This is a comment I left on Tony Jones’ blog a while back when he posed the questions: what is a “person?” Warning: I quote John Cobb (no surprise there).

What is a “person?”

Well, let’s start small. Multicellular organisms can loosely be divided into two categories:

One type establishes order among cells through their internalized patterns of action and their individual relationships. This type of multi-cellular organism usually doesn’t move much (plants, trees etc…).

The other type has the previous type of order, but also has a centralized source of order. A unifying experience emerges out of the experiences of the cells in some part of the organism–this requires a central nervous system and a brain.

(Now keep in mind, these categories are loose approximations. There are, of course, always disputable instances to be found).

Biblically speaking then, I like a lot of the answers given so far in the comments. As Scott Paeth suggests, I would say the concept of “nephesh,” or psyche, is synonymous with “personhood.”

When does “personhood” begin?

I think it should be made clear that the understanding of “personhood” or “psyche” or “soul” (I’m using these terms interchangeable here, in case you didn’t notice) should not be considered unique to human beings because psyches commonly appear in the animal kingdom. And, on top of that, every living cell has value in and of itself and for God, and therefore, should be respected and valued.

All that being said–since we’re talking about humans–it could be argued that the Human “psyche” doesn’t become uniquely human until it starts doing uniquely symbolic human things, which hardly starts before language develops.

So, if we say that personhood involves the formation of the “psyche,” then, to quote John Cobb, the term “can be applied when there is a succession of unifying occasions each of which derives extensively from its predecessors and contributes extensively to its successors. Of course, each also derives from cellular occasions and contributes to them. The relative importance is always a matter of degree. Hence there is no one point at which the “soul” or “person” comes into being.”

You see, Human Beings would better be described as Human “Becomings.”

Tags:biologyevolutionjohn cobbpersonhoodprocess theologysoulspirittony jones