Call to Personhood

Alistair I. McFadyen, The Call to Personhood

Loads of great stuff on the development, ‘sedimentation’ of personhood as a process of communication with the other extrapolated from Barthian and Moltmannian theology of the Trinity. Slightly confused way of understanding the role of the Holy Spirit. A very structural approach. Posits lots of ideals about undistorted forms of communication and human being. Argues that personhood is an embodied phenomenon. Does not entirely accommodate the concept of human uniqueness. You have to read 179 pages until he explains how people with learning difficulties might operate within his schema, and even then it doesn’t quite cut it. He writes,

The indwelling of Christ and the possibilities of participating in a relation conformed to and mediated by him [this needs explanation in itself] are not constrained by mental capacities. Where the level of communicative competence is too low for another to explicate his or her understanding, or to make the grounds for his or her resistance plain, one has to ‘stand in for the other’. This means attempting to reconstruct an understanding from an imaginary, empathetic ‘indwelling’ of the other’s identity and social location.

Although,

Formal reciprocity yields an understanding, admittedly only approximate and vague, of the universal and reciprocal interests or rights of the person. (McFadyen, p 179)

McFadyen might argue that this is not uncommon in other exchanges, but the degree of standing in for the other when relating to someone with an impairment is inevitably more intense. I have witnessed a Day Service Officer working with a gentlemen with learning difficulties for over 20 years and still misjudging a particular response to a call for communication.