It is unavoidable, if we want to better understand our faith, that we sometimes have to dig a little deeper. I think that one of the problems is that many people do not understand what our faith has to say and the reason for this is that the language of our faith has not kept pace and therefore, some of the terms used are not understandable or are misunderstood. In order to correct this, we will have to grapple with some aspects of language but what we will see is that it will pay off for us in a better grounding in our faith.

One of the central ideas of Christianity is the concept of the person. The term person is widely used by us and we have come to accept the concept widely but we fail sometimes to realize the history behind this word. In the past, the concept of the person was not all that clear. What was stressed in primitive societies was the communal and not the individual. The first glimmerings of the idea of 'person' started to arise in the theater of the Greeks where the person came to be identified with masks that actors wore on stage. They portrayed different characters and these characters were shown by the use of different masks. However, before we proceed any further with our discussion, let's look at some aspects of Greek philosophy.

From the Greeks, we inherited much that has contributed to our civilization. One of the most important contributions has been in the area of the study of being and Greek influences can be felt even in present day sciences. For the Greeks, the universe was eternal, not created. The cosmos obeys laws of harmony and one of the most important indicators of harmony is rationality, the fact that reason plays an important role in the world. For the Greeks, the role of the intellect is central. But in the scheme of things, man was not seen as all that important. Fundamentally, the world does not exist for man but man exists for the universe.

Greek philosophy also developed two important concepts - ousia and hypostasis. Ousia represents the being or substance. The hypostasis represents the uniqueness. For the Greeks, the important concept was the ousia, that which keeps the species going; the hypostasis was secondary and impermanent. You exist for a while and then you, as a unique being, disappear through death and you are gone forever. The Greeks had a belief in the immortality of the soul but this brought little comfort because what this meant was that some spiritual part of your existence survived to either return in a form of reincarnation or to blend into the totality of the cosmos. You, as a person who is aware of himself and is unique, did not survive. This belief held by the Greeks is referred to as monism - that everything that there is, is essentially one and the idea of individuality or uniqueness is secondary and unimportant. The concept of person was undeveloped in Greek philosophy and it was only with the coming of Christianity, that this began to change.

With Greeks, the universe or cosmos was eternal and therefore there was no idea of creation. With Christianity, the universe is not seen to be eternal but came into existence through the will of God. There were some thoughts in the ancient world that the universe was a sort of emanation of God - like a ray coming from God and the universe is the same as God in substance because both are of the same 'stuff'. Christianity opposed this view and this may seem as nit-picking and unimportant, but we will see that this has a very important effect on how we think and how we see human beings.

If the universe is made through the will of God then this has important repercussions on what a human being is. When we say that the universe was made through the will of God we mean that God did not have to create. He could have chosen not to have created and we would not exist. With Greek philosophy we have what may be called ontological necessity. Ontology is that branch of philosophy which deals with being and properties of being. But according to Christianity the universe came into being because God willed this and therefore the underlying basis of creation is not necessity but choice ('to be or not to be') and what this means is that it is not nature but something which has the ability to choose which is the ultimate basis of all that there is. And here, what we are talking about is not only the universe but also God. What is God like or phrased more directly, is God personal or impersonal? With the Greeks, God could not be personal but with the introduction of freedom into the universe through the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo (from nothing, that is, not from parts of God), we come to see that the most important aspect of what God is like, is the fact that God is personal.

We have been talking about two separate and identifiable aspects of what it means to be a human being and it may be useful for us to summarize what they mean. We have talked about nature or substance or ousia or essence. What this is, is what makes us who we are in a generalized fashion - that is, we recognize a human being, any human being, as appearing different from an animal such as a horse. What is it that makes this difference? All the factors that contribute to this we would call human nature. It is the species characteristic. By hypostasis or person we mean something quite different. Some properties of a person are self-awareness (you are aware of yourself), the ability to love, to have a purpose, to participate in a community, to have an identity such as a name and a history, to have freedom and choice. A person is concrete (where nature is general), unique (there is no one else exactly like you), and unrepeatable. This is the reason why in Christianity the immortality of the soul is not a teaching that has been widely held. Instead, what Christianity talks about is a resurrection of the person and I will come back to this point later.

What did Christianity bring which has changed the situation of humanity? The answer to this question is often given referring to the lofty teaching of Christian ideals or some similar matter. But this is not what is at the heart of Christianity and the joy that it brings. It does not 'prove' the immortality of the human soul. It does not give us original sublime teachings (they were all given before, anyway). It talks about the resurrection of the person and it is this concept of resurrection which is at the heart of Christianity. Christianity proclaims loudly and clearly the survival and eternal life of the human person in all his uniqueness and unrepeatability. Note the chilling condemnation in the Gospel of Matthew, chapter, 25, verse 12: "I do not know you." Damnation is losing the capacity to be a person, the heart of which is the ability to love. But why do we go against love and embrace self-destruction through sin? Here, again, it will help us to go back to the basis of existence.

If the most important thing about us is nature, then the personal is secondary and something that eventually disappears in our death. The most important thing is the survival of the species and we see this deeply ingrained in animals and even in micro-organisms. What differentiates us from them is just this capacity to be persons and we need to assert this.

The ultimate challenge to the freedom of a person is the necessity of existence. By this, I mean the following. Who asked me if I wanted to be born and to be thrown into this suffering, struggling world? What is most fundamental to me has been decided without me.

There are two paths open for us to transcend this 'limit' to our freedom. One is the path taken by Satan, the path of nihilism and violence. You transcend what has been 'foisted' on you by reversing your birth - you commit suicide either by taking your life or by taking the life of others. When you murder, you perform a type of suicide - there is something important and deep within you that dies in the act of killing. This we would call the freedom of negation and our history is a witness to the strength of this siren call from Satan who is also known as 'the angel of light'.

The alternative is to affirm your freedom through love and this is what Christianity calls us to do. Christianity calls us to theosis which means becoming true persons. This is what the goal of our life is and it takes a lifetime of love to achieve this. But, you could ask yourself, are we not already persons? So what has changed? Do we not continue to die and suffer?

What we have to consider here is that there are different forms of existence and different forms of life that are accessible to man. One very obvious one, and one that dominates is our biological life. We live according to our biology and we die when our biology breaks down through disease or old age. However, there are certain characteristics of our biological life that we have to consider in order to better understand where we are and what sense we are to make of this existence of ours. Our biological life is driven by certain forces which are sometimes referred to as passions. We have an instinct to survival, to a propogation of the species and these are strong influences on us. One of the important results of their activity is that we tend towards individualism. In contrast to this, we have to consider another form of life that is open for us and that is the life offered to us in the organism called the Church. The topic of biological life and the life given to members of the Church are topics which are quite involved and what I think I will do is continue them in the next letter. For now, goodbye from me.

Yours,