‘Man bites dog’ is a classic shock tabloid headline, playing on readers expecting the opposite. Because a dog biting a man, while a nasty experience for him, is unsurprising. It seems according to nature. And we certainly wouldn’t consider prosecuting the dog for assault, would we? Dogs are not persons and so have no personal responsibility for their actions.
However much a dog-lover may project their feelings and thoughts onto the dog, the animal is still that and not human and lacks what it takes to be a person. Only human beings have personal responsibility (to human authorities and ultimately to God) for our actions. But while we instinctively recognise this, it raises the question, what is a person?
What is a person?
Various theologians, philosophers, and psychologists have had a stab at answering this tricky question. While recognising it is difficult, it is worth sketching out some elements that contribute to our personhood. John Frame quotes Boethius (475–524) as making the first attempt at defining a human person: ‘an individual substance of a rational nature’.
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