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I am grateful for this opportunity to speak to the question before us this day.  "Who in our society should decide if there is a distinction between a person and a human being?  Should it be the philosopher, the theologian, the biologist, lawyer, politician, medical doctor, or a combination thereof."

Speaking as the token theologian, the answer, of course, is that none of these special interest groups is competent for this task.

Personhood is an endowment from the Creator, given to mankind in what has been called "the Imago Dei", the image of God.  Personhood is nothing less than human participation in the divine. Personhood is the self-expression of God in and through the individual human being. 

Furthermore, it is self evident that this gift of the Imago Dei, this gift of personhood has been given to all human beings.  Though no philosophy has ever adequately defined this mystery we call personhood, it is nevertheless self evident that personhood is integral to the very definition of what it means to be human.  Where humanity is present, there is a person.

Now we have seen, "to whom has the Creator bestowed this gift of the Imago Dei?" (that being the human being). The next question that arises is this, "at what point does the Creator bestow this gift upon His human creature?"

At first, this may seem to be the rub of our concern, for God has not specifically addressed this important question. However, we are not without ability to understand.  God has answered our question by His revealed interactions with individual persons throughout history.  By His own demonstrated respect and honor for the Imago Dei which he himself gave to his creature, he teaches us who has the gift of Personhood.  

Throughout history, God has clearly acknowledged personhood in the individual , be it the strong person or the weak person; the frail and the fragile, the young and the old; the poor and the desolate; the emotionally wrecked, even the mentally insane; the paralyzed, blind, deaf, mute, and lame, the leper and the demoniac, the children, the helpless, the needy, the captives and prisoners, slave and free.

The Creator has even specifically acknowledged the personhood of the person in the mother's womb, as witnessed by his acknowledgment of the psalmist in the womb, the prophet Jeremiah in the womb, Jesus in the womb and John the Baptist in the womb.  These were all fully persons while still in the womb, persons acknowledged by the Creator who created them persons.

And so it is that we must only give accent to the reality that personhood is the gift of the Creator to all human beings, in every conceivable condition.  For the Creator who gives the gift acknowledges it to be so.

Now, the question has been asked, who in our society should decide these things.  Many of you have published questions of how this applies to our Constitution, which is the guiding contract of our society. 

Clearly, our founding fathers understood that these questions had already been decided by the Creator.  In fact, the Creator's gift of personhood upon all humans was our fathers' justification for founding our society. 

It was their firm conviction that the Creator had bestowed upon all men - meaning of course upon all humans - the gift of personhood which accorded us rights from our Creator, and that no human king or government or special interest group had the power or the right to define personhood away from the people.

Again, I reassert that the Declaration of Independence used this very argument as the justification for the Revolution and the establishment of our separate society.  The Creator has decided who is a person.  All mankind.

And so, our society, from its foundation, has known, that no king, or theologian, or scientist, or philosopher has the right to define personhood in such a way as to deny personhood from another member of our race - the human race.  Even where it is flawed, in fits of compromise and starts of idealism, our Constitution adhered to this principle of the Creator's endowment of the Imago Dei.

Who in our society should decide? None in our society may decide, because, already, "we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men."

Our Constitution is a human effort to acknowledge and secure the Creator's definition and gift of personhood as the enduring legacy of our just society.

And so, the question with which we began is really not proper.  We ought to ask ourselves, will we as a society retain the liberal, generous, broad, and grand definition that personhood is bestowed by the Creator upon all his human creatures?  Or will we give the definition of personhood into the hands of special interests groups so that they may continually redefine personhood into ever more narrow and specialized applications? 

Do we really want to deny the Creator's self-evident gift in favor of a consortium of human judges who wish to deny or diminish the personhood of children, of the aged, of the dying? 

Do we really want to compromise, as the Spanish did, enslaving whole nations of American natives, because, after all, the natives weren't fully human by Spanish definitions? 

Or perhaps we will compromise this principal even as Americans have in the past, arbitrarily calling Africans and slaves only 3/5ths of a person; or as our courts of human judges have arbitrarily called fetuses persons only after the second or third trimester and then only if the mother wants it to be a human, otherwise it is arbitrarily her body tissue. 

Human history is littered with the disasters that arise when men decide to judge by their own arbitrary rules who is a person and who is not.

No my friends, it is now upon you, as members of this society, so well founded, to stand up this day as ever, and say to me and to the rest of this formidable panel of scientist and philosophers, "You are not worthy to decide.  Our Creator has made us persons.  We will not give our great gift to you and we will not take so precious a gift from another."

Thank you all for hearing me.

May the Spirit of God guide us into all truth.

A Final Thought

(Although this final statement was prepared for the event, we were not called upon to give final statements and therefore it was not given. However, I was able to work these concepts into the discussion.)

It is the so-called conservative in our society who seeks to uphold a liberal, broad, encompassing, and inclusive definition of personhood that honors all people in all conditions.  It is the so-called liberal in our society that seeks to redefine personhood into a narrow, arbitrary, legalistic definition which excludes whole segments of society and arbitrarily diminishes the value of the personhood of others.  If I might ask you to consider one thing from our discussion, it would be to consider the true distinctive in philosophy which results in the differences between conservative and liberal views on personhood. 

Will we as a society conserve our heritage, acknowledging personhood as a self-evident, certain, and unalienable gift bestowed, not by any government, but by the Creator?  Or, will we allow special interest groups to redefine personhood according to the arbitrary presuppositions of their own self-serving interests? 

You are a person. I honor you.

Providence Reformed Episcopal Church
1201 Morgan Ave. Corpus Christi, TX 78404; Tel. 1 (361) 888-7421