Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus? Extra Civitas Nulla Salus!
Autor: Isva | Publicado: 2010-02-24T13:53:00-08:00






Nunes, Vanilson R.Outside the Church no Salvation?Outside Society no Salvation!“Outside the Church no salvation” is in the first place a Theological expression of the Church’s self-understanding in certain period of time and space. It is a sociologically and historically located dogma. In order to apply this dogma in a different historical and social context, the Church needs to review it vis-à-vis the development of her identity within such a context. Therefore, how can we approach this dogma today, considering the definition of society and religion – and their relation – as presented by Emile Durkheim? First of all, Religion for Durkheim is a combined code of principles and customs, beliefs and rites related to sacred things. Durkheim defines beliefs as “state of opinion and rites as determined mode of action.”  We can only define the rites after defining the beliefs. Such principles and customs gather together into a singular moral community, the church, everybody who adheres to them, professing the same beliefs and performing the same rites. The adhesion implies the free acceptance of the collective representations as types of ideas and the modes of action peculiar to the group the individuals admit to belong to. In this sense, Religion for Durkheim is something essentially common, “a system of ideas whose object is to explain the world”  and whose function is to unite individuals into one collective group and to define what is sacred and what is profane. Second, Durkheim understands Society as the representation of the moral rules and principles shared and carried out by a group of persons.  Society is something transcendent to us and at the same time immanent to our own selves. To him, when these social restraints become anchored in the consciousness of individuals, they become the guidelines and controls of attitudes of such individuals within their groups. Accordingly, there would be no need for impositions of any rule or principle from outside, once the moral obligation drives the individuals to obedience.  However, if such restraints are weakened, the individuals will lose sight of their common goal and control over their desires. Durkheim argues that whenever such norms, customs and principles are confused, broken-down, or simply absent, there is a state of “anomie”. Therefore, the way each individual interacts and behaves with regard to the norms, customs and principles of his/her group will show his/her adhesion or non-adhesion to the group. In addiction to that, such rules and principles must be understood and interpreted the way the whole group means it, not by private interpretation for, according to Durkheim, “man is more vulnerable to self-destruction the more he is detached from any collectivity, that is to say, the more he lives as an egoist.”  In other words, outside the social group, Outside Society there is no Salvation.Thus we come to our main reflection, Outside the Church no Salvation as a theological expression is first and foremost historically conditioned and sociologically located.  It represents the ideal, or rather the way people relate to each other within their own social, religious group, as well as with those outside such group in a determined time and place. As a dogma, it has influenced the way the Church sees and expresses its beliefs and modes of action in the world. It began as a belief of some individuals within the Church and progressively evolved into a mode of action of the Church members towards those outside, so as to speak, the confines of the Church.During the first three centuries, this belief was used as a restraining force against those believers who gave up catholic faith and adhered to pagan or schismatic sects, thus, refusing to maintain the communion.  This formula was used basically by the bishops who were entrusted with the pastoral care of the community, ensuring its unity. St. Ignatius of Antioch, for instance, alerted his community of Philadelphia: “be not deceived, my brethren: if anyone follows a maker of schism, he does not inherit the Kingdom of god; if anyone walks in strange doctrine he has no part in the passion.”  From a persecuted church to the official religion of the empire, by the end of the fourth century, Christianity changed its way of looking at those belonging to the minority religious groups. The Church warned pagans and Jews that there was no excuse in not adhering to the church’s teaching, once there was a belief that the Gospel of Jesus Christ had been preached worldwide by then.  To exclude Christian heretics and schismatics from salvation was understood as the just punishment for their anomie against the unity of the body of Christ. During the sixth and the subsequent centuries, the doctrine became more severe. Everybody must adhere to the Church’s teaching. Those who refused to do so were condemned to hell. Such a belief remained in the church for centuries. It was only during the medieval period, that this belief first came to be stated as a doctrine of faith. In that occasion, Pope Boniface VII issued his bull Unam Sanctam  (November 18, 1302) where he blatantly declared that there is no salvation outside the Catholic Church. The doctrine was used to emphasize the supremacy of papal authority over both the temporal and spiritual powers (the two swords) against dissident kings. Christianity was centralized in Europe and unaware of a world beyond the European boundaries. Consequently, there was no need for theological reflection since everything was related to the church. All those who refused to adhere to the Church’s teaching, the unbelievers, were guilty of grave sin and were excommunicated. However, with the “discovery” of the Americas and Asia, their viewpoint was drastically challenged. There were not only many other different cultures but also many other different beliefs, people who surely had never heard a single word about Jesus Christ. With this discovery, the theologians had to reformulate, reanalyze and reconsider their hypotheses about those who had heard the Gospel and decided not to adhere to the Church’s teaching. Outside the Church no Salvation then, was functioning to protect the church’s doctrine against “outsider beliefs” that could disturb its members, the Europeans, and profane its “purity”. The belief then was that what was within the boundaries of that society known as the church – and European culture – was sacred, and what was not was considered profane and guilty of grave sin. The development of this dogma from a negative into a more positive understanding about salvation was only possible after centuries. The development of human sciences such as Anthropology, Sociology, Theology, Psychology and Philosophy has helped the Church to dialogue with the world and understand that people can indeed have a life of grace based on faith, hope and love, and other gifts of the Holy Spirit outside its boundaries. Vatican II represents the greatest change in the Church’s mentality about the world and salvation. According to Vatican II, there is in the Church a hierarchy of truths which recognizes that first and foremost, God wills the salvation of all humanity, for even those who have not yet heard the Gospel “are related to the People of God in various ways.”  The means to attain salvation come only as secondary truths. In making memory of the past, the Church looks forward to the future things. Perhaps the substance of this dogma still remains the same for the Church. However, the Church has evolved in her understanding and perspective of humanity and the way she relates to society, since the Church is intimately related to it. In this regard, Durkheim would conclude that when human beings celebrate sacred things, they unconsciously celebrate the power of their society which surpasses their own being in such a way that they have to give it sacred meaning in order to visualize it.  Such has been the power of Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus. It warned people in the beginning; expelled others in other times, but as time went by, it brought the Church into a deeper reflection and understanding of God and Humanity altogether. ReferenceThe Hewett School-Norwich, Sociology at Hewett: the Durkheim page [accessed June 28, 2006] available at http://www.hewett.norfolk.sch.uk/curric/soc/durkheim/durk.htmDunman, Joe L. 1999, Glossary: key terms and ideas critical to understanding Durkheim and his work [acessed June 28, 2006] available at http://www.durkheim.itgo.com/glossary.htmlDunman, Joe L. 1999, Religion [accessed June 28, 2006] available at http://www.durkheim.itgo.com/religion.htmlSullivan, Francis A. Salvation outside the church? New York: Paulist Press, 1992Durkheim, Emile. The Elementary Forms of The Religious Life. Translated from the French by Joseph Ward Swain. New York: The Free Press, 1969.