The Parable of Naturalistic Humanism (II). Man - a Person or Nature?

Abstract

In the second part of his paper (the first part was published in the 2011 issue of Yearbook of Dogmatic Theology), Massimo Serretti, an Italian theologian and personalist, shows that the parallel use of two terms, nature and person, is fundamental for the development of anthropology. The history of philosophical thought has proved that the gradual separation of those two categories has led to the rejection of the very notion of human nature, diminishing the value of the concept of human itself, understood materialistically and biologically. In the first part of his paper, Serretti concluded that the origin of the contemporary anthropological personalism is to be found in the Trinitarian doctrine.