Communion of saints

THE COMMUNION OF SAINTS
has repented. Tor the sake of ten I will not destroy it' (Gen.
18.32). He can see the whole people in a few individuals, just as
he saw and reconciled the whole of mankind in one man. Here
the problem of vicarious action arises, which we deal with later.
When the collective person is addressed ('He who has an ear, let
him hear what the Spirit says to the churches'—Rev. 2 and 3),
the conscience of each individual person is addressed. Each
person, however, has only one conscience, which is valid for him
both as a member of the collective person, and as an individual.
For there are not two strata in man, one social and one private;
a man is structurally a unity, and it is only the directional intentions
which can be in conflict in him. He must know himself
and make decisions as an inner unity, must not therefore blindly
subject himself to the concrete claims of the collective person, but
struggle through to an integrated decision of the will. Only
upon such integrated persons is the ethical community built.
Our conception of collective guilt is thus not that of a fault deriving
from certain contents or parts of the soul ;
but the concrete
form of collective guilt is
person.
the total guilt of the integrated
These insights now have to be applied to the concept of mankind.
Mankind is the universal community comprising all
communities. The participation in its life as a community is
authenticated by the affirmation of life lived in fellowship with
others.
For this always exists within the collective human person.
It too, like every person, is capable of receiving the ethical call, as
it can be heard for the whole of mankind in the story of Jesus
Christ. The collective human person has a heart. The individual
authenticates his participation in this in its ethical
aspect, that is, by every act of repentance and recognition of guilt.
The collective person's heart beats at the point where the individual
recognises himself both as an individual and as the race,
and bows to God's demand. Here is the seat of its moral unity;
it has in reality one conscience, in so far as every man is Adam.
It is a structural peculiarity of the mankind of Adam that it
breaks up into many isolated individuals, even though it is
united as mankind, which has sinned as a whole; it is 'Adam',
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