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Surely a person is a rational being.
God, the angels, the devils, and humans are all persons, and the fact that they are rational beings is what they have in common.
Surely a person is a rational being.
God, the angels, the devils, and humans are all persons, and the fact that they are rational beings is what they have in common.
What about people who are in a coma (and can't reason)?
Surely a person is a rational being.
God, the angels, the devils, and humans are all persons, and the fact that they are rational beings is what they have in common.
What about people who are in a coma (and can't reason)?
They're still persons also. They have just temporarily lost their powers of reason - because of the ravages of the curse - and will recover them in this life or the next.
Another example...what about infants or fetuses who never rationalized due to death? Do they gain their powers of reason after death or do they simply not exist similar to animals?
I'm looking for a good book on Christian metaphysics defining personhood...both in the Trinity and humans. How they relate? How they differ? etc.
I'm looking for a good book on Christian metaphysics defining personhood...both in the Trinity and humans. How they relate? How they differ? etc.
Knowing God and Man
by Herman Hoeksema
152 pages
softcover
ISBN 0-916206-87-4
DESCRIPTION
The key to understanding Reformed doctrine is found in the title of the first chapter in this book: "God is God." This truth sets the tone for all thirteen chapters—six on God and seven on man. Each chapter on God directs the reader’s attention to a different biblical aspect of the sovereign of the universe: God as God, as creator, as Lord, as good, as the living God, and as love.
The seven chapters about man open the biblical teaching about a subject often misinterpreted today. Clear explanation is given concerning man’s covenantal relationship to God, his creation in the image of God, his fall, and his totally depraved nature. Like the chapters in part one, these also emphasize that God is God.
In addition to attributes of reason or self-awareness, the term person is used to distinguish like identities from one another.
For example: there are three humans. Each one of them is a person because, although they are all humans and alike, they are distinct from one another.
Another example: The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are God, yet they are distinguishable from one another in the senses set out in Scripture, so we use the term "person" to describe them individually when discussing distinctions between them.