Can one be saved apart from or outside the Church?

[Music] Hello and welcome to another episode of "Set Contra" a podcast of Catholic theology sponsored by the Socrates Twin project. I am your host, Father Ambrose DeBrosi, an ordinary member of the Socrates Twin project, and I am joined today by a good friend of mine, another member of the SDP. I ask you to introduce yourself. Hello, my name is Aaron DeBrosiura, and I am an affiliate member of the Socrates Twin project. And we were talking briefly before we started recording here about the fact that everything we're going to talk today is a little bit rusty in your mind because you submitted your dissertation a couple of months ago. How's that process? Well, it's been seven months now and still waiting on a defense date. So a little frustrating, but it is what it is. It's like a day of the analysis. So maybe we could think of this as a warm-up or a practice rehearsal for the defense, maybe. In one aspect, obviously, you've got a broader project than just what we're talking about today. But the topic that I have now beat around the bush getting to is the communal nature of salvation, which is I think you could say the flip side of the frequently discussed doctrine of the church, extra-clasional assault outside of the church. There is no salvation. It's something that comes up a lot in the scriptures. It's something that's come up a lot in the history of the church. And I think also a big pivotal point in question that was under discussion at the Psychopathic Council. And the reason that it occurred to me to record an episode of said "Contra on this" is that our sister podcast, the quad-lebets, I believe, Taylor Patrick O'Neill, in an episode of that was talking about how salvation is fundamentally communal in response to one of their listener questions. I forget the precise nature of the question. But when he said that, I was like, "Oh, yeah, that's a really big point that has felt very important to me in my own theological work." And I wouldn't record on that. And so then I went back to the Psychothercreen Project Slack and recruited Aaron to come and to join me. Since we've had a couple conversations about this at the various different STP conferences so far. And in fact, we've got this upcoming summer in June. We are kind of talking about this in our panel with Kevin. I'm vaguely related. I think it comes up in a good number of discussions. The divine affiliation is the overall conference topic this summer. And in the Patristics is the panel that Aaron, Kevin, and I will be running. And specifically, like theosis, divinization, participation in the divine nature. And we're kind of both Aaron and I are getting into that in reference to Augustine. Since we've both been doing some Augustine work. And to talk about this and to begin our discussion here today, this podcast episode, there's a kind of, I don't know, to call it a common misconception. There's a common point that gets made, which is that ecclesiology as a theological discipline is relatively new. And there's a way in which it's both true in which it's false, like to say this. Because there's not a standalone treaties on the church and the nature of the church early on in the Patristics. Augustine doesn't write on the church. And nothing other does a coiness. But there's a very rich ecclesiology understanding of the church that comes up in satireality, that comes up in discussions of the sacraments, that comes up in commentaries on the sacred scriptures. So in one sense, it's a kind of weird historical project to go into pull ecclesiology out of works and statements that are about something else in a certain sense. One could argue that Augustine never writes about something else. He's always talking about everything all at the same time. It's just his way of doing things. And on the other hand, I think this is a critically important thing. And part of the reason why this becomes such a big issue of Vatican II is like the Dulubac, who will get to talking about eventually, he's going through all of the Patristics that he's studied and pulling out these common themes that aren't directly explicated in that like a single coherent manner and then like stitching them together in his own thing, which is weird and we'll get to in a moment. But to launch into this and to start thinking about the communal nature of salvation, how would it is to say that to be saved is to be a member of the church? I think maybe it's a different way to frame that. Aaron, why don't you talk about our boy Augustine? Yeah, so I guess before I get to Augustine, I just want to point out that you mentioned ecclesiology as a standalone treatise is very recent. I think the most generally we place the first one in the 15th century shortly before the Reformation. And then it becomes a little more common, but I would say the St. Cyprian has a treatise on the unity of the church, which could be a very early ecclesiological treatise if you want to look at it that way. It depends on how broad one makes one's definitions, right? Exactly. Exactly. So it's certainly not a scholastic treatise to be sure. But his broad point, and I think it's good to start there about the communal nature of salvation is that the Holy Spirit was given to the church and not to specific individuals on Pentecost. It's given to the church as a whole principally in the bishops. And so his whole formulation of this phrase is in a salvation outside the church. That's simply a coming out of salvation is in and through the church. And unless you're a member of that church, you can't be saved. So even if you're a martyr outside, there's no, you don't have charity. And so you're not part of the church, you can't have that salvation. So it's really about that communal nature, right? And Augustin then riffs on that and develops it further. But I guess if I remember correctly, just to stay on serpentine for just a second here, that's specifically against the donatists. Correct. Is the content that comes up in the past? Innovationist. Innovationists. Yeah. And if I'm trying, my memory is that he's talking about these like roving bands of young men who are going around trying to like stir up trouble to get themselves martyred. And this is maybe one specific example of like this is outside of the church, like you're not am I remembering that correctly. Well, that's the donatists for Augustin. That's what he's dealing with for for Cyprian. It was the anti Pope. Novation set himself up as a rival claimant to the chair of Peter. And so Cyprian is writing partly in response to that in his treatise on the church. And so he basically said, well, yeah, we need to re baptize them because if there's no salvation outside the church and they're outside the church being here at X and schismatics, they can't have baptism. Right. So. Which is then going to become a receive different treatment in Augustin. I guess then. Yeah. So Augustin and the donatists take Cyprian and go into rather different directions. So you want to move on to Augustin now then. Yeah, that's fine. I want to find a specific reference that I was thinking of there about. Yeah, it's the you're thinking of the circumsellions, which was a they were a group of donatists who were all. They like to get drunk and run around with nuns. They called them nuns, but they were really just promiscuous women who ran around with their men. That's according to Augustin's interpretation anyways, there's a debate over that these days, but we certainly not many scholars want to revive the the heretics these days. Right. Yeah, obviously Augustin is not a sympathetic narrator here. Clearly, they must have been something better that we need to recover and whatever the heretics were doing. Yeah, I think. Yeah, although actually very frequently for the Augustin is a much more charitable interlocutor than a lot of people these days. Yes. And that's just something different on charity. So. Because you already brought this up actually in Cypriot. It's a huge point in Augustin in connection with the donatists and some like specifically identifying like the bond of charity as that unity in the body of the church. And so like the donatists don't have charity because they're separated from the the body of the church. Yeah. As a way of getting into letting you talk about Augustin. Right. And that's Augustin's principle claim for the donatists. They take Cyprian on the point of well, the bishops make the church. And if a bishop goes outside, he loses his episcopacy and the Holy Spirit. Right. So their big thing is, well, if a bishop has handed over the scriptures during the persecutions handed over the script. to be burned, then he's an apostate, he loses his Episcopal office, and any sacraments that he exercises, any office he exercises, is null and void. So that's the direction they take Siprian. Augustan takes them in a very different direction and focuses on charity. That the thing that makes the church is not the bishops, yes that's important, we need bishops to make the church, but the fundamental thing that makes the church one, that unites it, is the bond of charity. And everything else comes down to that. So you can have people outside the church who have charity. There are certainly donatists who he recognizes, they probably have charity and there's hope for your salvation, because they're seeking the truth actively in good faith, or at least what we would call good faith today. But another direction that Augustan takes is instead of the new metal logical, the Holy Spirit direction that Siprian took it, where the Holy Spirit is given to the bishops, to the church. Augustan takes it in the Christological direction, where the reason we are saved in and through the church is because the church is the body of Christ, and so by baptism we actually become Christ, right, remembers of his body, and it's only in Christ that we can be saved. So in responding to the donatists on the whole, their sacraments are invalid argument about apostate bishops, you said no, Christ is the one who makes these sacraments effective, the bishops or the priests, they're simply ministers, right, they're simply the channel by which God works, right, or the instrument by which he works. So here we get this principle of the sacraments are effective ex-Opera operato, right, by the work itself, the work worked, and the moral state of the minister actually has no impact on the validity of the sacraments, right? And it's I think a really Augustan's conception of the body of Christ, and our membership in the body of Christ is much more dramatic, everything in Augustan is dramatic, he's a very dramatic person in the way that he talks. I was in talking to one of the my colleagues at the University of Dayton, and he's like, I feel like every time I read Augustan he's yelling, like he's always making his point so powerfully and so strongly that he's like yelling the whole time, just a very funny way to think about it to me, and he takes our membership in the body of Christ and our identification with Christ, corporately as his body in a very, very, very real and radical extent, right? I was reading an article by Alex Fogelman on this, like this toad just Christ is the whole Christ is a phrase that comes up in Augustan all of the time, and Fogelman was responding to a number of, if I'm going to remember correctly, some kind of like Calvinist scholars who were worried that Augustan's use of the phrase toad is Christus, his approach to this was problematic because it got to the point of broaching the creator creature divide, that the identification that Augustan ascribes to the faithful as the body of Christ, united to Christ, participating in his divinity through his sacred humanity is so strong that well hold on now, are we trying to say that people actually become God here? We need to be more careful about this, which of course Fogelman disagrees with he goes through and explains how even in this radical identification there's still a clear differentiation between creature and creator that this is by grace and all these other kinds of things that we would say, but this is something that has seems really, really important to me in understanding Augustan's theology as well as in understanding kind of the more broad, patristic approach to the church dissalvation to this accrimates, etc., which is that they really took that identification of the church with Christ body and our participation in him in his like sufferings, as his body very literally, right? And this is when Augustan talks about how there's a classic way of talking about Christ's sufferings as being suffered in his body and his members, right? So we'll come to the question, right? This is part of the Aryan controversy, did Christ really suffer in the agony in the garden? And the Aryans would say that any suffering that Christ goes through is a sign that obviously he can't be fully God because God is impassable, therefore Christ must be less than the Father, but the orthodox, the proper understanding, like the Homo-sias Christ of the same nature with the Father, one of the ways of explaining this suffering of Christ in the garden that does not threaten his full divinity is to say that he suffered in his members, that when we say that Christ was so anxious as to shed blood or like whatever else during his passion that this is talking about Christ in his body and his members, sharing their sufferings throughout the world, right? Augustan also talks about this in commentary on the Psalms, like I cried out from the ends of the earth is one, I forget which Psalm this is in his commentaries on the Psalms, but like how do we say that Christ calls out from the ends of the earth when he like only lived in one place in Israel and now he lives in heaven, right? We say this, he's crying out from the ends of the earth in his members who even to this day are still suffering and being persecuted in various different places throughout the world that like this one might think that oh, to say that we don't want to say that Christ really had a human nature because that would be going too far, and so we want to downplay his suffering and so we'll just say oh Christ didn't really suffer himself, he merely suffered in his members like this is just a explaining away the area and thing without really resolving the historical witness of the gospels which seems to be very clear that Jesus had some type of personal psychological suffering, but I think that's to misread and misunderstand what's really going on there like this radical identification of Christ with his members that like you see you come up in Saint Paul when at the that dramatic encounter outside of Damascus like Paul saw why are you persecuting me and then when then Paul says later on in whichever letter it is that he says the collotions I think I make up in my own flesh what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ right like this powerful identification of the members of the church with Christ in his suffering and his passion and then ultimately then transformed into glory in the resurrection in membership in the church in salvation is it's it's something that is so clear and so like not merely metaphorical in the thought of Augustine as well as other fathers that it almost seems to cause other theological problems and issues in a certain sense without being properly understood I think Augustine does properly understand it but there's this very like it's it's dramatic yeah yeah and it's a it's an incredibly it's really intense reading some of this stuff that Augustine has to say right but it's that that idea of dayification that for some reason there's this notion among many theologians that Augustine doesn't have a doctrine of dayification and yet somehow this totus Christus is everywhere in his corpus right and in his in his Psalms you were talking about his Psalms commentaries he has the the basic principle that each of the Psalms is spoken by Christ either as the head or as the body right song 21 for example my god my god why have you forsaken me it's very clearly spoken by the head because we have this played out in the gospels right but other ones like the Miserade you know have mercy on me that's obviously not the head who's speaking but the body right so you have both parts of of the whole Christ and speaking in the Psalms but as you said it's it's we're making up what's lacking in the the sufferings of Christ he's already in the flesh suffered now glorified we are today suffering and will be glorified with him in the flesh right yeah yeah that kind of like raises the maybe the way in which the the modern framing of this question uh in in terms of a sort of like individual like so what does it like so when we we we we take the question uh what does it mean that outside of the church there's no salvation i think we're typically thinking in terms of the individual person who is separated from the visible community of the church right uh and that does not seem to be as much directly the question on a gustan's mind uh he he does kind of talk about that uh when he when he's speaking of the donatists or other groups that he vehemently disagrees with he will frequently use the parable of the weeds in the wheat um right as the kind of example way that he talks about this and that uh in his discussion of this he always lays out that it is unclear until the day of judgment whether an individual person is a weed or wheat right we have we can't and we can't do this like harsh Splitting between the two of them as the the parable plays out right like the in the parable the Servants come and say well, should we get rid of all of the weets and the Lord says no you might rip out the wheat as well right and so in the same way we have to kind of put up with the fact that there are people who are not ultimately going to be in heaven within the church currently And that we're not going to be able to tell until judgment day and it's only the Lord himself who has that authority to judge and I think maybe like that's I'm not sure you probably have a more direct answer to this because I think this is getting closer to your dissertation topic Uh That's where Augustine gets closer to talking about this from the perspective of so what can we say about an individual person who Is outside of the visible convening of the church But that I think maybe I don't know yeah, hopefully I've set you up there and you can talk now because I am not really realizing how to finish phrasing my question That's okay. Yeah, no the the weeds and the wheat is one of his favorite images and He does get that one also from Cyprian Cyprian talks about it But not to the extent and in the way that Augustine does he really Goes to town with this image as well as the fish in the net and when the net breaks some of the fish go out Um, he uses a great variety of images from scripture To make this point that Yes, there are some outside the church who have charity and can be saved but they're only ever saved By like through the church, right? And he has a rather visceral image of baptism among The heretics or the schismatics. It's true baptism. They have the the real sacrament But it's only because they're being baptized or or born from the church's womb even if the womb is somehow Outside right Any elsewhere he puts it a little better. They're born either they're they're born from the church either from her womb or from her handmaid's womb referring to Sarah and Haggar right there Ishmael is the son of Abraham Even though not the son of Sarah, right and so those who are born in the church are children of Sarah the true Jerusalem and Those who are born outside the church. They're still children of Christ. They're they're born of his seed But from the handmaids womb, right? Um, but the point is it's always by Christ's seed Whether inside or outside right um But going then to the uh the other the flip side inside the church we have people who are Averishes he really likes to rail against the averishes because there are many donatists who are big on getting money, right? and But also, you know the licentious the murderers right the All of the different vices that are listed by saint Paul, you know None of these will inherit the kingdom saint Paul says And St. Augustine says well, we have all of these inside the church too Why are we going only opposed to those who are heretics or schismatics? There's a whole you got you have to look at the rest of the list Right how many of your donatists are murderers and averishes right Or drunkards like uh saint Paul says they're not going to near at the kingdom Yeah, we have them in the Catholic church too. The point is that there are weeds among the wheat And right now i don't know whether you know Joe drunkard in the pew is actually going to be saved on the last day because he might repent you might Give up his drunkenness right Or Bob Averishes might actually give up his his averis and become a monk, you know Give up everything and give his money to the poor, you know You might have a saint Anthony in your pew, right? We simply don't know and so we can't be dividing One person one way and another person the other way until the judgment With with that that parable of the The fish they bring the fish and then they sort the fish on the shore And Jesus says the people sorting the fish are the angels right the angels will sort them on the last day And Augustine brings that to the fore and he says we're not the ones who are supposed to be Sorting the fish right if the angels on the last day so just Forget about it. Make sure that you're holy Right be a member of christ be sanctified and Leave the rest to him right And that's it's just kind of an interesting point because There's a way in which that ends up becoming construed as a sort of like individualist approach to salvation like okay I can't know whether or not is going to be saved and so I just need to focus on my individual holiness and a relationship to christ This is what de lubek brings up right like that there's a kind of Maybe incipient seed of an individualism Within even there's the kind of a Christian right there's or maybe you he would probably call it attention or a polarity right between an individual approach to salvation and a communal uh and Right so like I can't know the rest of the church. I can't even know whether like you know Like I think about this in terms of current pastro ministry and I there's all kinds of people who look complain about all kinds of bishops or I didn't like this Pope I don't like that Pope right uh and like very frequently my advice is like You Uh do not let that pope keep you out of heaven even if he is a great center right like so like this is this dynamic of needing to focus on my own salvation regardless of broader problems within the the church That it's just something that ends up coming up as a result and I think another place where we can see how this Maybe incipient tension or potential for individualism isn't absolute but rather the the communal nature salvation is which retains even in this difficulty is in uh Augustine's eschatology right it's very clear Again, there's people who accuse Augustine of not having a communal eschatology But they don't know if they're talking about right like he's the Vision of God like this uh peace The type of language that Augustine uses to refer to Our experience of God in heaven is very frequently something that sounds individual But when understood properly is very clearly communal right like so it's it's clearly like the city of Jerusalem the city of peace Like it's this right the whole book is the city of God right it's very clear that Augustine's understanding of heaven is communal and Is a place where we are united with all of those members of the church members of Christ body in faith as one united body one united city and Even those things that seem more individual like vision right like vision of God sounds very much like me and Jesus looking at each other or something I don't know right but uh there's passage in towards the end of city of God which if I were more organized would have in front of me to give a more direct quote but Talks about how the transformation of our physical bodies by grace and the resurrection will lead us to be able to see each other and each other's body God in each other's bodies right like this Deification of the resurrected body will both affect individual person's senses such that they're more able to clearly see Reality the spiritual reality behind other's bodies and then also then each of our bodies as well as that which is seen as the object Division right God will be seen in this and so that there's also A number of passages in this fashion where like our participation in praise singing Along with the angels that the hymn of God's glory. It takes a liturgical character God's the the praise of God in heaven In this way, which is very obviously communal right like the the whole right as you understand Augustine's sacramental theology and is specifically the understanding of the Eucharist like it is one single Christ who offers the sacrament of the Eucharist to the Father the Christ the head and then the church Christ the body there's only one Christ at mass the right and so in this way like the There's only one Christ in heaven all of us united worshiping the his father in total unity and in total in total peace even if some of the individual language doesn't immediately to us sound communal it is communal because of this radical communal nature undergirding and gussetance theology Yeah, well, I mean, whether you look at the church as the body which is a community of members right or as the city of God Which is a community of citizens and he's he's constantly going on about the angels being co-citizens with us right or we're co-citizens with the angels in the city of God or that we're all members together in the body of Christ and certainly there are some dead members uh You know bellarmine goes on about the hair and the nails and and whatever that are dead members But they're still part of the body right Augustine doesn't quite go there about the hair and the nails but uh That the fact of the matter is there's one Christ and each of us we become One in Christ, but it's all of us together that form the whole Christ right There's no way to get around the communal aspect of You know me in Jesus, but also you in Jesus us in Jesus. Jesus, right? It's not a strict individualism. The flip side is you do have to focus on your own soul, right? And make sure that you're saved and not be concerned, it's over-consumerant, I should say, with the salvation of the other members, right? That's a kind of, to get out of a question for a second and just again, back to my own kind of pastoral work, right? This is something I very frequently think of, which is the. It was radically transformed while I was getting my master's degree before seminary actually, thinking about this question, right? And this is going back to Augustine, Dr. Dennis Doyle, an out-retired, incredible theologian. I look up to him a lot. We were talking about my thesis, which was on St. Thomas Aquinas and thinking about Eucharistic heresy, as I was writing about Eucharistic hymns. And Dr. Doyle said, "I forget how I set this up and what I said that led him to say this." But he said very clearly and simply, like, that the thread in the church's tradition, which, tradition in their quotes, which says that, "No, the we are the real church and everyone else is not actually the church, right? Like, this is the constant refrain of heretics and it's the true church which says, "No, actually, we're all in this church somehow or other and it's not entirely clear, right?" And that's clearly Augustine's side as we've been saying. And so, as a result in this kind of pastoral approach to the question, like, you very frequently people will come and they will say that, "Oh, I'm just so worried my cousin left the church to go and become Jewish when he or she married a Jewish person, right? Then is that, is he or she going to go to heaven?" Right? Like, that's always the question and it, the underlying assumption about God is that God is looking for reasons to exclude us and, right? Whereas, I think that from Augustine's perspective, right, his radical understanding of grace as this loving free gift, like, God wants all of these people to go to heaven more than you do. God is more concerned for the salvation of your family members who are not practicing Catholics than you are. And so, your fear that's leading to this kind of questioning, which then I think in very many cases leads to a watering down of the truth of the church. And well, okay, I don't want to say that the church is the true church and that you have to be a member of the church to be saved because I'm afraid that these other people are going to go to hell, right? These particular people that I love are going to go to hell, which I think the first movement there of love, I want this person salvation is good. The second movement of fear is not good because God desires that more than you do. And so, trust him. First of all, because if you want to bring the back to the faith, if you're operating out of fear, that's going to lead to a kind of manipulative approach to try and coerce or guilt someone back into coming to church, which is, I think, transparently not effective, right? That's why mom stopped, right? That's where that comes from. But then, like, rather, the loving trust that God desires that salvation, which comes from prayer, and a great personal then identification with Christ and his desire for salvation, then by the Holy Spirit working within us every time we pray, then you actually do have the right words to say to maybe lead someone back to the faith. Sorry, anyway, long ex-curse is about current practical realities, but this is probably good because we've done about half of our podcast time, and we did promise to talk about the modern day and eventually to get to Vatican II. But since this is the Socrates of Cuner project, it's principally a collection of tomas, but there's a lot of tomas here. We would be remiss to not mention Thomas in this process. So I wanted to bring up, just again, as I said, an example of what ultimately is Dulu Boch's point, that this understanding of salvation as entirely communal runs throughout the history of the church. This is not a Vatican II, being a Vatican II novelty, but rather this is truly presenting what has been the perennial teaching of the church. And so I've got a couple different references in Thomas, someone who is actually atomished would probably do better than I would at bringing these up. But two places where this jumped out to me as very clear that this is what Thomas believes are in his theology of the Eucharist, the sacraments, and then also his commentary on the scriptures when he talks about Saint Paul and the unity in the body of Christ. And so I've got just a couple quotes here to demonstrate this. So the first is when he's talking about the Eucharist, and the nature of the Eucharist is a sacrament, the first question of the Eucharist, question 73 of the Terzupars. He identifies the reality of the sacrament of the Eucharist. So there's the sacramentum, Tantum, which is only a sign which is the bread and the wine. There's the Resid sacramentum, which is both a sacrament and a reality, which is Christ's true presence. And then the ultimate reality of Eucharist, that which is only the reality, Residantum, is the mystical body itself, right? So the communion of the church and the unity of that body who received the Eucharist with Christ, he brings that out, it's mostly an article three of that question, 73 that the reality, the sacrament is the unity of the mystical body without which there can be no salvation, for there is no entering into salvation outside the church, right? Accordingly. And so the question is whether the Eucharist is necessary for salvation, that's article three. And so he says that the sacramental reception of the Eucharist, so literally eating the Eucharist is not necessary for salvation because there's baptized babies that happen, right? Who never ate the Eucharist. But that interior communion, that Residantum, that sacramental unity of the person with Christ in the church, as the body of Christ, is that that's what salvation is. So you do have to have that in order to be saved. And that's ultimately then Aquinas' interpretation of John 6, right? And that's directly brought up in the first objection, right? Someone might say, well, Jesus says, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man, you can't go to heaven. So if babies never got to receive the Eucharist, they can't be in heaven, sorry, right? And Aquinas' response to this is no actually, it's that spiritual communion as a member of the body, the church that he means that is necessary for salvation. And then the, then again later, the grace which is affected by the sacrament, question 79, he talks about that interior grace of union with Christ and that this is the way in which all sacraments receive their grace. So the second place, put the book too far away from me. Before you run away there, Father, to the second point, I just wanted to mention the baptism in the Eucharist relationship there. There's a real union that comes in with baptism, right? But I was just reading Jorné yesterday and he paraphrases Thomas. I don't know if Thomas says this explicitly, that the Eucharist is the consummation of that union. Yeah, it is. I like to look at that relationship similar to a marriage. In marriage, we have, we make the vows and then it's a real marriage, but it's not consummated until the marital act is effective, right? The same thing with baptism in the Eucharist. Baptism makes it a real union with Christ. A real spousal union, really. And then the Eucharist consummates that, right? Yeah, absolutely. And the spousal imagery there is not something that you're applying to it after the fact that that's just clearly directly in the scriptures and exactly the way that Aquinas is using that term consummation itself. That was the other thing that I wanted to pull out of a question 79 here was, the article seven of that question is whether this sacrament benefits others besides the recipients. And he says that even if only one person receives at the mass, that the mass as a sacrifice is beneficial to the whole body of Christ, even those who aren't there, whoever's like throughout the history of the church. So that union of the body of Christ at mass is something that's very powerfully there in Aquinas' thought. And so like an individual approach to the grace of the sacrament is there, right? Because he talks about in the same article that the sacrifice is beneficial to me and according to my disposition, my readiness to receive in the way in which the venial sin hinders the effect of the sacrament. Next question, article eight, not next question, next article, article eight. But despite that, like the whole body benefits. Even if the person is receiving as a venial sin, like Christ's sacrifice on behalf of the whole body is still perfectly effective. And then the also in connection with baptism here, right? We're in Ephesians, this is Aquinas' commentary on Ephesians. We've just gone through one faith, one Lord, one baptism, right? And now he's talking about then the next section of Ephesians. He gave some apostles and prophets, others, evangelists, pastors, and doctors, different ministries within the church. And then St. Paul says that these are given for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, until we all meet into the unity of faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God. And then, so speaking about that line, until we all meet, Aquinas talks about this as the ultimate fruit of the church is preaching and work of baptism. He's talked about how that edifying of the body of Christ is when those who don't have faith are converted, Christ's church, which is his body is built up. So this is like the effect of baptism. It's the effect of that ministry within the church. And then until we all meet, right, that this is the resurrection of the saints that in this perspective, two factors are certain, spiritual and corporeal convergence of all who have risen. Like we are going to be brought together, both bodily and spiritually at the end of time, right? And so this until we all meet is very literal. And again, there's a spousal imagery here in Aquinas quotes Matthew, behold, the bridegroom comes, go forth to meet him and be prepared to meet your God. We shall meet one another also. And so we don't just meet the Lord at the end of our lives. We meet each other. We're brought together in unity. So again, Aquinas doesn't have discreet treaties on the church, but it's very clear in his theology that salvation is communal and that to be saved means to be a member of the church. And so then this is clearly the the true teaching of the church throughout the centuries, the perennial teaching of the church. And so then we get to the 20th century. And this question comes up especially, like you said, the first treaties on the church come out right before the Protestant Reformation. And I think one of the driving concerns for thinking about this so dramatically, intentionally in the 20th century is this like we've had 500 years of not agreeing with each other, not being united hierarchically or or visibly within the communion of the church. Like what does this mean? How do we deal with this? Right? We can't just talk about a couple of heretics in Germany anymore. This I don't know that this problem is going away. How can we address this theologically? I don't know. Maybe that's a, is that a fair framing of the question? Yeah, I think that's that's certainly part of it. I think the other flip side is the whole ecumenical movement that started at the end of the 19th century on account of there are all of these different Christian groups going on mission. They're trying to evangelize the, you know, Africa and Asia. And they're realizing that, you know, the Catholics come in and they say one thing and then the Westlions come in and they say, no, no, they're wrong. We really know Jesus. And then, you know, the Lutherans come in and say, no, they're both wrong. We're the ones who really know Jesus. And then they just don't accept Jesus because well, the Christians can't agree on themselves, right? Right. And so this whole ecumenical movement comes up about while we need to learn how to cooperate in the mission. But then we get the world wars and you have Catholics and Protestants side by side in the trenches and they both realize that, you know, they love Jesus. Right? You've got Protestants who are heretics or schismatics at the very least in good faith. Well, how on earth are we supposed to make sense of this? They seem to have charity. And yet they're outside the church. So we need to somehow make sense of how you can have these divisions. And yet there are people with charity who really seem to be alive and in hope of salvation outside, right? Yeah. Yeah. It's hard, right? Like I don't think that there's a number of different ways that one could answer the question about particular charismatic graces among non-Catholic Christians, right? That's just a work of the Holy Spirit that we even see like in the Gospels, Caiaphas receiving a grace of prophecy about, well, it's better that one should die rather than the nation. And so clearly these charismatic graces do not depend upon salvation or even upon like the state of grace. And so, right, like we could, if one wanted to take a finiest line, like one could explain away all of those kinds of things. Obviously, finiism is condemned. And that's not the line that we want to take, however, because I think that trying to explain this away is bad. It's a bad impulse. And instead that we have to really grapple with this. And the kind of the way in which theology in so many ways is just that wrestling of Jacob with the angel in a certain sense, right? Like we have to really deal with the profundity of these questions that come up and strive to answer them and respond to them in a way that is both faithful to the traditional teaching of the church as a kind of guiding light. And then also that is profoundly pastoral and moral and occult to conversion is where something really becomes theology and not just a bunch of words, right? And it's really that charity, I think, as a result that makes it really the response of the church and not just like us throwing a bunch of words out or trying to define things very closely. I don't know if that's actually, is that making sense? Am I? Yeah, that's making sense. Yeah. I was just thinking of Father about the weekend go explaining away the presence of carisms outside the Catholic church. Already Augustine is making this point, right? There's grace. There's the Holy Spirit working outside such that the Oracle of Delphi has prophecies of becoming Christ. You have Virgil with a poem that's prophesying the coming Savior, right? Today we're aware of certain writings in the Buddhist canon that speak of the coming suffering Christ, right? Yeah. Even among the pagans, there is something going on there that the Holy Spirit is acting to prepare the world, right? For Christ. I had another thought and it fell out of my brain. When we were on the recent episode with Dr. Joa Beaza and myself when we were talking about the DS0, you've got that first line that I had it in my head and then the Latin immediately fell out. It is going to do you see that? David at Cibula, right? Like the pagan prophets, the symbols also, right? That's in the liturgical tradition of the church, even the pagan prophets. And for, I think, you think about Dante and there's a very clear way in which those virtuous pagans literally Virgil is widely through, right? There's a membership in the church there in a certain sense, right? And one can get into the specifics of all, okay? So they're in the earthly paradise because they didn't have baptism. But that didn't even know of itself, right? That's a result of the fruit of Christ's sufferings in his grace. Yeah. And the other thought came back to my mind. The Jansinists were big on Augustin, but they took him and ran in a different direction. But one of the phrases that was condemned by Clement the 11th, it seems to me in Unigene 2's is the phrase outside the church, there is no grace. And he condemned that and he said, no, that's obviously that blatantly false. And I mean, the evidence of that is, well, people outside the church get converted, right? That's a grace, right? There's a gift there. Absolutely, right? You have to take a trait very seriously on that point. Yeah, they're very much has to be grace and the working of the Holy Spirit beyond certainly the visible boundaries of the Catholic church, right? Yeah, absolutely. Let's talk about, let's talk about Vatican 2. And I'm just going to let you do whatever you want with that. Okay. What Vatican 2 do you want to do? Well, there's only one Vatican 2, but if we're wanting to talk about the communal nature of salvation, then we should probably start with the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumingencium. Chapter one lays out really what the church is, but then chapter two is probably most interesting for us at this point, where it goes into those different layers, I guess, of the onion, the different groups of people that are either in the church or related to the church in some way. And this does go back to St. Thomas with this notion that all of humanity is in some way the order to the church, right? Or Thomas has this idea that they're all potentially members of the body of Christ, right? Yeah, and so like he says we're all all members of the body of Christ at least potentially and then they cease to be members when they go to hell But for Vatican II yeah, they lay out okay the first group is those who are actually members of the Catholic Church fully incorporated and Then you have a second layer which is basically the Protestants the Orthodox those who have baptism those who are Obviously members on account for their baptism they're incorporated into Christ, but it's not a full or perfect Union there, right? It's an imperfect actual membership and Then you have the further layer of the Jews the Muslims who are monotheistic they worship one God They're somehow related to the church, but they're not Actual members in the same way they don't have baptism they don't necessarily have the fullness of faith, right? And then the last layer is well everybody else including the atheists the pagans everybody are ordered toward the church right Not and I think related I know it's sometimes translators related, but ordain on tour is the the word that's used they are ordered toward That fullness, right and the ways that's Sorry, that's that's one really yeah apologies for interrupting you One of the one of the just results of the delay in internet connection between the two of us is that I it sounds like I can jump in and then I was actually wrong and so I apologize The only is probably a thought pause on my part Yeah, it's we're going at the speed of human processing here The that's a really important point that I just wanted to connect to Dulubak really quickly like this universal call to salvation that that The salvation that Christ offers is to the whole human race like So Dulubak connects us first to to Paul right and that in Adam all died and now in one man Christ all are called to life Talks about it also connecting it to St. Thomas Aquinas So this is one of my favorite kind of lines of thought and not not merely All of humanity, but even all of creation is recapitulated into salvation through through Christ obviously with some distinctions that it my dog he was sleeping on the bed behind me Does not participate in Christ resurrection the same way that I hope to but right that a Aquinas Sees in the human person all of the four classical elements right like we're wet mud That's been given the the warmth of life and the warmth and the breath of life So all four classical elements and so when Christ takes on human nature and he's taking on all of material elements all of this material universe And then this this universal Right Catholic or the text that I'm referencing here of to Dulubak's is Catholicism Like this this universality of the the call of salvation which then also then is the mission of the Church is this universal mission of salvation Then has to apply to not just all mankind but to all of all of creation. There's a cosmic kind of salvation It's offered in Christ which is I think a Teal hard to share it in is in there somewhere in Dulubak as a fan of Deschardin and one can question various elements of Deschardin and his influence at this time But I think the underlying point is Absolutely correct like the sticking on of the whole of creation and especially then all of the human race that this call to salvation and the nature of salvation is entirely communal And it's like the human race the human nature as such which is united to the divinity in Christ Obviously in the direct and personal you Get the point Anyway, yeah, I think you're mentioned of Teradish Arden is just a reminder that while St. Thomas is correct that all of humanity is potentially at least members of Christ body but there is the danger of going too far Right of interpreting things the wrong way and saying well that means Everything the whole of creation is part of the body of Christ and we're moving towards this cosmic Christ whatever right It's a we do have to be grounded I guess in recognizing that there is that real distinction between the creator and the creature right even though we are To be identified in Christ and become gods We're not going to become God in our substance right we're not changing our nature is by adoption and that's all right right it's by grace with it It's kind of funny because like and that's all is in a certain sense an understatement but in a different sense an extremely important distinction Absolutely, we've already touched on that in connection with the gustan and the in the totus Christus that it seems like that there is a danger of erasing that real distinction between Creator and creature in this kind of language of dayification and the the nature of salvation by grace but like you kind of have to in a certain sense not write that line but have that tension preserved in a proper theology because what Christ promises by grace is really really radical and to kind of erase that radicalness in order for it to fit more neatly into some theological boxes is to really miss what Christ is doing and to miss the nature of our our salvation Yeah, but obviously also we're not universalists and all of creation is not receiving that eternal life in the same way and that obviously there's the distinction between our human participation in salvation and what the rest of creation is made for because of the dignified and unique place of humanity within creation and all of these other kinds of things which I think also I think it's very clear that despite this kind of trend that we could see in 20th century theology where there is certainly a trend of universalism and Reductive Cosmic understanding of salvation and if we want to call it that in indescribable That's not in the toxic Vatican 2 and that's not What whatever the spirit of Vatican 2 is it's not that Yeah, exactly. I mean one thing Jiraot Phillips one of the the principal drafter of what became Lumen Genesium He has a commentary on the document after the council and one of the things that he points out is This idea that every one all of humanity is somehow ordered toward the The one church where the unity of the church and that there are people outside the visible Catholic church who are To be saved That does not take away from the fact that Outside the church there is no salvation We must go on mission right there's a very real reason why We have not just this Lumen Genesium and the the decree on ecumenism or the decree on the other religions No straight outie but we also have the the decree on I was it now evangelizing the the world The name is escaping me now, but the one about missions right yeah agendas right There's a real reason why we have this there also we can't just say oh well I guess that that means everybody's saved right and and I can just relax and and drink my pop and eat my my ice cream sandwich right no we actually have to still go and evangelize Because unless we go out to the nations and bring the gospel bring Christ They're not gonna get it and you know unless there's some extraordinary uh work of the Holy Spirit where they receive and interior enlightenment about God and the Savior Right there's there's no hope for them apart from the church coming to them right Yeah, and I think that the the right the I'm not sure if runner actually means Anonymous Christian the way that he gets made fun of for for for saying that however common I don't think that he's entirely immune from that criticism and that he did kind of say that Even if you find that he's that phrase uh makes criticism like like the Being anonymous Christian like if that is The salvation that that's not particularly great right and if we want to go and we want to make a big deal about this Ordering of all of humanity towards membership in the body of Christ the the that this Waters down or dilutes the radical transformation that Augustine and that the tradition of the church clearly season this membership right what the This clearly direct and personal identification of Christ with me like that that there's so powerfully resonates in the way that same Paul talks about his relationship with Christ Uh to not to get to touchy-feely like high school retreat on this but right like the I make up in my flesh for what was lacking in the sufferings of Christ does not really gel with an anonymous sense of Christianity and membership in the body of Christ. And the, I think also it, there's a thought in my head that I want, that I've not fully gone, oh, sorry, I was gonna make an appointment about Aquinas, that the necessity of this accurement and the church in Aquinas, it's not an absolute logical necessity, it's a practical necessity or a contingent necessity, which is kind of funny, 'cause those things are normally opposites, but if you're out in, the example that he uses is, you're out in the country, the countryside, and you get injured, you need a horse to get to town to see a doctor, right? Like you don't absolutely need a horse. You could sit on your couch while you're bleeding out and hope that God saves you by some miracle, you could try to walk despite the fact that you can't really walk, right? You could do all of these other things, but let's be real, you need a horse. To get to town. This is the way in which he talks about the necessity of this accurement and salvation, that like God wants us to be saved, and so he provided these concrete means by which we could be saved and know that we are being saved. And it would be really, really dumb. And in fact, if done intentionally offensive to God himself and his generosity towards us to reject those specific means that he's provided for us for whatever reason, right? And the other thought that I had there, which I don't know what to do with this, this is the one that I'm not really sure and haven't thought entirely through yet. And I would maybe, along with any questions that our listeners might otherwise have that they could send into the quad the bets. And I would be very interested to hear what Taylor and Matthew make of this. The way in which the damned even participate in the glory of God, they don't in themselves, right? They don't subjectively experience the goods of salvation and yet their continued existence in hell is for the glory of God and is a demonstration of his mercy and his justice, right? And I don't entirely know how to parse that. They're separated from the body of Christ and that they're not united to him in heaven, and these other ways that we've talked about. And yet there is, I think, still a way that we have to say that it is good that they continue to exist. And that-- - Because it reveals the justice of God, right? - But even then, like you mentioned the mercy of God, John Eud has this wonderful reflection on the mercy of God even in hell. - Yeah. - That the fact that their suffering is not infinite is a mercy, right? - And there's a lot of it, or that they are allowed in a certain sense, very qualified sense, right? To fulfill their final end, which is to give glory to God by his right, and their continued existence and their punishment and hell gives glory to his justice, right? Like they don't particularly benefit from that. And so it's in a certain sense, it's not good for them, but in a different sense, it is good for them. Like that is their good, right? And again, I have not thought through all of that and parsed it out, so maybe I will kick that over to the quad of the bets, like all of our listeners ought to with all of their questions, which is where this particular idea for this show came from to begin with. So we've gone, I think a good hour of discussion here. I think we've said a lot of really good things in this regard. What final closing thoughts would you leave our listeners with Aaron? - Well, let's see, we have one mediator between God and man, and that is the man, Christ Jesus. And it's only in him that we find our salvation as members of his body. And I guess based on some of those last notes there, we can't settle for the bare minimum, just being happy with a baptism, or even baptism by desire for those who are in the middle of the Amazon and haven't received the gospel, there's something, right? - Yeah. - Now we need to actually live out our faith, live out our calling, and bring more members into the body, and incorporate more members fully into that body. - Yeah, absolutely. And I think to connect back to one of the things we said earlier about that charity as the bond of unity, uniting us as the body of Christ, that it's not an accident or a coincidence that this is also the word we use for works for the poor, and that like when Augustine's talking about Matthew 25, whatever you did, for the least of these, my brothers and sisters, you did it for me, that that unity in the body of Christ, which is salvation and which is membership in the church, is also just the same thing, in a very literal way for Augustine as the service that you do for the poor, right? Like if you were to comb the homelies of Augustine, like what must I do to be saved? A very short summary of this might just be giving your money to the poor, in a certain sense, he talks about them as the bankers of Christ who can't keep your stuff here, right? You were talking about the avaricious earlier in the same context, right? And so this clear connection between the works of charity and the active sense of serving one another in the love of Christ, and this communal nature of salvation, like to be saved as to be a member of the body of Christ with all of the other members in one body, right? Like this is a deep thing, and I think again, just one of my own hobby horses here, the theology is never merely just arguing about words, it's always this lived part of the faith. And if we're really gonna grapple with this issue of salvation, extra closing of the solace, in order to really understand that it is a deep and visceral level, in addition to an intellectual level, I think it takes, like you're talking about that missionary impulse of bringing others to Christ, but then which is also intimately united with the material service of the poor, taking care of their bodily needs. Pope Francis makes that point very clearly in Evangelia, Gaudium, like paragraph 200, that the unity between serving the spiritual needs of the poor and bringing them to Christ for their eternal life and their eternal benefit is directly connected to serving the poor and their physical needs, and that the greatest poverty of the poor is a spiritual poverty that we meet by serving them temporarily. That all of these things are connected in our lives of faith. It's all good stuff. So, thank you so much, Aaron. This has been a great pleasure, great conversation. Look forward to, I don't-- - Go ahead, Zia, some deep. - Don't remember when this episode is airing, it might be before or after the conference this summer, but it'll be a great, great joy to see in person and to go over a lot of this stuff again. (laughs) - Yeah, continue the discussion there. - That's right, absolutely. So thank you all so much for listening. This has been an episode of said, Contra, a podcast of Catholic theology sponsored by the Zacharduk Trina Project. If you're interested in anything about the Zacharduk Trina Project, having listened to us talk about it for a good while here, encourage you to go check out Zacharduk Trina Project.org. Thank you all so much for listening. God bless. (upbeat music)