Salvation "by" Christ without knowing Christ

John Paul II said, at a general audience on September 9, 1998:

Normally, it will be in the sincere practice of what is good in their own religious traditions and by following the dictates of their own conscience that the members of other religions respond positively to God’s invitation and receive salvation in Jesus Christ, even while they do not recognize or acknowledge him as their Savior.”

The CCC said something similar:

CCC 1260 “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.” 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. It may be supposed that such persons would have desired Baptism explicitly if they had known its necessity.

I'm aware of discussions on the necessity of "explicit faith" in Christ indicating it is an open question, and of a Monsignor Fenton article saying that the common opinion was that faith in Christ is now absolutely necessary for salvation. But my question is a bit different:

Has anyone prior to JPII and the CCC affirmatively said that one can be saved while "ignorant of Christ and his Church"? That's a bit different than saying it's an open question - that's taking a stand and saying one can be saved without knowing Christ. Who before said, affirmatively, that one could be saved without knowing Christ before the pontificate of JPII? Please provide the quotes.

This is probably something I should post on Catholic Answers.

The whole concept is dumb:

http://unamsanctamecclesiamcatholicam.blogspot.com/

See Implicit Faith, Parts 1-4, and Implicit submission, another absurdity.

I would appreciate it Tornpage, as an act of charity, if you quote some obscure text you provide a link. Especially if your starting a thread with it. I don't want to spend hours plowing through all voluminous writings of JPII.

Duckbill,

Yes, well, if you googled "John Paul II and general audience September 9, 1998" you'd get this at the top:

http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/audiences/1998/documents/hf_jp-ii_aud_09091998_en.html

But I agree with you: even a minute or so wasted is a tragedy.

Here's the quote form the actual text, which is a quote of a quote:

Normally, “it will be in the sincere practice of what is good in their own religious traditions and by following the dictates of their own conscience that the members of other religions respond positively to God’s invitation and receive salvation in Jesus Christ, even while they do not recognize or acknowledge him as their Saviour (cf. Ad gentes, nn. 3, 9, 11)” (Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue – Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, Instruction Dialogue and Proclamation, 19 May 1991, n. 29; L’Osservatore Romano English edition, 1 July 1991, p. III).

tornpage wrote:Duckbill,

Yes, well, if you googled "John Paul II and general audience September 9, 1998" you'd get this at the top:

http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/audiences/1998/documents/hf_jp-ii_aud_09091998_en.html

But I agree with you: even a minute or so wasted is a tragedy.

You're so right I am a terrible person please accept my apologies. BTW thank you for the link

Thus, the human race has passed from a rather static concept of reality to a more dynamic, evolutionary one. In consequence there has arisen a new series of problems, a series as numerous as can be, calling for efforts of analysis and synthesis. Gaudium et Spes 5

For by His incarnation the Son of God has united Himself in some fashion with every man. ...All this holds true not only for Christians, but for all men of good will in whose hearts grace works in an unseen way.(31) For, since Christ died for all men,(32) and since the ultimate vocation of man is in fact one, and divine, we ought to believe that the Holy Spirit in a manner known only to God offers to every man the possibility of being associated with this paschal mystery.

Such is the mystery of man... GeS 22

To understand Pope John Paul II's doctrine on [what appears as universal] salvation, it is necessary to pull out these vagaries from Vatican II. The mystery of man doctrine proceeds from Fr. Edward Schillebeeckx, a thoroughly modernist theologian suppressed by Pope Pius XII and elevated to a Council perito (theological expert) who also affirmed the theology-fiction [Etiene Gilson] of Teilhard de Chardin. Redemptor hominis, Pope John Paul II's initial and signature encyclical is erected entirely on the mystery of man doctrine. He quotes from GeS in establishing the concept that through nature and not supernatural grace gratuitously distributed by the Father, Christ is "united in some fashion to every man."

The mystery of man proceeds thusly: God made a covenant with Man that can never be broken. In this covenant, He has provided all humanity with "transcendence" of being, by which man can comprehend God, or at least the notion of a personal God, by the imago dei and similitudo dei (the image and likeness of God) which he says in RH are still intact (Scholastic philosophy holds that the likeness is lost and the image is wounded by original sin). In the mystery of man, Christ reveals the Father to man, and by this, He reveals man to man himself. Thus, man's great dignity subsists in his eternal sonship, in his unconditional election achieved by Christ's Incarnation. The task of the Church in the Modern World then becomes the raising of consciousness in the minds of all men whatsoever their religion or ethical bent so that they may consciously realize their immense worth and dignity rooted in the Father's love.

The Father's great act of love then becomes the Incarnation, by which all men are united to Christ.

...the real, "concrete", "historical" man. We are dealing with "each" man, for each one is included in the mystery of the Redemption and with each one Christ has united himself for ever through this mystery. RH 13

This may of course be interpreted in a way that does not significantly offend Catholic doctrine. The danger lay in the imprecision ('some fashion') both in the Council's 'pastoral' language and the verbose and circular style of allocution attributable to Pope Wojtyla. It also is easily explained by Teilhard's hatred for the supernatural and adoration of nature. For if men are saved through evolutionary processes (see quote from GeS above), then the Incarnation becomes the great [evolutionary] game-changer for the cosmos. By His incarnation, Christ has become one with the created cosmos and thereby all men now have 'existence in Christ.' This flows very naturally from an existential explanation of 'reality' in which man's own inner life is the source of all progress in consciousness. Teilhard taught that faith is the consciousness men have arrived at in which they realize their part in the evolutionary process. Of course, we know that both St. Pius X's Pascendi and Pope Pius XII's Humani generis condemned these views forthrightly.

The confusing thing about Pope John Paul II is that while these strange and alien doctrines, rooted in Vatican II (which again was influenced inordinately by Teilhard, especially GeS) make up a large portion of the Pope's theology and philosophy, he was adept at bookmarking these ideas with orthodox concepts that will give the reader the impression that all this flows very naturally from the Deposit of Faith. In fact, John Paul II saw the Council in a revolutionary way:

"Entrusting myself fully to the Spirit of truth, therefore, I am entering into the rich inheritance of the recent pontificates. This inheritance has struck deep roots in the awareness of the Church in an utterly new way, quite unknown previously, thanks to the Second Vatican Council, which John XXIII convened and opened and which was later successfully concluded and perseveringly put into effect by Paul VI, whose activity I was myself able to watch from close at hand."

Pope John Paul II, Redemptor Hominis

So when we analyze the Pope's unabashed enthusiasm for evolutionism, his Teilhardian influence, his focus on man's dignity (the mystery of man) and a universal salvation that flows not from Calvary but from Bethlehem, it makes sense that God must make the access to salvation the positive property of all men (individually). This of course swells and enlarges Rahner's confused "anonymous Christian" doctrine into a new definition of man himself, and requires a re-tooling of the Gospel mission itself into 'dialogue' and 'ecumenism' whereby man's consciousness may be aroused so that he may realize he is already in the Church whether he knows it or not or whether he wills it or not.

I do not profess to understand the teaching of Pope John Paul II with anything approaching clarity. Such understanding seem rare today. Fr. Johannes Dormann has dived deeply into the Pope's theology in his Trilogy of books Pope John Paul II's Theological Journey to the Prayer Meeting of Religions in Assisi. His analysis is that the Pope did incorporate ideas into his doctrine that are at odds with tradition. For me, I am merely trying to follow the way of salvation which appears to have been redefined by the Council and its enfatuation with man, the world, and evolutionary 'progress.'

Johnny,

Wherever you are, my apologies for not responding to this. I can't tell you how much I relate to your closing paragraph:

I do not profess to understand the teaching of Pope John Paul II with anything approaching clarity. Such understanding seem rare today. Fr. Johannes Dormann has dived deeply into the Pope's theology in his Trilogy of books Pope John Paul II's Theological Journey to the Prayer Meeting of Religions in Assisi. His analysis is that the Pope did incorporate ideas into his doctrine that are at odds with tradition. For me, I am merely trying to follow the way of salvation which appears to have been redefined by the Council and its enfatuation with man, the world, and evolutionary 'progress.'

The whole post was great. Thank you.

tornpage

No one seems to have been able to provide that pre-JP II quote confirming the existance in the belief that faith in Christ is not absolutely necessary for salvation. I'm guessing that such a quote does not exist. If there is no constant teaching to be found that would confirm that the Church ever held that anything other than explicit faith in Christ could suffice for salvatin, then how did the contrary belief take hold if not via JP II and the CCC?

If explicit faith in the primary dogmas of; belief in the Trinity, the incarnation, the death and resurection are now being taught as non-essentials, from whence did this attack come?
Here are some quotes that might help:


On the Trinity:

"The Church regards with esteem also the Muslims. They adore the one God, living and subsisting in himself; merciful and all-powerful, the Creator of heaven and earth, who has spoken to men;" (Nostra Aetate 3)
But the one true God is trinitarian; Muslims do not believe this.


On the Incarnation:

"...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
Speaks for itself.


On the Resurection:

“Most exegetes [Scripture scholars] take the view that
Luke is exaggerating here in his apologetic zeal, that a
statement of this kind seems to draw Jesus back to the
empirical physicality that had been transcended by the
Resurrection. Thus Luke ends up contradicting his own
narrative, in which Jesus appears suddenly in the midst
of the disciples in a physicality that is no longer subject
to the laws of space and time.” (Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth, page 269)
Was Jesus then not physically resurrected from the dead?

If these be not direct attacks on dogma, they certainly provide room for questioning these dogmas which in turn leave room for doubts, which in turn injure faith.
And to where can these apparent nuances be traced back to?

Like I said before, when these little nuances are taken individually one could possibly say that in themselves they are harmless (though I disagree) but as they proliferate they infect ever more numerous areras of doctrine until they begin to be viewed as the norm while the real article becomes the impostor. But hey, what's the use in complaining.