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Jesus as Universal Savior

A. Our Everyday Experience of Religious Pluralism

a. Our world has a long history of conflict between people of different religious traditions.
b. Pope John Paul II on the importance of interreligious dialogue:
i. “In the climate of increased cultural and religious pluralism, which is expected to
mark the society of the new millennium, it is obvious that this dialogue will be
especially important in establishing a sure basis for peace and warding off the
dread specter of those wars of religion that have so often bloodied history. The
name of the one God must become increasingly what it is: a name of peace and
a summons to peace.” – Pope John Paul II, Novo Millennio Ineunte (2001), 55.
c. The Creed of Nicaea-Constantinople:
i. “For us human beings and for our salvation, he [the one Lord Jesus Christ] came
down from heaven, and by the Holy Spirit was incarnate of the Virgin Mary, and
became human.”
1. The words, “for us human beings” refers to all people.
d. There has been much discussion through the centuries about Christ as universal savior.
The evolution of the key questions can be summed up as follows:
i. Can those who do not believe in Christ, and Christians not in communion with
the Catholic Church, be saved?
ii. Do non-Christian religious traditions and practices play a positive role in the
salvation of their adherents?
iii. Should Christians conceive of the pluralism of religious traditions as something
positively willed by God, or merely as a fact of life that is tolerated by God?
B. A Brief Historical Sketch
a. The New Testament features a clear missionary thrust: MT 28:19-201; Rom 10:14-152
b. The universal and exclusive role of Jesus in salvation: Acts 4:12 3
i. Other passages add nuance: Acts 10:34-35; 464; Acts 17:22-335

1
“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of
the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you
always, to the end of the age.”
2
“But how are they to call on one in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in one of whom
they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone to proclaim him? And how are they to
proclaim him unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!”
3
“There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among mortals by which we
must be saved.”
4
Then Peter began to speak to them: “I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone
who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.”
5
Then Paul stood in front of the Areopagus and said, “Athenians, I see how extremely religious you are in every
way. For as I went through the city and looked carefully at the objects of your worship, I found among them an
altar with the inscription, ‘To an unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you.
The God who made the world and everything in it, he who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines
made by human hands, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to
all mortals life and breath and all things. From one ancestor[i] he made all nations to inhabit the whole earth, and
he allotted the times of their existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live, so that they would
search for God[j] and perhaps grope for him and find him—though indeed he is not far from each one of us. For ‘In
him we live and move and have our being’; as even some of your own poets have said,

‘For we too are his offspring.’

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ii. The significance of 1 Tim 2:3-66: holding in tension the teaching about the
universal salvific will of God and the affirmation of the unique mediatorial role
of Christ.
1. Jesus is the gate; but does a person have to know about the gate in
order to enter through it? No.
c. The Early Church: “Outside the church no salvation” (extra ecclesian nulla salus)
i. Cyprian and Origen, originally addressed to separated Christians and those at
risk of separation.
ii. After Christianity becomes the official religion similar warnings were addressed
to Jews and followers of Greco-Roman religions.
iii. Augustine struggles with interpreting 1 Tim 2:4; he thinks that everyone
deserves condemnation because of our participation in the sin of Adam.
d. Council of Florence: Decree for the Copts (1442) – draws on Fulgentius of Ruspe (early
6th century) – The Church firmly believes that “no one remaining outside the Catholic
Church, not only pagans, but also Jews, heretics or schismatics, can become partakers of
eternal life, but they will go to the ‘eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels’
(MT 25:41) unless before the end of life they are joined to it.” – Fulgentius: Selected
Works, Fathers of the Church 95, trans. Robert B. Eno (Washington: Catholic University
of America Press, 1997), 104.
e. Columbus sails to the Americas in 1492. This aroused a new problem of justifying the
belief that no one could be saved outside the Church with the realization that there
were a multitude of peoples who had lived after Christ that had never had an
opportunity to hear the gospel.
f. Pope Pius IX: He speaks of “invincible and inculpable ignorance of the true faith”: 1854:
“those who labor in ignorance of the true religion, if that ignorance be invincible, will
never be charged with any guilt on this account before the Lord.” – Pope Pius IX,
Singulari quadam (delivered at the promulgation of the dogma of the Immaculate
Conception, 1854).
g. 1863: the possibility of nonbelievers being saved not merely by their own efforts but
“through the working of divine light and grace” is established in Quanto conficiamur. –
Pope Pius IX Quanto conficiamur (letter to the bishops of Italy, 1863), 7.
C. Vatican II
a. Lumen Gentium 8 defines “Church” in a way that allows for those outside the physical
boundaries of the Roman Catholic Church:

Since we are God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the deity is like gold, or silver, or stone, an image formed
by the art and imagination of mortals. While God has overlooked the times of human ignorance, now he
commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will have the world judged in
righteousness by a man whom he has appointed, and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the
dead.”

When they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some scoffed; but others said, “We will hear you again about
this.” At that point Paul left them.
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“This is right and is acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires everyone to be saved and to come to
the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God; there is also one mediator between God and humankind,
Christ Jesus, himself human, who gave himself a ransom for all.”
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This is the one Church of Christ which in the Creed is professed as one, holy, catholic and
apostolic….subsists in the Catholic Church
1. That is, it acknowledges that the Church of Christ is fully present in the
Roman Catholic Church but does not deny that the Church of Christ
exists beyond it.
2. This seems to settle “Outside the church no salvation” (extra ecclesian
nulla salus) conundrum.
b. Lumen Gentium 16 makes a distinction between:
i. Those who “belong” to the new people of God.
ii. Those who are “related” to it.
1. There are five groups of people listed who are “related.”
2. The members of all five groups are included in God’s saving plan and
can be saved.
a. Jews
b. Muslims
c. Those who in shadows and images seek the unknown God
(Hindus and Buddhists)
d. Those who do not know the Gospel of Christ or His Church but
seek God with a sincere heart
e. Those who have not yet arrived at the explicit knowledge of
God but strive to lead a good life
c. Gaudium et Spes 22 states that believers are made partners in the paschal mystery of
Christ:
i. “All this holds true not for Christians only but also for all men and women of
good will in whose hearts grace is active invisibly.”
ii. The Holy Spirit offers to all the possibility of being made partners, in a way
known to God, in the paschal mystery
d. The value of other religious traditions:
i. “Those elements of truth and grace which are found among peoples” are “a
secret presence of God.” – Pope Paul VI, Ad Gentes (Second Vatican Council,
1965), 9.
ii. Missionaries should become familiar with the national and religious traditions of
the people to whom they have been sent and “uncover with gladness the seeds
of the Word which lie hidden among them” – Pope Paul VI, Ad Gentes 11.
e. The Church “rejects nothing of what is true and holy” in other religions; it maintains “a
high regard for the manner of life and conduct, the precepts and doctrines which,
although differing in many ways from her own teaching, nevertheless often reflect a ray
of that truth which enlightens all men and women.” – Pope Paul VI, Nostra Aetate
(Second Vatican Council, 1965), 2.
D. Since Vatican II
a. Pope John Paul II, speaking on the presence and activity of the Holy Spirit beyond the
bounds of the Church, acknowledged that:
i. “Today as in the past, many people do not have an opportunity to know or
accept the gospel revelation or to enter the Church. . . for such people salvation
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in Christ is accessible by virtue of a grace which, while having a mysterious

relationship with the Church, does not make them formally part of the Church
but enlightens them in a way which is accommodated to their spiritual and
material situation.” – Pope John Paul II, Redemptoris Missio (1990), 10.
1. This grace comes from Christ and is communicated by the Holy Spirit.
ii. God “does not fail to make himself present in many ways, not only to individuals
but also to entire peoples through their spiritual riches, of which their religions
are the main and essential expression, even when they contain ‘gaps,
insufficiencies and errors.’” – Pope John Paul II, Redemptoris Missio, 55.
iii. “Although participated forms of mediation of different kinds and degrees are
not excluded, they acquire meaning and value only from Christ’s own
mediation, and they cannot be understood as parallel or complementary to his.”
– Pope John Paul II, Redemptoris Missio, 5, with reference to Lumen Gentium,
62.
b. Explaining further, the Dialogue and Proclamation (1991) states, “Concretely, it will be in
the sincere practice of what is good in their own religious tradition and by following the
dictates of their own conscience that the members of other religious traditions respond
positively to God’s invitation and receive salvation in Christ, even while they do not
recognize or acknowledge him as their savior.”
i. The development of doctrine is an ongoing theological study – the influence of
the work of Karl Rahner7 and Jacques Dupuis8 In a sense we must be prepared to
recognize the word of God in the sacred books of those other religious
traditions.
ii. It remains true, of course, that the fullness of divine revelation is found in Jesus
Christ.

7
In volume 5 of Rahner’s Theological Investigations, he argues that:
• "Christianity understands itself as the absolute religion, intended for all people, which cannot recognize
any other religion beside itself as of equal right."
• Revelation of God in Christ took place at a specific time in history. Those who lived before, or who have
not yet heard of it, would seemed excluded from salvation. This is incompatible with God's will to save all.
• Knowledge of God, and God's saving grace must therefore be available outside Christianity, including
other religions, despite their errors and shortcomings
• Faithful adherents of non-Christians religions should be regarded as "anonymous Christians"
"Somehow all people must be able to be members of the church."
• Religious pluralism will always be part of human existence

In other words, Rahner says:

• Christianity and Christ have a unique and exclusive status that other religions do not share
• Nevertheless:
Knowledge of God (God's self-revelation) may be present in other religions
The grace of God and even salvation may be present in other religions

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http://www.upf.org/resources/speeches-and-articles/4092-a-mong-ih-ren-in-many-and-diverse-ways-examining-
jacques-dupuis-theology-of-religious-pluralism
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iii. And the reason for this is that Jesus Christ as the Son of God made man can
express the mystery of God more deeply than the prophets of the Old
Testament and the prophets of the other religious traditions.
c. Thus there has been a shift in the image of God, from a view of God as One ready to
condemn humanity because of sin, toward a view of God as One who is passionate
about salvation.