Personhood of the Fetus in Seven Principles

By Micah H.

Introduction

 Within the Eastern Christian tradition, from the time of the Cappadocians to the present a great deal of significance has been attached to the term hypostasis. The anthropological model formed through the Cappadocians understanding of hypostasis/persona is free of the Cartesian principles of human identity that have been foundational to the understanding of personhood and its relation to the personhood of the embryo. The Cappadocians taught, in line with Hebraic and Early Christian theology, that the person is not merely a soul inhabiting a body but the mode or way of being which is expressed by the body, and its cognitive and appetitive functions in relationship with God, other persons, and the environment. This model might prove more palatable to the scientific community. This is so because it argues that a person is sacred not because of a metaphysical element added to a corporal existence but because the hypostasis/persona, by existing both as “otherness” and “communion”, derives identity from relationship with others and ultimately with God (granted the later would not be accepted in a secular argument). Thus the imago dei is not merely “reason” or “consciousness”, which, with advances in evolutionary biology, reveals that cognitive function only separates man from other high functioning animals by degree. Basil of Caesarea in fact has written that “Man is an animal called to be God.” The imago dei is not an imperceptible “divine  spark” but an invitation to live in a divine way and a mode of being that makes man unique. This is why for the Cappadocians the imago dei was seen in a holistic way and was particularly evident in man’s αὐτεξούσιον θέλημα -His freedom to be and how to be.

1-At the moment of conception- the communion of two, a wholly new and unique Other comes into being.

At the moment that the sperm of the father fertilizes the egg of the mother and the zygote appears it becomes necessary to speak of a third person/hypostasis. This third hypostasis is the zygote, a person who has received the gift of life and a genetic heritage that puts him in relationship with all his ancestors. A new life that has come about not only as the direct result of the sexual union of mother and father but a life that has arisen from thousands of relationships and personal stories of love and tragedy. John Zizioulas hints at the immensity of this moment when he writes:

The hypostasis of biological existence is “constituted” by man‘s conception and birth. Every man who comes into the world bears his hypostasis, which is not entirely unrelated to love: he is the product of communion between two people. Erotic love, even when expressed coldly without emotional involvement, is an astounding mystery of existence, concealing in the deepest act of communion a tendency towards an ecstatic transcendence of individuality. ( Zizioulas. Being and Comunion. P. 50.)

2-This life, caused by an event of communion, is new, we can now speak of a life that while not being independent of the mother is at the same time not the same as the mother.

The life of this new hypostasis is received as a gift from mother and father. This is true not only of the genetic information passed on to the zygote/hypostasis but is true of the very matter of which this new life is formed. At this point it is necessary to distinguish the life and matter which are “given” and the new and unique “other” who has received these gifts. Immediately after conception the child and mother enter into a new and unique relationship where the life of the mother is communicated via sustenance, warmth, and oxygen to the new person. This new person though constituted by the gift received, is different from the gift as a recipient. For example a part of the tissue of the mother could be said to receive life from the mother in a similar matter. However, in the case of tissue one cannot speak of gift because there is no distinction between the one who receives and the one who gives. His life and identity are received at the moment of conception (this being is now the son of a mother and father, a grandchild, a nephew, etc.) and this identity will continually be received throughout his life. Culture and language, love and sufferings, relationships and faith will all continually form this unique identity.

3-The mother has a responsibility for this new Other; however we who are in relationship with the mother have a responsibility for the mother as Other.

As with any ethical principle the principle of responsibility for the Other cannot be selective. This is the historical problem with much of the pro-life movement. The mother is expected to be responsible for the child and to a lesser degree it is hoped that the father will also take responsibility. What of society, friends, communities, churches, and everyone who has a relationship with the mother? It is not possible to demand the respect of the mother for her unborn child if society as a whole refuses to respect the mother as a unique and valued Other. Imagine if communities and churches did not judge, gossip, and condemn the women but celebrated the miracle of a new and unique life which is itself a gift to society.

4-This unique Other is not autonomous, nor is the mother/embryo autonomous, they exist in a network of relationships including the father, society, ancestors, environment, etc. It is only in this context that we dare speak of responsibility.

This new person is not just the child of the mother. It is a citizen of a country, a grandchild, the fruit of the drama of evolution, and a person who is present in a unique place and time. The child is not a possession of the mother that can be discarded. At the same time the life of the child is a gift that places demands on the recipient. The child who has received the gift of life and existence is responsible to receive the gift and in gratitude to offer the gift of himself to the givers. He has the responsibility to thankfully give back to parents and community. Any destruction of the embryo/hypostasis robs the world to which he was given.

5-The inherent value of this Other is not consciousness or emotion, but because it was not and now is. It is a new unrepeatable particular and demands the value equal to that of every particular.

Western thought since the time of the pre-Socratics has been essentially monistic. Scientists have constantly strived to reduce to the simple. This is a denial of the complexity of existence and life. The human person is more than the sum of his parts. Even less can his identity be reduced to a single part, even a part which may seem integral to his future existence. This has been acknowledged with the rise of Complexity theory and the study of complex systems. One of the basic principles of Complexity theory is that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. This is true for an enormous and diverse number of systems. Ant colonies, the neural system, genetics, economics, artificial intelligence, cities, and much else are all examples of mysteriously complex systems. There is no system as complex or important as the human person, the hypostasis. Biology received from parents, culture, language, familial and social relations, religion, food, and air are all gifts that enable the hypostasis to exist. Understanding a person as the locus of gifts might seem to reject any notion of personal freedom. Despite the fact that no person chooses to whom they are born, what their first language is, and who their family is, the person can choose which gifts he will ultimately except or reject.

6- From the moment of conception one can only speak of two existential changes. Both changes are a self denial: The self denial of love, to live one’s life for the Other(s) or the demonic self denial of self extinction, to deny the gift of life.

This principle is important for several different reasons. It emphasizes the αὐτεξούσιον θέλημα of the hypostasis. The hypostasis is free to determine itself in relationship to others, things, and itself. It is in this freedom that man is also able to live according to the divine mode of being, to live how God lives. This is fundamentally how the Eastern Church understands salvation as deification. Deification does not occur at the level of nature, even in Christ the two natures, though inseparable, are distinct. Deification occurs on the level of the hypostasis. It is also a key concept particularly in the thought of Nazianzus that this deification is the result of the Incarnation.

It is also in freedom that evil is a reality. Man is free to live not for others or to live as God. He is able to reject others, and the gift given by others, even life itself. Perhaps the clearest way to illustrate this phenomenon of the hypostasis is to compare self-sacrifice with suicide. They are at a certain level the same thing. They are both decisions that are made, the choice to be in a way that leads to death. Self-sacrifice is noble because it is the ultimate love, the giving of life for another. Suicide is not done for the other, it is a violent act against all the others in whom the person who commits suicide is in a relationship with.

7- Despite the value of the hypostasis, a unique and particular Other, the biological hypostasis is ultimately tragic because every particular is subject to death which is ultimately the dissolution of the relationships which established identity.

Just as the Cappadocians teaching on the hypostasis presents a unique ethos in which to approach moral issues, it also provides answers to the existential problem of death. For them it is in the Church that Communion ensures the truth and eternal life of the particular hypostasis. This Church is at its heart a Eucharistic gathering and a doxology. It is, “the scattered children of God gathered into one” around and in the person of Christ by the descent of the Holy Spirit; a gathering together to “break bread” and to encounter the Risen Christ.  The hypostasis is eternal only in so far as it receives its identity from the one relationship which is not subject to the vicissitudes of death.