De Ecclesia Christi

« Although, in the manner just said in the preceding thesis, some may be justified and saved without being recognized in the external forum as belonging to the visible Church; yet, first, those very persons are not saved except through the Church, whose is the word of faith and on whose account the saving graces are given; and they are not saved except in the Church, to which they are joined, not only to its spirit but also to its visible elements, by a will which — before God is reckoned as the deed. — For these visible elements, second, by divine institution are not of necessity of precept only but of necessity of means to justification and salvation; wherefore justification in the New Testament is never effected without reference to them, and without at least a spiritual conjunction of the man with the same visible elements; and so before God and the Church triumphant it exists not without union with the Church on earth. Nor indeed, third, does the union of some such members with the Church — and sanctification without the visible sacraments — stand in the way of the dogma of the visibility of Christ's Church. »

Since the Church of Christ, as we have seen above, is the one and only divinely constituted expression and, as it were, the incorporation of the whole revealed religion, by which God wills all men to be saved in this restored order, and without which no one is saved, it follows from this very fact that to be united to, and to belong to, this Church is not only to be some means, but to be an absolutely necessary means to salvation. The Church, therefore, is a society not left to the morally free option of men, but necessary. Here, however, the connection with what has been disputed hitherto wholly requires that it be declared what sort of union with the Church must be understood from the Catholic dogma, since we profess « that no one is saved outside the Church. » From this very declaration another question arises: how actual union with the Church is said to be necessary not only from the divine precept but also as a necessary means of eternal salvation. Finally, a certain shadow will have to be dispelled, which from this doctrine might occur to someone concerning the very visibility of the Church.

I. From what has been demonstrated above it is certain that catechumens and excommunicated persons, before the former are « incorporated » by baptism, and the latter restored to the Church by absolution, may, given true faith — explicit at least in the necessary articles and implicit in all the revealed truths — by God's grace attain to an act of charity and contrition; and with this charity, as the proximate disposition, justification is infallibly connected, and with justification, if they die thus before actual union with the visible Church of Christ, eternal salvation. « For those who are led by the Spirit of God, they are sons of God..... And if sons, also heirs » (Rom. VIII. 14. 17.). It is manifest, moreover, that this holds equally if baptized heretics, or unbaptized unbelievers, are converted to the true faith — either by an internal proposition with internal grace, or in an extraordinary manner by internal illumination alone, which supplies the external word (see the treatise On Tradition and Scripture, Appendix, ed. 2, c. 3, p. 609; c. 5, p. 691, and the doctrine of St. Thomas cited there, De Veritate q. 14, a. 11; 3 dist. 25, q. 2, a. 1, sol. 1); for such heretics would then be on a par with excommunicated faithful, and unbelievers with catechumens. These things stand together in their truth and are to be reconciled with the other Catholic doctrine, defined in the Fourth Lateran Council against the Albigenses, and often defined elsewhere: « There is one universal Church of the faithful, outside which absolutely no one is saved » (chapter Firmiter credimus). Lest, however, in such definitions the name Church be taken in the wider sense, in which faith is assumed as the sole essential and sufficient bond of the members of the Church (cf. th. II.), both many other things ensure, and also the explicit declaration of Pius IX in a solemn allocution (delivered on 9 December 1854 to the Cardinals and Bishops who, from the whole world, had been present at the definition of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin); for in these words the Pontiff enunciated the dogma: « It must indeed be held from faith that no one can be saved outside the Apostolic Roman Church. » The whole reconciliation comes to this: from indubitable Catholic doctrine the bonds and connections with the Church are explained, by which it comes about that those very persons who cohere with the Church of Christ only « in part » and in some respect can be saved, and are saved by the merciful grace of Christ through the Church, and not without regard to their relation to the Church.

1. True faith, which must be supposed in all those of whom we speak as the foundation on which charity and justification, and therefore eternal salvation, rest, can be considered according to the external proposition « (faith comes by hearing) » and according to the internal grace of illumination and motion « (no one comes to me unless the Father draw him). »

a) The word of God, the object of faith in the present economy, was, according to Christ's institution, first promulgated by Christ and the Holy Spirit revealing it through the Church; and it has been kept, by the same Church assisted by the Spirit of truth, through the course of the centuries, sincere and entire as a deposit committed to her. The very credibility of the word is constituted through the charisms of the Church; for to her, in whom the divinely revealed religion is incorporated, all the motives of credibility refer and from her they proceed, so that the Church is a certain complex of these, and herself, in herself, a great and perfect motive of credibility. (Vatican Council, Const. Dei Filius ch. 3. Cf. treatise On Tradition, Appendix, ch. V.) To all those, therefore, who conceive true faith « from the hearing of the word of God » the preaching does not reach, nor is the word proposed to them (even without their knowing it) as credible and to be believed, except insofar as it is preserved through the true Church of Christ. In no way does this proposition of the word as credible and to be believed come about, or can it come about, through sects, which have fallen from the Church, that is, from the sole divinely constituted guardian and herald of truth, and from that great motive of credibility which is always conspicuous, and are exiles from it; of whom not only does the rebuke hold, « did the word of God come forth from you? », but that much graver sentence: « they hold the truth of God in unrighteousness. » (Rom. I. 18; 1 Cor. XIV. 36.)¹

b) The internal grace of illumination and motion extends indeed more widely than the visible Church; otherwise every conversion to the Church itself would be impossible, since faith and the very beginning of faith cannot be received by anyone, as is fitting, without this grace (Council of Orange II, can. 5). Whence also the propositions of Quesnel (26, 27, 29) and of Pistoia (22) were condemned, which restricted the aids of grace to the faithful alone: « Outside the Church no grace is granted »². But just as the ultimate end which God intends from himself in bestowing all graces is eternal salvation, so the nearer end of all the graces which are granted outside the Church is conversion to the Church itself. For the two stages, the kingdom of God begun on earth, which is the Church, and the kingdom of God consummated in heaven, succeed one another and are connected in the divine economy into one communion of saints: « he who believes and has been baptized (in the kingdom of sanctification) will be saved; » « he wills all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth (in the kingdom of truth). » (Mark XVI. 16; 1 Tim. II. 4.) Just as, therefore, graces are granted outside the Church to form the members of the Church, if men are willing to cooperate, so all those same graces can most truly be said to be given with regard to the Church. Whoever, therefore, outside the body of the Church are led to faith and charity, and thus seem able to be saved outside the Church, in fact do not attain those supernatural dispositions, and consequently justification and salvation, except through the word of the Church as guardian of the deposit, and through the grace of the Church, not indeed as its dispenser but as the proximate end for which and with regard to which graces are granted by God. This first sense is the fundamental one, in which it must be said that absolutely no one is saved except through the Church³.

2. This sense is most true indeed, but it must be supplemented by another consideration, so that we may understand the dogma by which we profess that no one, not even those very persons just spoken of, is saved outside the Church. We saw in thesis XIX that the whole Church, and each of its institutions, after the pattern of its head, the incarnate Word, is composed of a twofold element, one visible and by its nature natural, the other invisible and essentially supernatural in itself, by which the former is informed and supernaturally raised: « one body and one spirit. » The end, moreover, of all these institutions and of the whole Church militant is the transformation and sanctification of the world, and its glorification into the Church triumphant; and in all these, the glory of Christ and of God: « that God may be all in all » (th. XX.). The conjunction of both elements, visible and invisible, body and spirit, in the Church is so intimate that sanctification, and consequently eternal salvation or glorification, can be hoped for or had, for all men and for each individual, only through union with the Church itself, insofar as she is not spirit only but body and spirit: « Christ is the head of the Church; he himself is the savior of her body... and gave himself for her, that he might sanctify her... and present to himself the glorious Church. » Therefore, just as the body, or visible elements, in the Church neither sanctify nor save without the spirit, that is, without the informing divine and invisible elements, so the spirit does not work sanctification and salvation without union and relation to the body of the Church. Nevertheless, in the manner of this necessary union with the body, and so in the necessary use of the visible elements, justification by the work performed (ex opere operato) and justification by the work of the one working (ex opere operantis) must be distinguished. About the work performed nothing needs to be said here; for it is plain that this is not accomplished except through the visible sacrament of baptism, by which, faith being supposed, incorporation into the Church is completed, or through other sacraments which already presuppose that those to be justified are actually members of the Church. Whence for those who are incapable of the work of the one working there is left no other way of salvation besides this justification in the Church. But if we speak of the work of the one working, the necessity of the use of visible elements, and in general of union with the body of the Church, remains indeed, yet it does not have the same character.

Let us consider first, for some clarification of this matter, the justification of a sinner within the Church itself. The power of sacramental jurisdiction, or the power of the keys in the internal forum, and so the sacrament of penance, is by divine institution of Christ a means necessary for the remission of sins for the faithful themselves within the Church; nevertheless a sinner can obtain remission of sins and justification by the work of the one working, and he does so whenever he elicits an act of perfect charity and of contrition in it, without being absolved from his sins in the sacrament by the power of the keys.

Yet in this justification there remains not only the divine precept but also that necessity of the sacrament which is called the necessity of the means, of which we shall speak in a moment; and therefore there remains not only the obligation to submit all sins to the keys, but also the inward relation of the justification itself to the same power of the keys and to the sacrament⁴, which is itself the cause why, in every act of perfect contrition for sins not yet remitted by absolution, the will to receive the sacrament is implicitly contained. This most certain Catholic doctrine shows that the actual use of the external and visible means can be supplied by internal acts of charity in justification by the work of the one working; yet in this very thing the sinner, by divine positive right, has a bond and connection with the visible sacrament as the necessary means of justification⁵.

Now, with respect to the reason of necessary means for justification and consequently for salvation, the condition of the sinner within the Church, as regards the sacrament of penance, is on a par with that of those who are outside the Church, with respect to baptism and in general to union with the visible Church. Just as, therefore, in the former case, so also in these, perfect disposition by the work of the one working can supply for the sacrament of faith actually received and for actual union with the visible Church, so that this union is completed in the internal forum and before the Church triumphant, without being so in the external forum before the Church militant. Augustine calls this (l. qq. 50. in Levitic. ch. 84.) « invisible sanctification without the visible sacraments. » Although it is most true that such men are united with the invisible elements, with the spirit, and, as is commonly said, with the soul of the Church, yet this itself is not accomplished without relation to the body itself, that is, to the Church visible on earth. For just as the justification of a sinner within the Church, which is by the work of the one working, is not to be ascribed to contrition without a desire of the sacrament of penance — on account of which the sinner has a necessary relation and, as far as in him lies and by his own desire, a conjunction with the sacrament — so in those who are outside, justification is not to be ascribed to contrition without a desire of baptism, and through this to union with the body of the Church, if they have not been baptized⁶; and if they have been baptized, the same justification is not accomplished without a desire of the sacrament of penance, and by this very fact of reconciliation and reintegration in the visible Church. They therefore have a necessary relation for justification, and, as far as in them lies and by their own acts, a conjunction not only with the soul but with the very body of the Church. For it holds, as St. Bernard follows through with many examples (Tract. to Hugh of St. Victor, on baptism and other questions, ch. 2, n. 8), that just as for evil, so for good, and by their nature necessary, external acts, « the will (before God) is counted as the deed, where necessity excludes the deed. » Those, therefore, who are thus justified and saved are saved not only through the Church in the sense we have said above, but also (insofar as it lies in them) in the Church, and certainly not outside the Church. They are always known before God and the Church triumphant; and sometimes, through manifest external acts, such as martyrdom for the faith and for Catholic union, they can be recognized and acknowledged also by the Church militant. « Certainly the shedding of blood for Christ is an indubitable proof of great faith, yet not before God but before men... For surely, since martyrdom has obtained that prerogative from no other source than the merit of faith, that it is singularly and securely accepted in the place of baptism, I do not see why faith itself should not equally avail just as much before God even without martyrdom, to whom it is doubtless known even without the proof of martyrdom. » St. Bernard, l. c.

Having said these things, we have nearly already anticipated the solution of another question: how the conjunction with the Church is required not only by necessity of precept but entirely by necessity of means for salvation.

1°. Means, in the manner of speaking of theologians, has here the sense of cause. Those things, and only those, are therefore necessary for salvation by necessity of means which lead to salvation by way of cause, whether formal, or efficient and disposing, in such a way that without them salvation cannot be obtained. There are, however, these in a threefold order. a) Fundamentally, and by way of formal cause, the necessary means is sanctifying grace. The necessity of this means, in the present supernatural order, is fundamental, since this grace alone suffices, and without it nothing suffices for salvation; the other means are necessary insofar as they are required to build this very foundation of sanctifying grace. Thus b) for adults, in order to sanctifying grace itself, and through this to salvation, the necessary means are actual graces by way of disposing cause. Both these causes are necessary from the very proper nature of supernatural beatitude, and so far from the very nature of the thing, apart from any other special institution of God as sanctifier and beatifier. But c) in the present order there are certain other necessary means, by way of efficient cause, for acquiring sanctifying grace and therefore eternal salvation, by a special positive institution of God: namely the sacrament of baptism, and through it union with the kingdom of Christ, which is the Church; and, for sinners who are already enrolled in the Church, the sacrament of penance. These sacraments are instituted in such a way that baptism indeed, for those who are incapable of the work of the one working, and either sacrament for those who by the work of the one working have removed the obstacle to grace but have not attained the perfect disposition of charity, are necessary means in themselves, that is, in actual application, by which they effect sanctifying grace, and baptism together with it the formation of a member of the Church, instrumentally, by the work performed (ex opere operato). Nevertheless, because these instruments of grace are external, and because (as the Fathers Ambrose, Augustine, Bernard and the rest teach in this matter) before God a perfect « will is counted as the deed; » hence it comes about that God takes up the perfect disposition through an act of charity, insofar as it includes the will for the sacrament instituted in the Church and, from this institution, necessary in itself for justification, « as the deed of the sacrament » for the effect of justification and (as regards the will for baptism) for the effect of union with the Church before God and before the Church triumphant. God therefore justifies, and (in the manner explained) invisibly forms a member of the Church, not on account of the act of charity alone considered in itself and precisely, but at the same time on account of the will or desire of baptism, which is included in the act of charity, « counting the will as the deed » of the sacrament instituted by him and necessary for the effect of justification and of union with the Church.

Such, without doubt, is the doctrine of the Council of Trent mentioned above. From the words of the Saviour, « unless one is born again of water and the Holy Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God, » the Council proves that translation into the state of grace and of the sons of God « cannot be accomplished after the Gospel is promulgated without the laver of regeneration or its desire. » The holy Synod therefore teaches that in the words of Christ by which the act itself of the laver of regeneration, or baptism, is expressed, and so is instituted as a necessary means, there is included also the desire of baptism (namely perfected by charity), because the will is counted as the deed before God; and therefore sanctification is also then effected with regard to baptism, insofar as the man before God becomes spiritually a participant by the desire itself in « water and the Holy Spirit, » so that it always remains true that no one⁷ can enter the kingdom of God, whether begun on earth or consummated in heaven, or be transferred into the state of the sons of God, unless he is born again of water and of the Holy Spirit: per se indeed by the actual application of baptism, but, as it were per accidens, at least by its spiritual application through the desire of perfect will. The same therefore holds of translation into the state of the sons of God as regards the unbaptized as the Council expressly teaches of the justification of baptized sinners: in both cases, indeed, justification is effected by an act of perfect charity or contrition, yet after the Gospel, that is, after the institution of both sacraments as necessary means for justification and salvation, « the reconciliation itself is nevertheless not to be ascribed to contrition itself without the desire of the sacrament which is included in it. » In this sense, therefore, must be understood what St. Thomas said, that remission of sins can be obtained through the acts of the penitent « nevertheless insofar as these acts are in some way ordained to the keys of the Church; » that is, insofar as a man is spiritually joined to the sacrament, as a means necessary by Christ's institution for justification, through the desire of the sacrament of baptism or penance, which is included in contrition. This sense seems quite clearly expressed in the doctrine of the Tridentine synod, and Cardinal de Lugo defends it in a somewhat subtler discussion (On the Sacrament of the Eucharist, disp. III, sect. 1).

2°. Lest importunate difficulties be thrust upon us, three things are to be noted. a) The desire of the sacrament is included in the act of perfect charity or contrition, insofar as it is a general will to fulfil all divine precepts and to use all the means instituted by God as necessary for reconciliation. Whence it is not required that this desire of the sacrament be conceived as special and explicit; but indeed, in an act of charity elicited even by a man who knows nothing of, or does not think about, the necessity of the sacrament, that will, or that desire, is necessarily contained implicitly. b) Hence the difference between justification by an act of charity in the Old and in the New Testament is not on the side of man, as if in the New Testament a different and more explicit act were required than in the Old economy; but the difference lies in the objectively different economy itself, in that now there are some precepts and necessary institutions which previously did not exist; and therefore the general will to observe and to perform all things necessary now contains the implicit desire of the sacrament of baptism or penance, which previously it did not contain. On God's side, however, the act of forgiving sins and sanctifying by infusion of grace, now after the institution of the sacrament as a necessary means to justification, regards the spiritual conjunction of man with the sacrament itself through its implicit desire. c) This is not to be understood as if the sacrament, which is not actually conferred, exercised some efficacy and power by the work performed; but the whole power lies in the perfection of the disposition by the work of the one working. God, however (as has been said, and is plain from the doctrine of the Council), takes this work of the one working as the ultimate disposition for infusing grace, insofar as perfect charity includes the desire of baptism and, through this, union with the Church; and so, « counting the will as the deed, » he justifies the man and spiritually unites him before himself to the Church, not without relation to the visible sacrament as a necessary means instituted by himself.

3°. From what has been said it is clear how necessity of means differs from that which is only necessity of precept, not only as regards the internal grace, about which the matter is clear in itself, but also as regards the external means of the sacrament of baptism and of penance. For a) those which have only the necessity of precept are not instituted as causes for infusing grace, but are necessary only to avoid sin and to remove the obstacle to grace; whereas those which are of necessity of means have, by divine institution, the character of a cause for the infusion of grace. Although, therefore, in an act of charity and contrition there is implicitly contained, for example, the will to restore another's goods, as the will for baptism is contained, yet that is included only to exclude the will to sin, and thus to remove the obstacle to grace, without restitution itself being the cause of grace; whereas the desire of baptism is a will for a thing not only commanded but also instituted, so as to be per se an instrumental cause of grace. Hence the Council of Trent never said that justification is not to be ascribed to contrition without the will to fulfil all precepts, for this is already understood of itself and is contained in the very name of contrition, by which the will to sin is excluded; but on the contrary, although among all those precepts there is contained also the precept of the sacrament of baptism and penance, the holy Synod expressly distinguished these, and taught that no one can be transferred into the state of the sons of God without baptism or its desire, not only because, as in the other precepts, the will to sin must be excluded, but because Christ instituted baptism as the cause of regeneration: « unless one is born again of water and the Holy Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God; » and by a like reasoning the justification of a sinner within the Church is « not to be ascribed to contrition itself without the desire of the sacrament which is included in it » (see above, n. I.). b) Because of this character of cause, a second difference arises: namely that those which have only the necessity of precept⁸ are necessary so that no one sins and sets up an obstacle to grace, not as though they were themselves efficacious of grace; therefore all the conditions which excuse from sin, for example inculpable ignorance, also bring it about that they are not, and cannot be called, necessary for justification and salvation. But in those which are of necessity of means, conditions of this kind do indeed excuse from a new sin, yet by no means bring it about that they cease to be necessary means to the grace of which they are the cause, and consequently to salvation. Although, therefore, one who is invincibly ignorant of the existence or necessity of the sacrament is excused from sin on account of this his ignorance, yet he is not justified nor saved from sins otherwise contracted except through the implicit desire of the sacrament, as we have said, « which is counted as the deed before God. »

III. From the distinction declared, when we say that some are joined to the Church of Christ in the internal forum alone, « before God and the Church triumphant, » but not also in the external forum before the Church militant, and so not visibly but by « invisible sanctification without the visible sacraments, » and by the desire of the sacrament alone, « which is counted as the deed before God, » there could arise a doubt about how this doctrine is reconciled with the visibility of the Church.

But, first, the property of the Church by which she is conspicuous consists chiefly in conspicuous teaching, ministry and priesthood, and consequently in the visible exercise of authentic doctrine, sacred government, sacrifice and sacraments (th. XXI.); that all of these remain whole, and suffer no harm from the doctrine proposed in this thesis, is plain in itself.

Second, as regards the members of the Church, its visibility is by no means of such a kind that it must be known with infallible certainty, distributively of each one, that they truly and before God belong or do not belong to the Church; since with such certainty we know neither of each one's baptismal character, nor of their internal faith, nor of their immunity from excommunication. For the divine promise and revelation concerns not each of the members but the visibility of the Church. By it we are made certain, generally and cumulatively, of the whole body of those who are distinguished by external signs, that they belong not feignedly only but truly and before God to the Church of Christ on earth, with that infallible certainty by which God has promised that he will preserve his Church on earth — which is none other than visible and gathered from believing men — until the consummation of the age, and that by this very fact he will never permit that in her true faith, true administration of sacraments and sacrifice, and true communion under sacred government should fail. Nothing, however, is taken from this visible union and communion because some individuals in it are perhaps not true but feigned members; and much less does anything stand in its way that certain individuals are constituted members of the same Church only in the internal forum and before God, and not also in the external forum before the Church militant. With the visibility of the body of the Church safe, certain individuals can seem to be members of the Church and not truly be such before God; conversely, certain individuals can truly be members before God and not be seen as its members by the Church militant, because, as in the bad, so in the good, « the will is counted as the deed » before God, but not before men.