Personalism

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Personalism

• Dr. Robert Imperato
• Saint Leo University

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Personalism

• One of the special developments of Christian
  history is personalism
• Spirituality has long embraced the notion of the
  human person as image of God

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Personalism

• Catholic moral theology sees the dignity of the
  human person at the center of its teaching
• Catholic dogma uses person to describe God,
  Christ and Trinitarian teaching

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Personalism and Christian Spirituality

• Image of God in early Christian thought sees
  humans as imaging God through free will and/or
  through the capacity to reflect

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Personalism and Christian Spirituality

• Early Christian thought (e.g., Clement of
  Alexandria) distinguished between image of God
  which is unchanging and likeness to God which is
  lost through sin but regained through the grace
  of Christ and human cooperation

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Thomas Merton and Personalism

• Merton focuses on person as image of God as
  deeper self that people ignore while attempting
  to live out a superficial identity
• Person for Merton is image of God, founded upon
  Gods creative and sustaining love

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Psychological andTheological Identities

• Psychological identity is who one thinks one is
• Derives from interaction with others

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Psychological and Theological Identities

• Theological identity is who one is in relation to
  God
• Awareness of Gods unconditional love contributes
  to this
• Person exists independent of having done or
  having failed to do anything

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Spiritual Goal

• The work of prayer or meditation is to allow
  ones sense of self to be informed by ones
  relationship with God
• This is to ground self awareness in a source of
  unconditional affirmation

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Prayer

• Prayer or meditation or contemplation include
• Speaking to God
• Listening to God, ones interiority, other
  people, Scripture, etc.
• Being with God without any need to ask for
  anything

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Techniques of Prayer

• Spiritual reading of Scripture or other spiritual
  books
• Repetitive prayer, of whatever type, within
  Christian tradition involves
• An expression of relationship
• A quieting of the mind

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Communal Prayer

• Liturgy of the hours is communal recitation of
  psalms and other prayers
• This derives from Jewish practice
• Psalms may express ones own experience and/or
  the experience of Jesus, e.g., Psalm 22

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Eucharist

• Eucharist is a prayer that remembers the death
  and resurrection of Jesus in order to give people
  a sense of participation in the dying and rising
  of Jesus