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SALVATION OF THE CONTEMPORARY
NON-BELIEVER
A P O S T - C H R I S T I A N AGE
It is being said with increasing frequency that these are post- Christian times. The age upon which we are now embarking is seen not as one among many periods of history dominated by unbelievers, but as something quite different. Its spirit is atheistic; not one which argues heatedly for the proposition "God is dead" but which takes it for granted or considers the question irrelevant. Contempo- rary man, by and large, does not believe, does not want to believe. Faith in God is too far away for him; mystery religion and any connotation of the supernatural is meaningless and looked upon as a kind of gnosis. No longer is it possible to take for granted a sub- stratum of theological assumptions. The new vitality the Church has come to know within herself is no contradiction to this general God-less condition which surrounds her. Indeed this very alienation from God may in part explain the renewal of life within the Church. However the vision of the Christian Church as triumphant within world society seems to be fading. In its philosophical presuppositions this atheism is a denial of order and meaning in nature and things. There are no laws fixed by a God (however distant) and open to the mind of man, as there were for Greek, Roman, medieval, and even modern man all the way down to Freud. The only intelligibility is that which man himself imposes; man who now has become the measure of all things. There is a reflection of this in art and empirical science. Art has long since abandoned traditional forms which convey intelligibility in favor of purely imaginative symbols. In literature the irrational and the rebellious are extolled; our most significant drama is the so-called "theatre of the absurd" emanating from France and Germany. The search for personal identity that agonizes so many characters in contemporary literature is expressive of this existentialist truth that
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man has no meaning save what he gives to himself. And in empirical science what were once "laws" discovered in things are now spoken of as hypotheses created by the human mind without objective foundation.
Theologically, the counterpart to this is that the only destiny man has is one he creates for himself. A main tenet for contemporary atheism is the rejection of salvation, a rejection moreover seen as an act of courage. For Corliss Lamont this is the only response in keeping with true human dignity; the french author Thorez sees no other response worthy of man who knows himself swallowed up in nothingness. M. Blanchot writes of the purpose of spiritual life being discovered only in the non-existence of salvation. At bottom this is an assertion of absolute human autonomy. Man is alone and there is no Other. There is nothing to be saved from (he has no concept of sin) and nothing to be saved for ("eternal life" is a meaningless phrase).
Like it or not the Christian is part of the post-Christian world. The very Church of God, visible society that she is, is incorporated in the cities of men. The original and continuing advent of God to his people is always historically conditioned. We cannot avoid the truth that we are made of matter and as such subject to the cate- gories of time and space. In short we are historical beings and salva- tion comes to us within this historical process as a contingent event. The Church then cannot but be attentive to these historical condi- tions in which "de facto" she has her existence. She must consider the "location" of contemporary man if, in any effective way, she is to address the word of God to him.
T H E PROBLEM These reflections on the "location" of contemporary man serve to raise an old problem with new urgency. Really there are two aspects to the question: (1) first, is it possible for such non-believers to be saved? and granting some sort of affirmative reply; (2) how can and does the Church (if she be the totality of the means of salvation) mediate this salvation? The concern here is not with salvation by way of conversion to the Church, not with the possi-
into the state called Limbo. This at least is the contention of Cardinal Billot. However the context and the whole procedure of St. Thomas in this place indicate that what is said here is to be understood against the background of the Gospel adequately promulgated everywhere. These are the formulations, the articulations necessary for one whom revelation has reached. On the contrary, the modern agnostic should rather be numbered among the non-evangelized. Christ has not been revealed to him for what He is; the obstacle may be something as commonplace as inherited prejudices, collective complexes, etc. At any rate, it does not seem that such can be looked upon as men who understanding or being able to understand, refuse belief. St. Thomas writes elsewhere "Whoever does what he can will be saved."^2 Father Ricardo Lombardi has attempted a solution by reducing the material object of faith here required to the barest minimum.^3 All that need be believed is that God exists and rewards the good. This is readily accessible to all, especially in the light of God's universal salvific will, and suffices for salvation. However minimal, it is none- theless an explicit faith. As salvific it must be supernatural. Attempts have been made to explain this supernaturality in terms of an assent to revelation. One such explanation supposes the perdurance of a primitive revelation. But there seems no evidence for this, and indeed after so many centuries the suspicion of the contrary seems more likely. Another explanation might be the extraordinary intervention and direct illumination by God. Both St. Augustine and St. Thomas speak of this possibility. It has been suggested that this might occur most frequently at the moment of death, as the soul is in the process of leaving the body. But this, too, is unsatisfactory. It would mean that the extraordinary intervention of God would have to be the common thing, and as Fr. Charles Davis remarks, the extraordinary acts of God should be reserved for extraordinary events. At any rate, in this explanation the non-believer is saved, but only by becoming in fact a believer, though in the barest sense of that term. A principal difficulty with the theory is its excessive juridic, almost casuistic character.
(^2) 3 Q. D., De Ver., q. 14, a. 11, ad 1. Salvation of the Unbeliever, Burns and Oates, London, 1956.
I M P L I C I T F A I T H THAT IS SALVIFIC? But are there any possibilities for salvation without such explicit faith? St. Thomas opens up a suggestive line of thought here in his well known (though perhaps not too well understood) teaching on the first moral act in each man's life. Upon arriving at the age of reason man first of all deliberates about himself, "... and if he directs himself towards the true end, grace is given him and original sin is remitted."^4 What seems to be involved here is the act of freedom, wherein man makes free and decisive determination of his own destiny. It doesn't seem necessary to envision this reaching the age of reason as occurring in one isolated act; more probably it is the consequence of many acts in which reason is to some degree operative. But neither would it seem to demand any explicit aware- ness of God. As morally good or vicious there would be intrinsic to such an act an orientation towards God or an imputable aversion from him. Between good and evil there is no neutrality, and the good ultimately is God himself. What the will is doing implicitly is choosing its ultimate end which will specify its entire moral life. This end "de facto" is supernatural; there is no other destiny for man. Also, the inner movement of God's grace can readily be assumed. These would suffice to constitute the act as supernatural, and would thus amount to a merely implicit yet seemingly salvific faith. The terminology is that of Yves Congar;^5 Father Gardeil in an earlier work refers to it as an intentional faith, radicated in man's good disposition ("praeparatio animae") regarding his last end.^6 Appeal to "intentions" and "good dispositions" suggest the extension of invin- cible ignorance to the material object of faith. The position is not without its difficulties, especially regarding the supernaturality. The end of such an act is supernatural really ("ut res"), but is it such precisely as object specifying the act? It hardly can be except, once again, implicitly or virtually. However, this could well suffice, grant- ing the subjective animation by grace. The German Fr. Seckler attempts a further explanation of the supernaturality necessary here
* Summa 6 Theol., I-II, q. 89, a. 6. 6 "Salvation^ and^ the^ Non-Catholic,"^ Blackfriars,^ July-August,^ 1957,^ 290. La Crédibilité et l'Apologetique, 1912.
In this same line of thought can be enumerated Fr. Charles Davis who characterizes the minimum faith necessary for salvation as "embryonic."^8 It demands an inner enlightenment due to God's grace enabling the individual to discern signs of his supernatural destiny, whose origin and end are God. This rests upon no historical revela- tion of explicit message from God but the mere recognition of his moral helplessness, the experience of the deprivations of his fallen nature. This occasions in man the presentation of a moral ideal which transcends the ethical and actually is (although not recognized as such) the supernatural.
H o w I s T H I S I M P L I C I T F A I T H CONCRETELY REALIZED? Supposing that the possibility of such a faith—implicit, exis- tential, or embryonic, yet truly salvific—can be envisioned within theological science, certain reflections of a less technical nature seem called for. How exactly, in more concrete and human terms, is such implicit faith realized? First of all it is helpful to see the act of faith as a highly personal encounter with God, one involving not only cognitional but volitional and affective elements, as well, and engag- ing the deepest sources within human personality, especially human liberty. It is an ultimate commitment, inter-personal in nature, wherein the soul responds to a summons from God coming at once on the social and the individual plane, and uniquely marked by the sweet contingencies of God's love.
It may further help to note that the implicitness of this requisite faith need not be a logical one, one consisting in an objective nexus between two propositional truths, the admission of one being thus the admission of the other idea virtually contained therein. Rather it would appear to be more a real implicitness, in the sense of a moral encounter that initiates a response which of its very nature tends toward God, yet non-conceptually. The psychology of faith also may serve to bring us closer to an understanding of what occurs here between God and the soul. In adults who arrive at the fulness of faith from a state of unbelief, conversion comes gradually and at the end of a long process. The
8 Theology for Today, Sheed & Ward, New York, 1962, 114-120.
faith takes hold at first in a somewhat rudimentary way and under- goes a gradual process of growth. Yet from the very beginning there is assent to God. In a parallel way the faith of the Church herself undergoes this evolutionary growth—not as regards the essential content of that faith, it is true, but as regards her deepening penetra- tion into the intelligibilities of that faith, the explicitation of it. The original presentation of divine truth by Christ Himself sug- gests that He operated on just this level. Truth is constantly offered in parables. The explicit truth is frequently veiled in image. Our Lord appears to seek less a sort of credal affirmation than to discern a certain openness of heart. The dialogue at the well with the woman of Samaria comes readily to mind. What Christ seeks to implant is some recoil from isolation in self, from that egotistic "aloneness" deriving from wounded nature. When he heals the man born blind he says to him "Dost thou believe in the Son of God?", however, at this point the blind man has as yet no explicit knowledge as to who Christ is. In his response to being cured Christ perceives only the beginnings of faith. And yet surely even at this point the blind man is among the saved. Fr. Yves Congar in a theological reflection upon this states sug- gestively that every event is at the same time and on a higher level a sign.^6 It contains and reveals an inner meaning that is in an order to God Himself. In this sense nothing is trivial and all things have some relevancy to God's predestining designs. The Resurrection of Christ is one thing as historical event; it is quite another as mystery. The reading of the sign amounts to a sort of revelation, and this is dependent upon a certain good disposition of soul. Most of all, perhaps, this "sign" will appear in contact with one's neighbor. Here one is brought face to face with the mystery of another person, which is in its own order an absolute. This could well be a hidden encounter with God, all the more so since one's fellowman is made to God's image and may well bear God dwelling in him by grace. Somewhat in confirmation of this are our Lord's (^9) The Wide World, My Parish, trans, by Donald Attwater, Helicon Press, Baltimore, 1961. For many of the observations which follow I am indebted to this work of Fr. Congar.
of man's return motion towards God. So it is not saying too much to speak of these saving responses as unconsciously assimilative to Christ. There remains efficient causality. If the Church cannot minister here through her sacraments, there is still what is called the "sacra- ment" of the word—the exercise in varied ways of her teaching power. To what extent she shall speak to the non-evangelized depends upon what is taught, and the highly contemporary meaningfulness of such teaching, especially since the teaching act is here a non- authoritative one. But there are truths which these men must have and which can come only from her. Purely by way of suggestion some of these might be: (a) The doctrine of salvation —not mere personal fulfillment but genuine salvation, salvation from hell and damnation (man can fail, though modern man knows only success or a kind of neutral non- achievement) and salvation for heaven, not merely an escape from the unpleasantness of this life, not a superficial and worldly imagined place, but a true destiny, the recovery of an original order of truth and goodness and beauty that was lost through sin. (b) A concept of sin —which elsewhere is in danger of being lost. Atonement, expiation etc. are positive concepts compared to anxiety, dread, guilt feelings, loss of identity etc. which agonizes the soul of contemporary man. There may well be some psychological awareness of the consequences of original sin, an experience of helplessness that might initiate the turning of man to God. (c) Human freedom —are we really free enough to lose all or gain all? Mis-conceptions here are rampant. Conformity, technology, mass communication have resulted in major distortions. And it is the deeper, religious dimension of liberty that has suffered. (d) The Powers of Satan—even if it is God who is being honored in the name of these ideals which occasion implicit faith, still objec- tively these are not God, and there is always the danger that sub- jectively they will become idols. If the Powers of Satan of which St. Paul writes do not work so often nowadays in ways perceptible to the senses, could this not be because these ideals are more effec- tive ways of "possessing" people? These powers of darkness, personal
and collective, are at enmity with Christ, and they can incite to a choice of direction in life that is self-seeking rather than self-giving. Absolutes such as peace, progress, brotherhood, race, nation etc. can fail utterly to point to God, they can issue in a use of the world which denies Christian implications. All of these truths, of course, are specifically Christian ones. What is suggested here is that the nonbeliever will make his own adaptation, entering into an understanding of these truths in what- ever ways are possible to him. Neither is this to exclude other mediations, less easy to conceptualize, perhaps, on the level of charity, the lived Christian life.
D I S C U S S I O N : O T H E R PERSPECTIVES Finally, these considerations perhaps suggest a re-thinking of other, allied theological positions. (1) The Universal Salvific Will of God. Where unbelievers are concerned is there not a tendency, within certain theological pre- sentations at least to reduce this to a mere velleity, or to see it exclusively as an instance of the antecedent will of God? (2) Secondly, the Descent of Christ into Hell. Could not this have been for the sake of rendering the implicit faith of those who preceded Christ explicit. The accomplishment of this would be (in this hypothesis) by way of a personal contact with Christ. And if there be truth to this could not the Parousia have similar effects? (3) The "Eschaton." Is it proper to conceive of this as involving a major and externally manifested triumph of the Church, of the minority who are believing Christians, over all of mankind? Or should this rather be conceived in terms of a more universal claiming of the "good"? (4) The Number of the Predestined? Is it true to speak in the terms of the Fathers who practically unanimously teach that the number of the "lost" is comparatively speaking, much larger than that of the saved? Must the scriptural texts be interpreted in this manner? Can this common teaching be lightly set aside as a conclu- sion imperated by historical considerations we now know to be untrue?
