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In earlier writings, I take "the communion of saints" referred to in the third article of the Apostles' Creed to be equivalent in meaning to what the Reformers called "the invisible church." In the light, however, of subsequent reflections written up in the attached entries, a different interpretation is evidently called for.

Wiki MarkupThe 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.

Wiki MarkupBy "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.unmigrated-wiki-markup

By "the invisible church," then, I do not mean simply "the people of God," but only those members thereof who have become such by accepting the call to membership in the holy catholic \ [visible\] church and whose response to that call is visible solely to God as a response of faith.unmigrated-wiki-markup

Thus the communion of saints is the community of all whom I have sometimes distinguished as the _explicitly_ called, together with all the various means \ -\- including things as well as persons \ -\- through which their call has explicitly come to them. Included within this encompassing community of the explicitly religious as well as of all who have a real option of becoming such is that much smaller community properly called "the holy catholic \ [visible\] church," understood as the community of all whom I distinguish from my Christian standpoint as the _decisively_ called. By the same token, the people of God is the community of all the chosen, or elect, whatever the means through which they have been called and by the right use of which through faith they have been chosen through their own choosing. Included, then, within this encompassing community of the chosen or elect is the much smaller community of the invisible church, understood as the community of all who have been chosen through the specifically Christian means of Christ and the holy catholic (visible) church with its word and sacraments \ -\- and faith.

In sum: what is properly meant by "the communion of saints" may be clarified by the following analogia proportionalitatis: as the holy catholic (visible) church is to the invisible church, so the communion of saints is to the people of God.

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