To show that persons come from God, we have to link a number of Christian doctrines. We have to show that persons come into being through other persons, and that they therefore come into being as they come into relationship with other people, making their appearance in the great assembly of all persons. We come into being as we become distinct and particular persons. Being a body – flesh, in the biblical term – is the means by which we are available to one another. Then we have to say that we become particular persons as we grow into one very particular sort of human being, that comes from exactly one human being, Jesus Christ. All human being is sourced from Jesus Christ and given its definition by him, so he is the criterion of humanity, and therefore of what it is to be a particular human, present to the rest of us as a particular body. This means that our being as persons is not given to us complete at birth, but is part of a process, caused by the Holy Spirit, which unfolds through time. As we are sanctified we become more human, more responsive and available to God, and through God to one another, and so we become real. This happens to us when we properly identify God, from whom all persons come, and praise him for them.
On this definition, becoming human is about becoming better able to concede the otherness of other people. We come to be ourselves by properly seeing people for who they are and who they will be, attributing to them the distinctiveness that God is giving them. Our ability properly to respect others, giving them neither too little nor much recognition, is itself given to us by God. The worship of God allows us to see others as his creatures, and thus to understand that they are ours only because they are first his. By this act of worship we are witnesses of the act by which they are called first into existence and then into their full future stature. We not only see them for what they are, but in the Holy Spirit we contribute to making them what they will be. Worship of the true God is decisive in letting others become freely human, and only this allows us to grow into our own full stature.
