Salvation, Hope & Presumption

A reader, a Catholic convert from a biblically and theologically literate, evangelical Reformed background, recently wrote to me with the following thoughtful questions about contemporary Catholic understandings of salvation, which I share with the permission of the author. In reading these remarks, I find that I share many of the concerns expressed here. As prolegomena to these remarks, I offer the author's concluding observation that while these issues open, on the one hand, a theological hornet's nest, yet on the other hand, they seem extremely relevant given the contemporary climate in the Church. Here, then, for your own thoughful consideration, and for the solicitation of your constructive remarks, are some questions concerning salvation [the reader's remarks in blue]:

I continue to struggle with the aspect of Catholic theology that addresses salvation.
On one plane things are quite clear. When Avery Dulles in 'First Things' writes about who can be saved ["Who Can Be Saved?" FT, Feb. 2008], I follow it easily [Cardinal Dulles' remarks in green]:

Nothing is more striking in the New Testament than the confidence with which it proclaims the saving power of belief in Christ. Almost every page confronts us with a decision of eternal consequence: Will we follow Christ or the rulers of this world? The gospel is, according to Paul, “the power of God for salvation to everyone who has faith” (Rom. 1:16). The apostles and their associates are convinced that in Jesus they have encountered the Lord of Life and that he has brought them into the way that leads to everlasting blessedness. By personal faith in him and by baptism in his name, Christians have passed from darkness to light, from error to truth, and from sin to holiness.

... Those who believe the testimony of Peter on the first Pentecost ask him what they must do to be saved. He replies that they must be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of their sins and thereby save themselves from the present crooked generation (Acts 2:37-40). ...

John in his gospel speaks no less clearly. Jesus at one point declares that those who hear his word and believe in him do not remain in darkness, whereas those who reject him will be judged on the last day (John 12:44-50). At the Last Supper, Jesus tells the Twelve, “This is eternal life, that they may know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent” (John 17:3). John concludes the body of his gospel with the statement that he has written his account “so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ and that believing you may have life in his name” (John 20:31).

From these and many other texts, I draw the conclusion that, according to the primary Christian documents, salvation comes through personal faith in Jesus Christ, followed and signified by sacramental baptism.

The New Testament is almost silent about the eternal fate of those to whom the gospel has not been preached. It seems apparent that those who became believers did not think they had been on the road to salvation before they heard the gospel. In his sermon at Athens, Paul says that in times past God overlooked the ignorance of the pagans, but he does not say that these pagans were saved. In the first chapter of Romans, Paul says that the Gentiles have come to a knowledge of God by reasoning from the created world, but that they are guilty because by their wickedness they have suppressed the truth and fallen into idolatry. In the second chapter of Romans, Paul indicates that Gentiles who are obedient to the biddings of conscience can be excused for their unbelief, but he indicates that they fall into many sins. He concludes that “all have sinned and fall short” of true righteousness (Rom. 3:23). For justification, Paul asserts, both Jews and Gentiles must rely on faith in Jesus Christ, who expiated the sins of the world on the cross.

Animated by vibrant faith in Christ the Savior, the Christian Church was able to conquer the Roman Empire. The converts were convinced that in embracing Christianity they were escaping from the darkness of sin and superstition and entering into the realm of salvation. For them, Christianity was the true religion, the faith that saves. It would not have occurred to them that any other faith could save them. ...

So, there is indeed a fundamental cleavage between believers and non-believers here indicated. As for those who haven't heard, that's a whole distinct area I can leave alone [although I just realized if my perception is right, the anonymous faith clause that was once an exception or concession has in fact in the period of a century been transformed into what may now be viewed as the norm for the majority of the planet].

Where I trip up is the modern (or, arguably, simply other) emphasis on the 'universal salvific will of God.'

God wants us all to be saved. And the way the Catechism is written, it sounds like we will be saved unless we dramatically screw up. Let me put it this way. It is not like anything the Catholic Church teaches suggests what Fundamentalists accuse it of teaching, that we have to be good enough. Actually, the emphasis seems to be almost an upside-down reversal of that caricature: that to go to Hell we have to be BAD enough, like Hitler or Stalin or Jack the Ripper bad. If we insist, if, despite God's mad pleading and chasing, we doggedly continue in mortal vices. And then I think, Well who really does that?

That is how I read the Pope's latest encyclical (and that, of course, creates a strong cognitive dissonance in my former Protestant, 'no one is good enough' and 'everyone is already bad, bad, bad, and certainly bad enough!' mentality). [In Spe Salvi, the Pope writes (the Pope's remarks in brown)]:

45. ...There can be people who have totally destroyed their desire for truth and readiness to love, people for whom everything has become a lie, people who have lived for hatred and have suppressed all love within themselves. This is a terrifying thought, but alarming profiles of this type can be seen in certain figures of our own history. In such people all would be beyond remedy and the destruction of good would be irrevocable: this is what we mean by the word Hell[37]. On the other hand there can be people who are utterly pure, completely permeated by God, and thus fully open to their neighbours—people for whom communion with God even now gives direction to their entire being and whose journey towards God only brings to fulfilment what they already are[38].

46. Yet we know from experience that neither case is normal in human life. For the great majority of people—we may suppose—there remains in the depths of their being an ultimate interior openness to truth, to love, to God. In the concrete choices of life, however, it is covered over by ever new compromises with evil—much filth covers purity, but the thirst for purity remains and it still constantly re-emerges from all that is base and remains present in the soul....

So, unless I stubbornly cling to mortal sin and refuse every impulse towards God (and again, who thinks of themselves in such a manner?), I will end up in the antechamber of Heaven.

This seems to jive with a Balthasarian reading, and also with the more current viewing of mortal sins as being rare. Perhaps it is also a Kreeftian approach, in that the most decisive cleavage in the universe is not between believers and non-believers, but seekers and those who do not seek, since all seekers will eventually find themselves in the amped-up, fully dimensional world of belief and in the presence of Jesus in Heaven, realizing that it is He who saved them if even as through a glass darkly.

But it also seems like a take that would be contested conservative Catholics--but I have heard nary a peep from anyone. I think it is almost a case of denial that Benedict XVI might ever teaching anything left-of-center controversial, especially given what are cited as his Augustinian leanings.

If such is the case, and my former orientation is more damaged than I suspected, is Evangelism less sounding an alarm (since few will be so tragically bent as to refuse God positively and resolutely to the end), and more applying first aid to those who will smartly receive it now, with the remainder ("the great majority...[in whom remains] an ulterior openness to truth..."] being a group that will, on death's door, finally realize their desperate straits and then willingly wait for the purgatorial surgery that will be all the more radical for its lifelong postponement?

I don't necessarily expect an answer, nor am certain you even have one.

However, given your former Westminster background, your appreciation of the Reformed psyche, and your current immersion in what is supposed to be a solid Catholic seminary, I thought at some point you might have some helpful thoughts to orient my thinking on this area. On the one hand, I think it is a theological hornet's nest. On the other, it seems like extremely relevant matter given the climate in the Church.

[Hat tip to J.M.]