On the one hand, it is true that one finds in recent Catholic theology such notions as "invincible ignorance" (the idea that God presumably would not condemn a person for being ignorant of the Gospel through no fault of his own) and "baptism of desire" (the idea that God presumably would not condemn a person for dying without being baptized, provided that he would have intended to receive baptism). It is also true that the Church accepts that God extends to some individuals -- such as the Old Testament saints, infants, and retarded individuals -- the grace of salvation through Christ even though it would have been impossible for them to receive any information about the historical Jesus.

On the other hand, whatever some people may think today, the Church has never taught universalism -- the theory that everyone is saved. Quite apart from the fact that it is overtly contradicted by various points of Scripture and tradition, such a notion would have completely contravened the Church's great historical mission of world evangelism -- beginning with the missionary journeys of St. Paul and the other apostles following Christ's ascension, and continuing throughout the Church's entire history of evangelizing northern and western Europe, the British Isles, eastern Europe, Africa, Asia, and the New World.

Duggan's language is anything but clear or helpful here. What does it mean to say that today we "realize that all people of good will who in good faith follow their conscience -- regardless of their religious affiliation -- are within the circle of those called to salvation by God's love." It sounds awfully nice, whatever it means. But what does it mean? Are there any qualifications on salvation here? Is there anything that would prevent anyone from being saved? Evidently religious affiliation doesn't exclude anybody. What does "people of good will" mean? How much "good will" qualifies? And who are those who "in good faith follow their conscience"? Does that exclude anybody? Furthermore, what does it mean to be "within the circle of those called to salvation by God's love"? Does that circle exclude anyone? Isn't everybody "called to" salvation, and, if so, what's the point of such a statement? Does anyone seriously believe Duggan is calling everyone to repentance?

The problem here is that the reader receives the distinct impression that religious affiliation, after all, is really unimportant, that the Catholic Faith doesn't really offer anything that calls for the gravity of "conversion," and that in the final analysis all that really matters is being a person of "good will" who "in good faith" follows his "conscience" (that is, whatever he thinks is probably right), being willing to enter into "sincere conversation" with non-believers and, above all, avoiding any thought of trying to convert or persuade them that they might have anything to gain from accepting what the Catholic Church teaches.

In the same issue of The Faith Connection are several short articles that reinforce these confusions. One is a quotation from the Vatican II document, Lumen Gentium (Dogmatic Constitution on the Church). Without any further context, the following statement is baldly asserted: "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 demands of their conscience -- those too may achieve eternal salvation." Now what on earth is this supposed to suggest in the context of Duggan's publication? I know how the Church wants to allow for the possibility that salvation through Christ may not mean salvation by knowing and accepting a certain body of information about Jesus Christ or having benefit of formal membership in the Catholic Church -- neither of which, for example, could conceivably be possibilities for, say, Old Testament saints.

But what are we to conclude from this bald quotation? What does "through no fault of their own" mean? What constitutes culpable "fault" here? What counts adequately as seeking God "with a sincere heart"? How are we to discern when a non-Christian is "moved by grace"? Is the Muslim who is moved to reject the divinity of Christ "moved by grace"? Is the practitioner of Voodoo "moved by grace"? Is the person who in sincere conscience is moved to convert from Catholicism to Buddhism "moved by grace"? Is it even meaningful for human beings, whose knowledge falls short of divine omniscience, to entertain such considerations? What does it means to suggest that "those too may achieve eternal salvation"? Does this mean that, given God's mercy, there's the off chance that someone of exceptional circumstances may thus be saved outside the Church and apart from accepting Church teaching about Christ? Or does it mean to suggest that most non-Christians are probably saved?

It's significant that whenever the New Testament writers allude to general (natural) revelation -- what can be known about God apart from special (supernatural) revelation in Scripture and Church teaching -- they qualify the availability of such knowledge with a caveat about the appropriation of such knowledge. That is, they note the sinful heart's disinclination to accept God's Word. For example, when St. Paul says that "what can be known about God is plain to [those outside the household of faith], because God has shown it to them," the immediate context is about how God's wrath is upon those who "by their wickedness suppress the truth." (Rom. 1:18-19) Thus, he promptly goes on to state that those who have this knowledge of God from nature are "without excuse, for althouugh they knew God they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking and their senseless minds were darkened." (Rom. 1:20-21) Again, the Prologue of the Gospel of John, with its reference to the pre-incarnate Logos (Word) as the "true light that enlightens every man," is often taken as implying a generally accessible revelation of Christ independent of the incarnate Christ and His Church and Scripture. But it is significant that John goes on to state unequivocally that although this light (the pre-incarnate Logos, or Christ) had made the world and then came into the world, "yet the world knew him not." (Jn. 1:10) In light of these caveats of Paul and John, it seems foolish and naive to embrace an ebuliently romantic optimism about a universal human desire to lovingly seek God.

In fairness to Duggan, he does say, in another short piece, that the Church "has always taught -- and still does -- that the death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ is the source of salvation for the entire human race." But even this remains couched in ambiguity. The salvation of the "entire" human race? What does this mean? That everyone is saved through Jesus, or merely that the possibility of everyone's salvation is secured by Jesus' death and resurrection? He goes on to write:

Catholics believe that the following truths can exist simultaneously, without being in contradiction to one another: (1) Jesus Christ both accomplished and offers salvation to all people. (2) People of good will who do not know the Gospel of Christ or his church can nonetheless be saved. (3) The salvation of those who do not name Jesus as their Lord and Savior is nonetheless possible because of the redemptive value of his death and Resurrection.

Again, the keynote is ambiguity. Duggan does state that Catholics will "continue to proclaim the Gospel to those wihtout faith," but counterbalances this by stressing that this does not mean trying to convert others. It's not hard to imagine what Duggan would say about the Catholic tradition of apologetics -- offering reasons for Christian faith. Wouldn't that be trying to "convert" non-believers?

Confusion is rampant. Indeed, the confusion runs so deep that one sometimes wonders whether the shepherds of the flock have not lost their bearings and become a flock of shepherds. If they have not, it's high time the shepherds of the Church took a more active role in bringing clarity to such questions.

Recommended for further study:

• Michael Luccione, "Doctrine: development and negation" (Part I in a study of extra ecclesiam nulla salus, or "outside the Church there is no salvation," on Al Kimel's Pontifications blog)
• Michael Liccione, "Development and Negation II: extra ecclesiam nulla salus" (Part II of the same)