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The important terms in this alternative interpretation are not only "the holy catholic [visible] church," "the invisible church," and "the communion of saints," but also "the people of God." By "the people of God," I understand (in terms analogous to Maurice's) humanity in right relation to God (or, more generally, strictly ultimate reality), even as I understand "the world" to mean humanity out of such right relation. Thus the people of God is invisible in the same sense in which the invisible church is -- and for the same reason: because it includes all human beings who understand themselves authentically and are therefore visible as doing so to God alone, i.e., all true Christians as well as all other persons who actualize substantially the same self-understanding, albeit through means other than the specifically Christian means of salvation. By "the communion of saints," then, I understand the encompassing community of holy persons and holy things in which the invisible people of God so understood is visibly realized.

By "the holy catholic [visible] church," I understand the primary Christian means of salvation: the sacrament or sign not only of the grace of God through Jesus Christ but also of Christian faith in God – --   Jesus Christ himself being the primal Christian sacrament or sign, even as the so-called sacraments of the church are all secondary Christian means, . But just as the grace of God through Jesus Christ is but a specific (exhibitive) mediation of the meaning of strictly ultimate reality for us, so Christian faith in God is but a specific (apprehensive) mediation of authentic self-understanding in relation to that meaning. Precisely in being the primary Christian sacrament or sign, however, the visible church is the sublation of the communion of saints, in that one cannot participate in it without thereby participating in the indefinitely larger community comprising all holy persons and holy things, non-Christian as well as Christian.

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              2. Thus one could say, in a formulation parallelling paralleling but materially differing from Maurice's, that the people of God is simply humanity in right relation to God, while the world is that same human community out of right relation to God.

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3. The church in this sense, however, is the invisible church, which is to be distinguished although never separated from the visible church -- analogously to the way in which the unincarnate Christ as the implicit primal source of our authentic existence is to be distinguished although never separated from the incarnate Christ through whom this source is explicitly and decisively re-presented.

4. The visible church, then, is the primary sign or sacrament of God's rule and of the invisible community of authentic response to this rule, Jesus Christ being their primal primal sign or sacrament.