4468. 'And we will be one people' means being joined together in doctrine. This is clear from the meaning of 'people' as the truth of the Church, and therefore doctrine, 1259, 1260, 3295, 3581. 'Being one people' accordingly means being joined together through doctrine. There are two things which join members of the Church together - life and doctrine. When life joins them together doctrine does not separate them, but if doctrine alone joins them together, as happens within the Church at the present day, they separate themselves from one another and form as many Churches as there are varieties of doctrine, even though doctrine exists for the sake of life, and life ensues from doctrine. Their separation from one another if doctrine alone joins them together is evident from the fact that a person who subscribes to one doctrine condemns him who subscribes to another, sometimes to hell. But doctrine does not separate people if life joins them together. This is evident from the fact that a person who leads a good life does not condemn another because he has a feeling about something different from his own but leaves it be as a matter of the other's faith and conscience. And this is an attitude which he adopts even towards those outside the Church, for he says in his heart that ignorance cannot condemn any of them, provided that they lead lives of innocence and mutual love, as young children do, who also, if they die, are in ignorance.

3295. 'And [one] people will prevail over [the other] people' means that at first truth must be superior to the good of truth. This is clear from the meaning of 'people' as truth, dealt with immediately above in 3294, and from the meaning of 'prevailing over' as being superior to. The 'people' mentioned first means truth, whereas the 'people' mentioned second means the good of truth. The good of truth is good which arises out of truth, and, as it exists first of all, is truth. It is called good however because it looks like good. Consequently 'people' also means this good, which is called the good of truth as it is when it first arises.

[2] To have any concept of this good it should be recognized that until he has been regenerated a person does good from truth, but after he has been regenerated he does it from good. Or to make the point clearer still, before he has been regenerated the good he does is a product of the understanding, but after he has been regenerated it is a product of the will. Good therefore which is a product of the understanding is not in itself good but truth, whereas good that is a product of the will is good. For example, when a person does not honour his parents but then learns from the Ten Commandments to do so, his honouring of them is at first a product of the commandment. Such honouring however, being a product of the commandment, is not in itself good because it does not flow from love. It flows either from obedience to the law or from fear of the law, but is nevertheless called the good of truth. When it first arises however it is truth, for at that time it is not good that he performs but truth. When however his honouring of them is the product of love it is in that case good. The same is so in every other example that could be taken.