Introduction: “How inscrutable His ways”
Hello, I’m Mark Hornbacher. You’re watching lesson five of module three of the Online Basic Evangelization Training video series. The module is “Theology of Evangelization”, and the course is “The Economy of Salvation and the Role of the Church.”
What is the “economy of salvation”? The Catechism of the Catholic Church defines “the economy of salvation” as “God’s activity in creating and governing the world, particularly with regard to his plan for the salvation of the world in the person and work of Jesus Christ, a plan which is being accomplished through his Body the Church, in its life and sacraments.”
What is God’s plan for the salvation of the world? In the previous courses of this series, we considered various elements of God’s plan. Now we get a chance to go a bit deeper.
I want to start our reflections with a very important truth: God’s plan of salvation reflects His infinite Goodness, Wisdom, and Love. Following the Sacred Scriptures, the Church teaches that God IS HIMSELF GOODNESS, WISDOM, AND LOVE – embracing all that He creates. He can’t do anything that doesn’t flow from this. God is “a good, good Father.” He is merciful and just. He is perfect. Whatever God does, He does well.
I’ve known this truth from almost the moment I began my personal journey of faith as a teenager. But even so, years later I discovered a secret fear in my heart: the fear that God might not really be all-good, all-wise, and all-loving.
Now, the true sources of that fear were my own insecurities. Some bad experiences led me to fear that God wasn’t good; and that I — created by God — wasn’t good.
These deep insecurities colored the way that I saw various aspects of Christian teaching. Especially things like evil, the narrowness of the road to salvation, the necessity of the Church, divine judgment, and hell. I admit, these are difficult teachings in themselves. But they are important elements of God’s plan of salvation in the Scriptures and the preaching of the Church.
Because I believed that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, I knew that I must also believe these difficult things He taught. And so I sought to understand them better. I asked a lot of questions about God’s plan of salvation, and tried to stay close to the Lord in prayer.
Here are some of the questions I asked:
Why the Church? Why must people become part of the Catholic Church? What is it about the life of the Church that is so important — even necessary — for salvation?
And a related question: What about non-Catholics? They are Christian, but not members of the Catholic Church. They practice their faith in certain ways that are contrary to God’s perfect plan – outside the unity, authority, faith, and Sacramental life of the One Church – and most of them both live and die this way. … What do we make of this? Is there hope for their salvation?
Another question I asked has to do with non-Christians. Faith in Jesus Christ is necessary for salvation. There are many, though, who through no fault of their own, never get a chance to adequately hear the Gospel and respond to it. So I asked, since they have gone without the Son of God in life, must they also — of necessity — be without Him in eternity?
Should we say that all these people, who apparently die outside the one ark of salvation, have therefore, without exception, “died in their sins”?
Other questions that I asked concerned evil, divine judgment, and the eternal punishment of hell. What role do these play in God’s plan of salvation?
In my journey of faith, asking and answering these questions (and others like them) has been important.
In this fifth course of the Theology of Evangelization video series, we will not be able to answer all of these questions fully, but we will try to begin to answer them. And we will try to do so in the light of the teaching of the Sacred Scriptures and the Church, and with respect for the mystery of God’s Eternal Wisdom which orders all things.
In his Letter to the Romans (11:32-36), after discussing the mystery of sin, and of the economy of grace by which God calls all to salvation, Saint Paul exclaims:
O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor? Or who has given a gift to him, to receive a gift in return? For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever. Amen.
In the end, the economy of salvation is a mystery. It is a plan formed in the heart of God from eternity for our good and for His glory. We’ve all — I trust — tasted and seen the goodness of the Lord; and as we seek Him, we will do so again. So we don’t need to understand His plan fully, nor can we. We shouldn’t insist that we understand His plan fully before submitting to it. Instead, we should abandon ourselves to the All-Good, All-Wise, and All-Loving God. And then glorify Him in faith – trusting Him that everything that He does, He does well.