A query for the classicists
bridean bdean@osu-btc.com
Fri, 02 Oct 1998 10:04:53 -0700 (00907365893, 361507B4.31E5EBDE@osu-btc.com)
> A query for the classical scholars on the list.
>
> What is the truth value of the assertions of the good Dr. Hahn in regard to "person" in the excerpt below,
> plucked from an apologetics list I lurk on:
>
> "Heard a great lecture tonight from Dr. Scott Hahn, who pointed out that there would be no concept of human rights at all without the
> Church, because it all emanates from the concept of person, which was developed in the Church's struggle to define who Christ was in
> the face of heresies like the Arians, Docetists, Nestorians, etc. The word person did not exist in Hebrew, Aramaic or Greek.
> It was part of the vocabulary the Church developed to fight heretics who challenged the humanity or divinity of Christ. A Soviet
> delegate at the first session of the UN in SAn Francisco in 1945 objected to the use of the term "person" on the grounds that it was a
> Christian word and suggested the word "citizen" be used instead. The difference is profound! A citizen receives what he has from the
> state, but a person receives the unique dignity he has from God! A person is created in God's image, becomes a temple of the Holy
> Spirit (the third person of God) at Baptism and has Christ abiding in him (especially seen in John 6). A person becomes a divine
> son. Thus a person has a dignity (as you know!) that comes from God and especially from the work of the second person of the
> Trinity. Thus persons have human rights. This makes no sense to Marxists, Muslims, or aetheists who do not recognize this kind of
> personhood. Would that feminists, who destroy persons in the womb and fight for the right to do so, would only realize that human
> rights would not exist in the form they do now were it not for the Church and its struggle to define Christ against the heretics."
BRIDEAN
I was a student at the university where Dr. Hahn teaches (and had a few conversations with him).
What I would ask him, even if I was a student there, is that if what he says is true, then how does
he explain the "personalist" controversy in early Buddhism? Especially since the "personalist"
controversy predates Christian influence.