Readers familiar with the contents and themes of Vox Nova will recognize that oftentimes what rests at the heart of many of its postings is a concern for an authentic understanding of personhood, an understanding of the human being that is resistant to the notion of individualism that governs so much of the present age’s social thinking. Put simply, it strikes me that a great number of contributors capitalize on the distinction between ‘individual’ and the ‘person’ in order to make their arguments. To help substantiate and buttress my collaborators’ arguments I intend to sketch out in only a cursory form the basic contours of this distinction from a Thomistic perspective–lest I be accused of being infected with modernism. This is hardly a novel enterprise since the entire Catholic intellectual tradition faithfully records such a distinction and has more recently given renewed expression to it in the form of Jacques Maritain’s The Person and the Common Good. To articulate clearly the distinction between the person and the individual that I have in mind, I must first venture, for better or for worse, into metaphysical terrain. But such a discussion cannot remain indefinitely in the thin atmosphere of metaphysical speculations so vital to the human spirit, for man is also animal whose flesh must be sustained through the concrete nurturing of the world. Though the distinction between the ‘individual’ and the ‘person’ has its basis within a metaphysical framework, its consequences reach beyond to the practical circumstances that affect deeply and existentially man’s sociality.
The Individual
In drawing out the nature and implications of the distinction between ‘individual’ and the ‘person,’ I should make clear that what is at issue is not a distinction between two different ‘things.’ It is not as if a particular human being is composed of personhood over and against his individuality, the two entering into composition producing a haphazard and tenuous unity. Quite the contrary, to be a person is to be an individual—but, we note well, the converse does not hold. We thus find Thomas following Boethius to a certain degree when the former maintains that a person is a subsistent individual of a rational nature (cf. Summa theologiae I, q. 29, a. 3). As Thomas sees it, then, to be a person is to be a certain kind of individual, namely, one of a subsistent rational nature. ‘Individuality’ does not designate something other than or opposed to personhood but rather is the necessary, unifying condition for the ontological possibility of personhood. That is, only individuals—be they persons or not—exist.
The utter uniqueness and transcendental value of persons begins to emerge, however, when one considers their unique kind of individuality over and against that which one encounters in the natural world. In nature, one often (if not always) finds its to be the case that an individual is subordinated to, and for the sake of, its species. A plant grows only to produce seeds so that they may propagate more plants of the same species; some insects hatch and, having literally only hours to live, rush to mate securing the future of the species; and in the Hellenistic world, for which the notion of personhood was absent, the individual human being was only understood as a part of civil society. Accordingly, the good of the state was seen to be superior to the good of the individual. It’s not too much of a stretch, then, to regard the individual in terms of a part, part of species, collective, or even state. As such, a part is always directed to the good of the whole, even if the good and very existence of the part must be sacrificed.
The Person
With the emergence of the Christian conception of the person, however, individuality vis-à-vis human personhood undergoes a considerable metamorphosis. For now, though the human person continues to be understood as an individual and therefore a member of the species ‘rational animal,’ through the creative act, that individuality is consecrated and elevated to sublime height in which man is posited man in such a unique relation to the divine that he now bears within himself the imago Dei. But, as Thomas explains (cf. ST I-II, prologus) to be created in the image of God is precisely to be endowed with reason, will, and, consequently, the capacity to love—hence the second part of the original Boethian definition of ‘person.’ No other individual within the material realm of creation possesses such a unique rational nature, and it is the uniqueness of that nature which elevates the individuality of the human person to a new degree of sublimity and dignity. Thomas writes, “[I]n a more special and perfect way, the particular and the individual are found in the rational substances which have dominion over their own actions; and which are not only made to act, like others; but which can act of themselves…” (ST I, q. 29, a. 1).
Because human persons are individuals possessing reason and will, they are spiritual centers of self-consciousness that can act with the power of self-determination and, through love, give themselves over to another person through an act of self-donation. Accordingly, a person is constituted as an end in itself, whose self-determining actions proceed from, but ultimately reflect back upon, itself. Thomas tells us, “Intellectual creatures [i.e., persons] are ruled by God as though He cared for them for their own sake, while other creatures are ruled as being directed to rational creatures…. Therefore the intellectual nature alone is requisite for its own sake in the universe, and all others for its sake” (Summa contra gentiles III, c. 112). With personhood, then, we reach the climactic pinnacle of the creative act—“Person signifies what is most perfect in all nature…” (ST I, q. 29, a. 3)—nothing else is so ordained for its own sake. The whole of material creation is created not as its own end but to for the sake of man and, ultimately through man as its responsible steward, to God. In contrast, man is created for his own sake, that is, for the perfection of his rational nature. But since that rational nature can only be perfected through universal truth (the perfection of the intellect) and universal goodness (the perfection of the will) man can only find his own ultimate end in the beatific vision, wherein he enters into a kind of personal unity with God.
And yet, just as grace does not take away nature but perfects it, so too one must understand that personhood does not take away individuality but perfects. That is, a person, though rendered utterly unique on account of his rational nature and directed to God as his ultimate end, remains an individual. ‘Individuality’ is not something contrary or opposed to personhood, rather personhood is the sacramental consummation of the individual within the creative plan. Thomas points out, “The rational soul is capable of perpetuity, not only in respect of the species, like other creatures, but also in respect of the individual… Rational creatures alone are directed by God to their actions for the sake, not only of the species, but also of the individual… Rational creatures alone are directed to God” (Summa contra gentiles III, c. 113). Here we arrive at a locus of tension: a human being is at one and the same time an individual, a member of a species who enters into community and subordination to that species, but also a person possessed of reason and self-determination having as its supernatural end and destiny the divine. This tension certainly cannot be assuaged through an appeal to the natural order for it can only find its resolution within the mystery of the Holy Trinity. Still, this tension, or perhaps better put, ‘dialectic’ is certainly played out within nature, within man’s natural disposition toward sociality.
At the very least, I hope that the present discussion has prepared us adequately to appreciate the moral and social implications that I shall point out as following directly from the distinction between ‘individual’ and ‘person.’ That is why I have entitled the present posting “prolegomena,” the metaphysical foreword to the socio-political. I hope to get to that posting soon in which I shall be able to bring the present posting to a conclusion while simultaneously resolving the paradox of self-giving in the mystery of the Holy Trinity, the theme of an earlier posting that I began earlier with respect to Karol Wojtyła. Given the absolute madness of my life at present, however, I can make no promise that my understanding of “soon” will be in any way conventional.
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