Christian Metaphysics and Human Identity

Abstract

Since early modernity, thinkers have rejected much of the Christian metaphysical inheritance. Aristotelian substance, for example, was judged to be an empty concept serving little purpose; Locke believed it was empty and unknowable, that which “we know not what, … which we take to be the substratum , or support, of those Ideas we do know.” This rejection was summarized and finalized by Heidegger's sweeping dismissal of metaphysical subjectivity, and post‐modern philosophers unpacked the implications in their proposals of a passive and fractured non‐subject. Yet the substitutes given by modern and postmodern thinkers replace being with doing, in which human beings are marked by consciousness (Locke), autonomous self‐legislating (Kant), or authenticity (Rousseau, and a racially‐coded version with Heidegger). Yet many of these thinkers also wish to retain distinctively Christian and humanistic convictions, such as dignity and political agency. I will argue that the Christian ontology of the person that was developed in the service of Trinitarian theology and Christology is necessary to safeguard an authentic humanism and personal identity.