The Concept of Person

Contemporary Western culture, especially American culture, idolizes and idealizes the
individual. In my generation, we admired the rugged individual; the John Wayne or
Clint Eastwood image of toughness, self-sufficiency, and self-reliance. Unfortunate
side-effects of our societys fixation with individualism have also led us to become
alarmingly self-centered, self-indulgent and narcissistic, with a growing sense of
entitlement. It is the ethic of the me generation; its all about me, self-fulfillment, do
your own thing, you can have it all, you deserve it all. Secular science, the economy,
and politics all support and pander to the cult of the individual because they have no
inherent moral compass of their own and, in order to survive themselves, they can only
focus on what pop culture will support and pay for.
In contemporary Western society, individual and person are used as synonyms; to
most people they mean the same thing. But, individual and person do not mean the
same thing and the difference between them is crucial to a fundamental understanding
of Christian theology and the work of salvation.
There are pockets within Western Latin Christianity which have recently re-discovered
their long-lost contemplative Christian tradition. Whether its called the perennial
tradition, centering prayer, or Christian mysticism, all of them recognize, to a lesser or
greater extent, the distinction between the individual and the person, referring it them
as the False Self and True Self or by some other descriptive labels.
Although I think these movements to re-capture our contemplative Christian prayer
tradition are good and positive, I do not believe that we need to re-invent the wheel.
The answer is staring us right in the face in our ancient Christian theology and tradition
itself. It didnt go anywhere, it just has been ignored by Western Latin Christianity
(Roman Catholic/Protestant) over the past five centuries, give or take. This series is
designed to re-acquaint Western Christians with the ancient Christian concept of the
person.
In discussing the concept of person, I will refer to the work of the church Fathers,
especially the Cappadocian Fathers of the 4 th century, through the collective wisdom
and insights of four prominent contemporary theologians and mystics: Vladimir Lossky,
Christos Yannaras, John Zizioulas, and Hierotheos Vlachos.
The great twentieth-century Orthodox theologian Vladimir Lossky (1903-1958), in his
seminal work, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, tells us that, We
commonly use the words persons or personal to mean individuals, or individual. We
are in the habit of thinking of these two terms, person and individual, almost as though
they were synonyms. We employ them indifferently to express the same thing. But, in
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a certain sense, individual and person mean opposite things, the word individual
expressing a certain mixture of the person with elements which belong to the common
nature, while person, on the other hand, means that which distinguishes it from nature.
Lossky goes on to explain this distinction between individual and person in more
detail: The man who is governed by his nature and acts in the strength of his natural
qualities, of his character, is the least personal. He sets himself up as an individual,
proprietor of his own nature, which he pits against the natures of others and regards as
his me, thereby confusing person and nature. This is the condition of fallen man, best
described in English as egoism.
Lossky continues to further contrast individual and person: However, the idea of the
person implies freedom vis--vis the nature. The person is free from nature, is not
determined by it. The human hypostasis [person] can only realize itself by renunciation
of its own will, of all that governs us, and makes us subject to natural necessity.
Lossky goes on to tell us that the original idea of the person was conceived by, and
can only be explained in terms of proper Christian theology: ...the theological notion of
hypostasis in the thought of the eastern Fathers means not so much individual as
person, in the modern sense of the word. Indeed, our ideas of human personality, of
that personal quality which makes every human being unique, to be expressed only in
terms of itself: this idea of person comes to us from Christian theology.
To help explain the difference between individual and person, the model of the Holy
Trinity is useful because it establishes a truth beyond the regular meaning of secular
philosophical concepts. Two of the key terms in trinitarian theology are ousia and
hypostasis; essence (nature) and subsistence (person). Just to confuse things, even in
Greek, these two terms can be used as synonyms.
In terms of trinitarian doctrine, Vladimir Lossky explains to us in his book, In the Image
and Likeness of God, ... according to the doctrine of the Fathers, there is between
ousia and hypostasis the same difference as between the common and the particular....
Lossky continues his line of thinking with a complex thought, The hypostasis is the
same as ousia; it receives all the same attributes or all the negations which can be
formulated on the subject of superessence; but it nonetheless remains irreducible to
the ousia.
Lossky tells us that the church Fathers of the fourth century worked diligently to develop
and articulate a complete theology of the Holy Trinity. This was especially true of three
men who became known as the Cappadocian Fathers (St. Basil the Great, St. Gregory
of Nazianzus, and St. Gregory of Nyssa). They struggled mightily to articulate and
differentiate between theological terms like hypostasis and ousia: It was a great
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terminological discovery to introduce a distinction between the two synonyms, in order

to express the irreducibility of the hypostasis to the ousia and of the person to the
essence, without, however, opposing them as two different realities. This will enable St.
Gregory of Nazianzus to say, The Son is not the Father, because there is only one
Father, but He is what the Father is; the Holy Spirit, although He proceeds from God, is
not the Son, because there is only one Only Begotten Son, but He is what the Son is
(Or. 31, 9).
While Lossky warns us that we cannot make a complete and direct analogy between
hypostasis or person as it applies to the Holy Trinity to the idea of person in
humankind, some useful conclusions can be drawn. He tells us that, Under these
conditions, it will be impossible for us to form a concept of the human person, and we
will have to content ourselves with saying: person signifies the irreducibility of man to
his nature irreducibility and not something irreducible or something which makes
man irreducible to his nature precisely because it cannot be a question here of
something distinct from another nature but of someone who is distinct from his own
nature, of someone who goes beyond his nature while still containing it, who makes it
exist as human nature by this overstepping and yet does not exist in himself beyond the
nature which he enhypostasizes and which he constantly exceeds.
O.K., so Vladimir Lossky can be a little deep and dense at times. Lets get some help
from some other very gifted contemporary theologians who can help explain and round
out the concept of the person for us.
Well start with contemporary Orthodox theologian Christos Yannaras (1935 further explain and expand on Losskys thinking:

) to

In everyday speech, we tend to distort the meaning of the word person. What we call
person or personal designates rather more the individual. We have grown accustomed
to regarding the terms person and individual as virtually synonymous, and we use
the two indifferently to express the same thing. From one point of view, however,
person and individual are opposite in meaning (see V. Lossky, The Mystical Theology
of the Eastern Church (London, 1957), p. 121f.) The individual is the denial or neglect of
the distinctiveness of the person, the attempt to define human existence using the
objective properties of mans common nature, and quantitative comparisons and
analogies.
Yannaras continues expanding this idea: Personal distinctiveness is revealed and
known only within the framework of direct personal relationship and communion, only by
participation in the principle of personal immediacy, or of the loving and creative force
which distinguishes the person from the common nature. And this revelation and
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knowledge of personal distinctiveness becomes ever more full as the fact of communion
and relationship achieves its wholeness in love.
So, Yannaras adds to our concept of person the necessity of personal immediacy
and direct personal relationship. At the zenith of this immediacy and relationship, of
course, is love.
In his book, Being as Communion, Studies in Personhood and the Church, Orthodox
theologian Metropolitan John ( Zizioulas) of Pergamon (1931- ), maintains that the
theology of the person would not have been possible without the mystery of the Church.
Zizioulas maintains that humanity, being made in the image of God, has an inherent
God-given drive for absolute freedom. However, existing as an absolute freedom,
completely free and independent of its nature, is humanly impossible. He tells us that,
the being of each human person is given to him; consequently, the human person is
not able to free himself absolutely from his nature or from his substance, from what
biological laws dictate to him, without bringing about his annihilation. To Zizioulas,
deification and union with God involves escaping this given and sharing in the
absolute freedom of divine existence; not after death, but beginning in this life.
Zizioulas tells us that escaping our given being, or nature, can only be accomplished
through a new birth: The demand of the person for absolute freedom involves a
new birth, a birth from on high, a baptism. And it is precisely the ecclesial being which
hypostasizes the person according to Gods way of being. That is what makes the
Church an image of the Triune God. Gods way of being, Zizioulas notes, includes that
absolute freedom which humans seek, and the Christian shares in this way of being
even during his/her earthly pilgrimage.
This is the way in which a concrete, free person can emerge. Our person can
emerge due to the fact that Christ deified our human nature through his incarnation. His
perfect human nature deified humankinds fallen nature.
The Incarnation of the Logos, the Son, the Christ, created the possibility for humankind
to attain by adoption, what Christ is by nature:
Thanks to Christ man can henceforth subsist, can affirm his existence as personal not
on the basis of immutable laws of his nature, but on the basis of a relationship with God
which is identified with what Christ in freedom and love possesses as Son of God with
the Father. This adoption of man by God, the identification of his hypostasis with the
hypostasis of the Son of God, is the essence of baptism.
The ecclesial hypostasis exists historically in this manner as a confirmation of mans
capacity not to be reduced to his tendency to become a bearer of individuality,
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separation and death. The ecclesial hypostasis is the faith of man in his capacity to
become a person and his hope that he will indeed become an authentic person. In other
words it is faith and hope in the immortality of man as a person.
Zizioulas concludes his thoughts on the concept of person with the vision of humanity
in communion and in an intimate love relationship with humankind, all creation, and with
God:
It becomes a movement of free love with a universal character, that is, a love which,
while it can concentrate on one person as the expression of the whole of nature, sees in
this person the hypostasis through which all men and all things are loved and in relation
to which they are hypostasized. The body for its part as the hypostatic expression of the
human person, is liberated from individualism and egocentricity and becomes a
supreme expression of community the Body of Christ, the body of the Church, the
body of the eucharist.
Zizioulas tells us that the concept of person, implies the openness of being, and even
more than that, the ek-stasis of being, i.e., a movement toward communion which leads
to transcendence of the boundaries of the self and thus to freedom. Moreover,
because humanity is created in the image of God with the drive for absolute freedom,
it is able to carry with [it] the whole of creation to its transcendence.
This is some pretty awesome spiritual thinking and imagery, isnt it?
Theologian Metropolitan Hierotheos (Vlachos) of Nafpaktos (1945- ) in his aptly titled,
The Person in the Orthodox Tradition, brings us back full circle with his exposition and
analysis of the thinking of the church Fathers on the concept of person. He
summarizes his thoughts by concluding:
All of this shows that the holy Fathers used the term 'Person' to point to the particular
Hypostases of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. But they more often use the term
'anthropos', man, for people. Yet there are some indications that the term 'person' is
sometimes also applied to a man. But this must be done with special care, for it is
possible to give a philosophical and abstract character to the term 'person'. Properly a
man and a person is one who has passed from the image to the likeness. In the
teaching of the holy Fathers, to be in the image is potentially to be in the likeness, and
being in the likeness is actually the image. In the same way the man created by God
and recreated by the Church through Holy Baptism, is potentially a person. But when,
through his personal struggle, and especially by the grace of God, he attains the
likeness, then he is actually a person.

This means that the idea of the emergence and perfection of our person is integrally
connected to the spiritual process of purification (katharsis), illumination (theoria),
leading to union (theosis); deification or union with God.
In summary, clearly there is a massive difference between an individual and a
person.
The great Cappadocians first distinguished between essence or nature (ousia) and
person (hypostasis) for us.
Vladimir Lossky then explained the idea of a person in terms of the irreducibility of
man to his nature and its ability to transcend its nature while still including it.
Christos Yannaras introduced us to the idea that a person is necessarily relational; in
direct personal relationship and communion, participating in the principle of personal
immediacy, or of the loving and creative force which distinguishes the person from the
common nature.
John Zizioulas then explained that it is only within the context of baptism, or new birth,
that fallen humanity can achieve the absolute freedom to love and unite itself and
creation with God. It is this ecclesial being which hypostasizes the person according
to Gods way of being, becoming a movement of free love with a universal character,
able to carry with [it] the whole of creation to its transcendence.
Hierotheos Vlachos then summed up for us all of the church Fathers thinking on the
concept of person: In the teaching of the holy Fathers, to be in the image is
potentially to be in the likeness, and being in the likeness is actually the image. In the
same way the man created by God and recreated by the Church through Holy Baptism,
is potentially a person. But when, through his personal struggle, and especially by the
grace of God, he attains the likeness, then he is actually a person.
Hierotheos brings the concept of person into the context of 21 st century society. He
tells us that becoming a "person" takes some real work and effort, The theology of man
as a person can play an important part in contemporary society. To be sure, the person
par excellence is God, but man too, as created in the image and likeness of God, can
become a person... But, in order to reach this point it is necessary to live the asceticism
of the person. The Fathers of the Church give great weight to this matter If we do not
look at the ascetic dimension of the human person, then we fail to see the patristic
teaching concerning the person, no matter how many patristic references we may use.
Vlachos concludes his thoughts by speaking about the value the teaching about the
person can be to society: The teaching about the human person will solve many
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problems which are arising every day. Love, freedom, the solution to social problems,
anguish and insecurity, the eastern religions, dialogue, [and] psychological phenomena
cannot be cured and confronted apart from the patristic teaching about man and about
the person.
Given what we have learned here, it is no surprise that the concept of person has
been lost to individual-obsessed Western culture, including the church. The concept
of person has been reduced to being equated with individual. I think all of us have
had the uneasy feeling that the fundamental self-centeredness and worldliness inherent
with modern societys idolatry with individuality might somehow fall short of Gods plan
for us. Now we can see that indeed it does and, better yet, why.
The individual is an instance of human nature; the self-centered, ego driven
subsistence of human nature that pits itself and defends its interests against all other
individuals. The person is not the same; it includes the individual and yet transcends
it. It is the person that recognizes that it is created in the image of God with the single
purpose to attain to His likeness in an intimate relationship of agape love for humankind
and for all creation, bringing the created world along to union with God; partaking of the
divine nature.