A query for the classicists

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> Michael

> "Heard a great lecture tonight from Dr. Scott Hahn, who pointed out

> that there would be no concept of human rights at all without the

> Church, because it all emanates from the concept of person, which

> was developed in the Church's struggle to define who Christ was in

> the face of heresies like the Arians, Docetists, Nestorians, etc.

> The word person did not exist in Hebrew, Aramaic or Greek. It was

> part of the vocabulary the Church developed to fight heretics who

> challenged the humanity or divinity of Christ."


JAN
Short answer: What a load of sh*t.

Longer answer: Well, it is true that xtianity contributed to the devekopment 
of the idea of a private individual. You'll indeed find a short discussion 
of this in Rudolf Bultmann's famous "demythologisation" article. In a sense 
this is a contribution moving in a direction that sometime later became a 
basis for "human rights." 

The idea that this has something to do with the great Christology debates is 
pure nonsense. It came earlier.

So, in the same sense that Christianity (and earlier, Judaism) gave an 
important contribution towards atheism by removing all but one god, 
Christianity gave a contribution towards human rights by pointing to the 
individual's position related to God, removing some of the importance of the 
community in religious questions. This is perhaps a natural response from a 
small sect, since the community is hostile towards the faith. When xtianity 
was institutionalized, this phenomenon was of course suppressed, but it did 
surface again. First, during the reformation, and later, during the 
enlightment and the secularisation.


- Jan

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