Do you have to believe in God to get into heaven?
Nearly 60% of the French claim they do not believe in God. Yet some of them still believe in life after death. So, what hope is there for someone who has never known God, who does not believe, or who has strayed from the faith? And what does the Church say about the salvation of those who sincerely seek the good?
Don Thomas Lapenne, who has been a priest at the Notre-Dame de Montligeon shrine, addresses these questions and recalls that salvation is primarily a gift of God offered to all.
What does it mean to “not believe in God”?
Before asking whether a non-believer can go to heaven, we must first clarify what we mean by “not believing.” There are, in fact, several possible scenarios.
Atheists assert that there is no God. In fact, they believe that there is no God.
Agnostics on the other hand believe that God may exist, but that they cannot reach or know Him. They therefore live as if God did not exist.
As for the term “non-believer,” we need to clarify what the word “belief” covers: does it refer to believing in God, believing in Christ, or, more broadly, acknowledging the existence of a reality greater than humankind and of an invisible world?
The word “godless” adds yet another dimension. In the Bible, it refers to someone who denies God and opposes Him. This may be someone who once had faith but no longer lives by it—sometimes following suffering, a traumatic experience, or a major life change.
Behind the single term “nonbeliever,” therefore, lie very different stories. And these personal circumstances matter when addressing the question of salvation.
First and foremost, salvation is a grace that must be accepted
God wants everbody to be saved. But how are we to understand salvation?
First stance: Salvation cannot be obtained through one’s own effort. “You don’t get to heaven by pulling on your own suspenders.” Salvation is not the result of human effort. It comes first and foremost from God.
When the apostles ask, “Who, then, can be saved?” Jesus replies that this is impossible for humans, but that everything is possible for God. Salvation is therefore a grace, a free gift offered by God and earned by Jesus Christ. However, a gift must also be received.
What matters then here is receptivity: How do I receive this salvation? Am I open to it? Does my heart remain open, in anticipation and longing, or does it close off, thinking it can be self-sufficient? Pride can preclude such acceptance.
Conversely, acknowledging one’s smallness and weaknesses leads one to ask, “Lord, save me. Lord, I need you.” Everything, then, comes from God, but a personal response is still necessary. Each person is called to freely accept the salvation offered to them.
Man “is not merely made for the earth”
Why does the afterlife continue to be attractive?
Even if faith in God is waning, the longing for an afterlife does not necessarily disappear. Why? Because human beings “are not made merely for this earth.” They carry within themselves a desire that transcends them: a desire for the infinite, for greatness, for light, for peace, and for justice. Yet they experience that these aspirations do not find their full fulfillment here on earth.
Some view this desire as merely a psychological projection or a utopian ideal. Yet it may also reveal something much deeper. Beneath immediate desires, beneath the pursuit of material possessions or consumerism, lies a longing for connection and truth, i.e. to love and be loved.
Thus, there is a restlessness in the human heart that Saint Augustine expresses in the Confessions: “You have made us for Yourself, Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in You. ” Our hearts, then, are searching for something—or even someone—that may be able to fulfill it. For it feels that no created good is sufficient to totally fulfill this longing.
The question of paradise ties in precisely with this yearning: Is there a form of fulfillment capable of satisfying this desire that humans carry within them?
Can those who do not know God be saved?
This question comes up regularly in Montligeon, especially when families come to entrust a deceased person who claimed not to know God or who was not baptized. Yet the Church cares for all people, since God desires the salvation of all, whether baptized or unbaptized. The Second Vatican Council addresses this very issue in Lumen gentium. In paragraph 16, it states that those who, “through no fault of their own,” are unaware of the Gospel but sincerely seek God and follow their conscience can be saved.
So there really is a possibility of salvation for those who do not explicitly know God. God is not limited by the human or earthly conditions we might set. A person may have been given a demeaning picture of the Church or of Christ. They may have experienced suffering and blamed God for it. They may also have grown up in a culture, an upbringing, or an environment where God had no place. This does not mean that God cannot find “a gap, a place to slip through, a small crack in that person’s life and say to them: ‘I am here; I am your Father; I am waiting for you; I am calling you; I am coming to save you. Will you receive salvation?’ ”
This grace works in mysterious ways in the heart of every person, who remains free to accept or reject it. Now we do not know the hearts of others. “We all have a chance and that’s extraordinary. It’s not like a big lottery with only a few winners.” The person who seeks what is good, follows his conscience, and acts with integrity can thus be reached by God.
In the Catholic faith, even God initiates the move: “It is not so much man who seeks God, but rather God who seeks man.” ” God comes to meet us in Jesus of Nazareth, but also through a word, for instance a word of comfort, or the presence of someone who provides support to another through a difficult time. God loves all people and desires their salvation. Therefore, anyone who seeks the good and acts upon it is already cooperating—even if they are not explicitly aware of it—in this work of God.
