What is Christian personalism?

Personalism is a philosophical movement from the 19th and 20th centuries that puts the person at the centre of philosophical reflection. Not the idea, history or class struggle but the human person should be the object of philosophical reflection.

Different forms of personalism and clarity

Personalism knows many different forms and has taken shape in Asian, European and American cultures in different times in history. (I) Personalistic thinkers are mostly theistic and allign themselves with Christianity and Judaism.

The French personalist Jacques Maritain wrote critically about the different forms of personalism: ‘There are a dozen personalist doctrines, which at times have nothing more in common than the word person.’ (II) Because of the different forms of personalism, it is sometimes seen as a vague philosophical current which lacks clarity and precision.

It is therefore important to distinguish between the different personalistic traditions. The ICP alligns itself with Christian personalism which sees itself as the outcome of a long tradition in which Jewish, Greek and medieval ideas about the human person take an important place. Christian personalism can be further categorized in Protestant, Orthodox and Catholic subcategories. All these three branches will be studied by the ICP.

The Jewish, Greek and medieval traditions

Furthermore, the Jewish, Greek and medieval traditions will be studied to get the most complete view on the human person. Thinkers such as Moses, Maimonides, Plato, Aristotle, John Chrysostom, Augustine, Benedict, Boethius, Bonaventure, Albertus Magnus, Thomas Aquinas, Catherine of Sienna and Theresa of Avila are thinkers who prepared the way for personalism and in that way can be studied by the ICP.

Christian personalism

Joseph Ratzinger retrieves the notion of person from the first century in his essay Retrieving the Tradition. Concerning the notion of person in theology:

‘‘The concept of person grew out of the interplay between human thought and the data of Christian faith and so entered intellectual history. (..)

The concept of person arose from two questions that have from the very beginning urged themselves upon Christian thought as central: namely: the question, ‘‘What is God?’’ and, ‘‘Who is Christ?’’ (III)

According to Ratzinger, Christian thought made use of the philosophically insignificant and unused concept of ‘‘persona’’. It coined this word in such a way that it got a new meaning.

Centuries later, the French philosopher Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) formulated his own answer to the question Christianity poses. He expressed his experience of a personal encounter with God with the famous words:

“Fire. God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob, not of the philosophers and the scholars”.

The interplay between this personal God and the philosophical Greek thought has shaped Christianity and forms two poles which are in constant dialogue with each other. Sometimes, these two poles have been played out against each other, something which Pascal seemed to suggest in the quotation above. However, Christian theologians such as Ambrose, Augustine, Bonavente, Thomas Aquinas and John Henry Newman have always emphasized the synthesis of these poles.

Imago Dei

From this theological insight and experience of the personal God, Christianity has formed a personalistic anthropology. It defines the human person as a creature with an intrinsic value because the person is a reflection of the Creator. The idea of imago Dei runs through Christian personalism and througout the Christian tradition. St. Thomas Aquinas states in the prologue of the Second part of the Summa Theologiae that man is said to be made in God’s image (ad imaginem Dei). (IV) Therefore, man has an ultimate value and can never be used just as a means to an end. The Thomistic philosopher and later pope Karol Wojtyła defined in his work Love and Responsability (1960) what the central norm in the relation to another human person is:

‘‘This norm, in its negative aspect, states that the person is the kind of good which does not admit of use and cannot be treated as an object of use and as such the means to an end. In its positive form the personalistic norm confirms this: the person is a good towards which the only proper and adequate attitude is love.’’

The heart

The place where love is experienced is not first and foremost the mind but the human heart. It is therefore that different personalistic thinkers such as Dietrich von Hildebrand and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn have pointed towards the heart in understanding the human person. Von Hildebrand states in his book The heart that the heart has been more or less forgotten in the history of philosophy.

‘‘The heart had a role in poetry, in literature, in the private prayers of great souls, and above all in the Old Testament, in the Gospel, and in the Liturgy, but not in the area of philosophy proper.’’

Von Hildebrand refers to Augustine, who wrote in The Confessions on the deep mysteries of the human heart but did not totally reject the Stoic ideal of apatheia at the same time. (V) Different personalistic thinkers have therefore sought to give the heart the proper attention it deserves. Without understanding the human heart, one cannot understand the choices of the human person. Inside the human heart, ultimate choices concerning good and evil are made as Solzhenitsyn has pointed out:

‘‘The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either but right through every human heart and through all human hearts. This line shifts. Inside us, it oscillates with the years. And even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained.’’

This ‘one small bridgehead of good’ not only offers a hopeful perspective on the human person, it also underlines the intrinsic value and human dignity of every human being.

Human dignity in 1942

The anthropology of the human person as having an intrinsic value was recognized fully by important Christian representatives such as the pope in the fourties of the former century by connecting human dignity with human rights.

However the Catholic turn towards human dignity and corresponding rights was prepared in the 20’s and 30’s, the outside world saw the acceptance of human rights by the Church most clearly with the Papal Christmas speech in 1942, The rights of man. In this speech Pope Pius XII defended the dignity of the worker and stated that:

‘‘economic dependence or slavery is irreconcilable with his rights as a person’’. (VI)

Political implications

This Christian recognition of the political implications of human dignity was translated into documents such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by scholars like Jacques Maritain and Charles Malik.

Furthermore personalism was recognized by the founding fathers of the European Union, such as Alcide de Gaspari, Robert Schuman and Konrad Adenauer. They all defined themselves as personalists and stated that the European Uninon requires recognition of its Christian roots. (VII)

Last but not least, personalism was a foundational concept in the philosophy of Christian Democracy and Christian Democratic parties. Since these parties generally led the governments in different European countries after the Second World War, personalism was directly implemented in national constitutions.

Study of personalism by ICP

It is the aim of the ICP to study Christian personalism in its broadest sense.