In a few short lines of poetry, John Donne sums up a key truth about humanity: none of us is independent from the whole.
'No Man is an Island'
No man is an island entire of itself; every man
is a piece of the continent, a part of the main;
if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe
is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as
well as any manner of thy friends or of thine
own were; any man's death diminishes me,
because I am involved in mankind.
And therefore never send to know for whom
the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
God created humanity to bear his image in the context of creation. As his image bearers, we are a whole and not merely a collection of individuals. We are connected whether we feel it or not. Indeed, we are connected whether we like it or not.
But this connectedness has been damaged by sin just like everything else. The fact of communal connection does not make a community good, and loyalty to the group isn't always a mark of good character.
Morality matters.
Ethics matter.
Goodness matters.
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