What is salvation?

Avery Cardinal Dulles has written a handy summary of the history of salvation and ecclesiology (theology on the nature of the Church): "Who Can Be Saved?" (hat tip: the glory of everything). For the most part, the article presupposes salvation as salvation in its final form as saving from eternal damnation. One paragraph stands out in describing salvation as something that begins now:

«To be blessed in this life, one must find the pearl of great price, the treasure hidden in the field, which is worth buying at the cost of everything one possesses. To Christians has been revealed the mystery hidden from past ages, which the patriarchs and prophets longed to know. By entering through baptism into the mystery of the cross and the Resurrection, Christians undergo a radical transformation that sets them unequivocally on the road to salvation. Only after conversion to explicit faith can one join the community that is nourished by the Word of God and the sacraments. These gifts of God, prayerfully received, enable the faithful to grow into ever greater union with Christ.»

This radically transformed life, however, is subordinated to the main theme of the article: salvation after death. It is this radically transformed life that gives Catholics the most complete preparation for the Last Judgment: and to those whom much is given, much is expected.

When I was growing up, salvation in and out of the Church was presented simply: those who know are responsible for adhering to the Church; those who don't aren't. This formula immediately made me think that it was better not to know because one had less responsibility. A great hero would be one who could obliterate the revelation of Old and New Testaments so that everyone else could attain heaven. This thought was a contradiction, a problem I faced in living the Christian faith, which is inherently missionary. I hesitated to announce the good news because I feared that it would bring damnation to its hearers.

How did I solve this problem? I was on a retreat with Jean Vanier in 1988. Jean Vanier taught us to look at our human needs, to face our weaknesses, struggles, and merde (in French, he told us of the farmers spreading the merde on the fields like butter to make things grow). The good news, he said, was the Beatitudes: blessed are those who mourn, who hunger and thirst, they shall be satisfied. It was then that I first recognized that Christ is the answer to the totality of my human needs. It was then that I recognized that I realized that Christ's incarnation is good news to everyone - the benefit is not merely freedom from the tyranny of death, but also the hundredfold of life now. To know this and not to follow is not merely failing to fulfill a religious burden - but worse, a foolish betrayal of one's own happiness.

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I cannot resist footnoting one moment in Dulles's history of ecclesiology:

«Origen and Cyprian, in the third century, formulated the maxim that has come down to us in the words Extra ecclesiam nulla salus — ”Outside the Church, no salvation.”»

The full context of Origen's phrase is: «Outside Rahab's house [i.e. the house of the redeemed prostitute], the Church, no salvation.»

When put that way, Extra ecclesiam nulla salus is less a triumphalist cry and more a confession of the particular place where we encounter God's mercy upon us.