Is the Church Necessary for Salvation?

Salvation is the central message of Christian good news. This is shown in ancient inscriptions like the Ichthus (fish), which spell out the claim: Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior.

Christianity proclaims a way to salvation, but does it proclaim the way? This is the question of whether the Church is just useful for achieving salvation, or whether it is necessary.

Critics of Christianity have sometimes suggested that Christians have a serious problem with this question, that there is a necessity dilemma. Either the Church is necessary (as Exclusivists claim) or it is not necessary (as Inclusivists claim). Yet both options present serious problems for Christians. This means that if Christians try to choose either, neither or both approaches, they all lead to muddled and troubled outcomes.

This dilemma is not a real problem. Nevertheless, probing it can help to clarify exactly what Christianity is trying to say when it uses the word “necessary” to describe the Church and salvation.

Exclusivism

Exclusivism is the view that membership in the Church is absolutely necessary to salvation. Reasons for taking such a position are illustrated in JP Nunez’ article “Why the Church is necessary for Salvation.” This approach often appeals to biblical texts like Mark 16:16, which states that “whoever believes and is baptized will be saved; whoever does not believe will be condemned.” On the surface this seems clear. Either people enter the Church (through baptism) and can thus access salvation. Or people don’t enter the Church through baptism, and so… a question arises. Can the unbaptized access salvation?

Historically, there have been many prominent Christians proclaiming the necessity of baptism and the Church. Details can be found by searching the phrase “Outside the Church there is no salvation” (Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus).

But Exclusivism is a problematic position. If baptism and Church membership are absolutely necessary for salvation, then what of all those people who have never had the opportunity to be baptized? Are they all condemned to be excluded from salvation?

The Catholic Church has historically rejected such a conclusion. In 1953 a Jesuit priest, Leonard Feeney, was even excommunicated for insisting upon Exclusivism. The 1992 Catechism of the Catholic Church reiterates this conclusion, making it clear that there can be salvation without actual baptism and Church membership (paragraph 1260).

So, if the Exclusivist horn of the dilemma is to be rejected, this leaves Inclusivism.

Inclusivism

Advocates of Inclusivism often appeal to Biblical texts like 1 Timothy 2:4, which states that God “wants all people to be saved.” Inclusivists argue that if this idea is to be taken seriously, then salvation must be available to the unbaptized.

Historically there have been various prominent Christians and perspectives which have argued for versions of Inclusivism. Examples can be found by searching Universalism.

But Inclusivism raises its own problems. If baptism isn’t necessary for salvation, then what is the point of missionary activity and evangelization? Was the missionary focus of the Apostles mistaken? Given the traditional focus of Christianity, does this mean that Christianity needs totally re-thinking?

Responding to questions like this the Catholic Church has always rejected the extremes of Inclusivism, insisting that baptism is, and remains, absolutely necessary for salvation. The Catechism of the Catholic Church even makes the point by having a subsection entitled: “The Necessity of Baptism.”

Exclusivism or Inclusivism?

Neither Exclusivism nor Inclusivism seem to fit with what Christians want to say. And so the Catechism of the Catholic Church rejects both positions, insisting that baptism is necessary for salvation, but also stating that people can reach salvation without baptism.

It is at this point that the critic steps forward and wags a finger. If baptism is both necessary and not-necessary, then it is beginning to look like there is a serious muddle, or even a contradiction. The critic insists that Christians must make a choice: either Exclusivism or Inclusivism. People cannot muddle their way to choose bits of both theories as that just results in the incoherence of saying that baptism is both necessary and not-necessary. So, what is it to be, which horn of the necessity dilemma are Christians going to take?

Actually there is a very simple solution because the critic is unfairly narrowing the options, to produce an instance of the fallacy of the false dilemma. The insistence that Christians must choose between Exclusivism or Inclusivism is mistaken because it ignores the fact that there is a third option available. In order to see why this is the case we need to turn to the issue of Divine Omnipotence.

Omnipotence

In discussions of God’s Omnipotence, it is customary to distinguish between what is logically necessary and what is physically necessary. For example, a triangle has three sides. It is logically necessary that a triangle have three sides because tri-angle means three sides. If a shape has more, or less, than three sides, then (logically) it just could not be a triangle. It is therefore logically necessary that a triangle have three sides.

An important part of what it means to be true by logical necessity is that denying a logical necessity results in a contradiction. For example, denying that a triangle has three sides results in the claim that a three-sided shape does not have three sides.

A very different type of necessity occurs when we talk about how it is necessary for a human to have air. If a human lacks air, then suffocation, drowning or another form of asphyxiation will occur. This means that air is necessary for human beings.

But a human’s need for air is a physical necessity, not a logical necessity. This is because there is no contradiction involved in describing a human living without air. We may not be able to imagine such a situation, but its description is not contradictory in the way that four-sided triangle would be.

When theologians like St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) considered the question of Divine Omnipotence, he distinguished between physical necessity and logical necessity (Summa Theologiae Part 1, Q.25, a.3). Physical necessity describes laws of nature and the operation of a natural world. But God can go beyond what is physically necessary, as the limits of divine power are determined by logic, not physics.

For example, God’s Omnipotence cannot make a four-sided triangle because that is a contradiction. Contradictions are not-things. They are a confusion of language which results in nothing. Saying that God cannot do the not-thing of a contradiction is therefore not a limitation on God, as the contradiction is literally a nothing, that God cannot do.

However, God’s Omnipotence could (miraculously) bring about a situation where a person can live without air, because that is merely going beyond the limits of physical necessity.

Understanding omnipotence is a little more complicated than just the issues of logical and physical necessity; however, it is those two concepts which help to explain the issues involved in necessity and salvation.

How the Church Is Necessary for Salvation

When Christians have traditionally declared that baptism (and the Church) are absolutely necessary for salvation, they are referring to a physical necessity. They are saying that it is absolutely impossible for human beings to do anything which could lead to salvation, unless it involves baptism and the Church. This physical necessity gives rise to the strong Exclusivist sounding claims that baptism and Church membership are absolutely necessary for salvation.

However, Christians have also understood that Divine Omnipotence can miraculously go beyond the limitations of physical necessities. Human beings may be limited to the necessity of physical processes like baptism (or breathing air) but God’s omnipotence is only limited by logic. It represents no logical contradiction to say that someone can access salvation without baptism, so this represents a logically possible state of affairs which God can bring about.

This means that baptism is indeed absolutely (physically) necessary for salvation, but there can be (logical) exceptions because of God’s Omnipotence. The 1992 Catechism sums up this distinction with a quote: “God has bound salvation to the sacrament of Baptism, but he himself is not bound by his sacraments” (paragraph 1257).

Understanding the two different types of necessity means that we can easily see the false dilemma between Exclusivism and Inclusivism. Assuming that the necessity of salvation must be either Exclusivism or Inclusivism is mistaken, because such an approach assumes that there is only one type of necessity.

Once the necessity dilemma collapses then it removes the problematic consequences of each horn of the dilemma. It means that salvation is necessarily linked to baptism, without implying that the unbaptized cannot access salvation.

But it also means that even though the unbaptized can access salvation, missionary and evangelization activity are still critically important. Just because God can break physical necessities (by working miracles) it does not mean that people should plan on that occurring. For example, a person would be very unwise to go to the bottom of the sea with no breathing equipment, just because God could work a miracle and keep the person alive without air. Planning for, or expecting, a miracle in such circumstances would be presumptuously wrong and recklessly dangerous.

Similarly, Christians have traditionally insisted upon evangelizing and missionary activity because it would be presumptuously wrong and recklessly dangerous to expect God to miraculously intervene to bring about salvation, when there is a physical process which can be used instead.

What all this means is that there is no dilemma or incoherence in proclaiming that the Church is necessary for salvation, but that there can also be exceptions. It also means that just because there can be exceptions, this does not mean that preaching, evangelization and missionary activity should not remain a critically important aspect of Christianity.