Just as the three persons of the Trinity are individually unique, yet give them continually in love, so each human person is unique, yet made for relationship with others. Personhood is not something we can have in isolation - in Christian thinking it is a relational concept.  Every human person is locked in a web of relations.  Every person has a father and mother.  All have relatives - brothers and sisters, sons and daughters - as well as those we voluntary commit ourselves to, our partners and friends. 

And because we have relatives, partners, friends, neighbours, we are all locked together. In fact we live lives where we are burdens to one another.  As one theologian put it the life of the family is one of “mutual burdensomeness.” 

The famous statement, ’I think, therefore I am’. By contrast we might suggest an alternative Christian version, ’You love me, and therefore I am’. My being comes not from my rational abilities but from the fact that I am known and loved - first of all by God himself, and secondly by other human beings. This is why the experience of rejection and isolation can be so psychologically devastating, and why persons who have never experienced love and acceptance fail to develop into normal healthy adults. But even if I am rejected by other humans, I am still a person. Ultimately my personhood rests on the fact that God called me into existence and that he continues to know and love me.

This Christian understanding of personhood is much more permanent, more resilient, than the secular one. Your personhood might disappear at any moment if your cortex starts to malfunction. But in Christian thinking, whatever happens to you in the future, whatever disease or accident may befall your central nervous system, even if you are struck down by dementia or enter a persistent vegetative state, you will still be you: a unique and wonderful person.  To be a person is to be a unique somebody - someone on a journey.  We are becoming what we already are.  From the time of your embryonic origins until now you have been on a journey – a process of becoming what we already are. 

This is true as we look back to our individual origins. When you think of yourself as you were when you were a newborn baby, a fetus, an embryo, is there any point at which you can confidently say, “That being was not me.” It seems to me that you cannot.  When you were an embryo you were on the journey – you were in the process of becoming what you already were. And this process of “becoming” continues throughout our life.

So in Christian thinking dependence is not an evil, outrageous inhuman thing.  To the secular philosopher dependence is a terrible threat because it robs us of autonomy – the essential defining characteristic of personhood.  But in Christian thinking dependence is part of the narrative of a human life.  You come into the world totally dependent on the love and care of others.  The very fact that you are sitting there is only because someone loved you, fed you, and protected you when you were a defenceless newborn baby.  Then we go through a phase of life when others depend on us.  And most of us will end our life totally dependent on the love and care of others.  But this does not rob us of our humanity. No, it is part of the narrative of a human life.

In my experience this understanding of personhood matches the intuitions of many people. What kind of society do you wish to belong to? So what are the practical implications?  Firstly, in this way of thinking my moral value function, on my creation in God’s image. Human beings are godlike beings. Only human beings, in all the vast array of life on planet Earth, have this privilege and responsibility. Hence we are to treat all human beings, however tragically incapacitated, with wonder, reverence and respect. We are called to protect all human beings from abuse, from manipulation and from any who would deliberately end their life. We cannot rate some lives as more worthwhile, more valuable than others. Secondly, whereas the law does not recognise personhood until the moment of birth, this way of thinking points to the moral significance of the unborn fetus.  And although we cannot ultimately know what the significance is of any individual embryo, it seems to me that we must treat even a microscopic human embryo as a unique and precious being that is being called into existence.

Thirdly, as far as we know, of all the species on the planet only Homo sapiens is made in God’s image, and hence only human beings can be called persons. Although we are called to treat not only chimpanzees and dolphins but all sentient beings with care, we cannot value their lives as equal to those of humans. When we show compassion and love for the weakest and most pathetic members of our society, we are expressing an essential element of our humanity.  So even Bharathi is a person, one to be loved and respected, not rejected or marginalised.     

Case study

Transgender Pastor Bharathi ordained by Rev. Dr. Ezra  Sargunam, Founder Evangelical Fellowship of India.

I see Bharathi as unique person has the ability to express the image of God and to build the kingdom of among transgender.

Yes I do. The Bible does give human that particular position. Whatever else the image of God means it means that here, of all the biological creatures, is one particular creature with whom God deals. Now I know that Professor Dawkins says that we just happen to be one terminal twig on the great tree of evolution and we shouldn’t give ourselves such airs as to imagine there is anything special about us - but that’s a faith position, of course. But as a Christian, as one informed by the story of the Bible, we must accept that we have a special calling and a responsibility. That calling and responsibility does not entail a privilege to abuse what we don’t like but, to be God’s representatives on this earth. For example, I think one of the implications of what the image of God means that we have this incredible responsibility to support and to care persons like Bharathi and ministry among transgender.

Humanity is in some respect the result of specific treatment within one’s community. Being human is being treated by humans as human. A priest, Joseph Pieper, put it like this, “Love is to say to another, it’s good that you are in the world.  It’s good that you exist.”