75 Fragmentation and Subjectification 1 potencies, its own uniqueness and independency (9). This led to the concept of man as an autonomous self, as founded on two basic components: rational individuality and psychological experience and consciousness. Through its definition of person and personhood, Western theology built its approach on the Greek word for person—hypostasis—which originally meant substance. As Zizioulas (2021) argued, this involved taking a just part (substance) instead of the whole (person)—an error that he traced back to the 4th century. Before that time, discussion of a person and personhood meant not only hypostasis but also ek-stasis, which implies ‘openness of being’ and ‘movement towards communion’ (Zizioulas, 2021, p. 14). A Biblical account of the person, stated Zizioulas (2021), does not understand man’s personhood in terms of personality—of the complex natural, psychological or moral qualities possessed or contained in the human individuum. Being a person is ‘basically different from being an individual or personality in that the person cannot be conceived in itself as a static entity, but only as it relates to’ (Zizioulas, 2021, p. 14). In other words, there cannot be true personhood without a relationship, without the person answering to others, without standing in a relationship with other beings. The human hypostasis is not an independent substance; rather, it bears its ek-stasis, which means that the person is in fundamental need of others and, in the end, of relatedness with the whole of creation. For Zizioulas (2021), there is no individual personality, only ‘corporate personality’ (p. 53). Personal autonomy in the sense of individualistic independence is not possible, and the very idea can be damaging for the person. Personhood in a Biblical sense is directly related to ontology: ‘It is not in its “self-existence” but in communion that this being is itself and thus is at all’ (Zizioulas, 2021, p. 15). Ontological identity, as Zizioulas (2021) claimed, is not to be found in every substance or bodily individual, ‘only in a being which is free from the boundaries of the self’ (p. 15). The reason for this is that these boundaries render the self subject to ‘individualization, comprehension, combination, definition, description and use’ (Zizioulas, 2021, p. 15). The imago Dei, which was both preserved and destroyed in Adam’s fall, continually distinguishes humans from animals. It fills their teleology: they are in the world to be the priests of creation (Skira, 20003; Zizioulas, 2023), trying to reconcile others and, finally, the whole of creation with God. This is so closely related to human personhood itself that Zizioulas (2021) stated personhood to be in this world but not of this world. Of the utmost importance is the restoration of the relation, communion 9 Similar criticism of the Western concept of substance has been voiced from Reformation philosophy, see Kuiper (2009) following Dooyeweerd (1967).
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTk4NDMw