Norris Clarke Person and Being

Study Sheet, Part Two

p. 42 Thus, personal being as (1) self-possessing, (2)self-communicative and relational; and(3)

self-transcending
the dyadic structure—substance in relation is true of all real being.

p. 44 Self-possession = self-conscious awareness (I)

Self-conscious of self as speaker

Speech is known
Self is known as speaker

p. 45 Awakening of self-awareness as an I can be done only by another human person, reaching

out to us with love and treating us as a person in an I-Thou relation
p. 46 Awareness of others first > then awareness of self as person
p. 48 Self-possession -- self determination
p. 49 A personal being is therefore one that is in charge of its own life, a self-governing being.
p. 50 Natural law—participates in divine law (Aquinas’ 4 kinds of laws)
p. 54 Free choice freely determining actions also determines our own very selves.
p. 55 Repeated actions construct an abiding moral portrait. I am what I do.
p. 57 bottom –Conscious self-awareness is important for self-worth and dignity
p. 59 To be a human person is to be on a journey from potential self-possession to actual self-
possession
p. 61 Self-possession in the order of action or in order of knowledge is a journey that requires
discipline and virtue.
p. 64 Person as self-communicative and relational, relationships shape being.
p.64 middle describes the unending dialectical movement, within and without-in-itself, towards
others, Person is a synthesis of substantiality and relationality.
p. 65. I distinguish myself ….to………I-thou-we.
p. 65 bottom—Unless someone else treats me as a “thou” I can never wake up to myself as an “I”,
as a person.
p. 67. bottom—person is not reducible to relations
p. 68 top. “Finally, at the deepest level of its being and self-identity the human person must be
defined in terms of its permanent relationship to God, the Source of all being, as the latter’s created
image….”I am an image of God, brought into being by love, and called to transformation and final
union with my Source.”
p. 68 bottom—So the spiral of self-development should ideally go on, alternating harmoniously
between the two poles of the person’s being: self-possession and self-communication.”
p. 69 bottom—And, paradoxically, the more intensely I am present to myself at one pole, the more
intensely I am 0present and open to others at the other.
p. 70 The more I become aware of myself as related by intelligence and will to the whole order of
being as intelligible and good, the more I come to understand myself as a human person, as
embodied spirit……….to be is to be substance-in-relation.
p. 71. a personalized being must obey the basic dyadic ontological structure of all being, that is
presence in itself and presence to others. But the outgoing, self-expressive, self-communicating,

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relational aspect must be an equally intrinsic and primordial aspect of every person as is its
interiority and self-possession.

BE ABLE TO CONTRAST THIS TO Aristotelian understanding at the bottom of the page.

p. 73 top requirement of relation as thou and as love.

p. 74 the interpersonal social matrix of I-Thou-We constitutes the human community
p.74-75 the particular individuals and things in my life may be accidental but that
my being and its fulfillment are and must be relational is intrinsic and essential to my very being
and personhood.
p. 76, 77 discussion of self-communication as love. “Person exists in its fullness only in the plural.”
p. 78 What is required for self-giving? What can one give?
p. 80 The final goal and perfection of the whole universe is, literally, the communion between
persons.
p. 80 bottom “Belonging to an authentic community does not submerge the free self but liberates it,
nourishes it as its natural environment and ends up bringing us to know our own unique
individuality even more keenly.”
p. 83 The requirement for and role of receptivity. “If there is to be effective self-communication of
any being, there must be a corresponding receptivity for it somewhere in being, otherwise the
process would be aborted from the start…No giving without receiving.”

ME Authentic communication of self requires someone to receive the communication.

p. 87 “The highest instance of being is a unity that is not solitary, but Communion.
p. 90-1 Contrast with Thomas Aquinas

p. 91 We ‘must go out to the world and other persons first, then return to know ourselves by
reflecting on our actions, whether and how they express who and what we really are or would like
to be.” Thomas “Every real substance exists for the sake of its operstions.”
p. 94 the meaning of being self-transcending.
P. 98 A decentering of self from self to other (including God)
p. 108 freedom makes us capable of defect, evil.
p. 112 Three phases of personal development self-possession, self-communication, self-
transcendence.