[442] PT: You would say it is an understood personality. [laughter] STUDENT: [Roger Johnson]: The quality of person that is always related to a particular physical body^a, and this is one of the reasons why, in the school of personal idealism, they talk not about person so much as about personality^b, because in personality there is that quality which is not tied to a physical aspect of the person... PT: So a personality is a ghost in this school--a spirit. STUDENT: A spirit--not so much a ghost. [laughter] PT: Then let us say the English language^c is in a development here. [laughter] Let us make a decision

ourselves, and if you don’t mind, since it is comparatively clear, let us simply make the most primitive differentiation, namely person is somebody who can become a personality, but who is not necessarily yet a personality. Now if you accept this as a preliminary linguistic statement, then we come to the next question: how did it come to pass that this concept^d of person and personality became of such importance? In Greek thinking the word meant the actor, and it was applied in this form to the Trinitarian figures in God--Father, Son, and the Spirit. But it was never applied to God^e Himself, and I fight against the application of the word "person" to God. If you say the word "personal God,"

that, I can accept, because that means God is ALSO the ground of everything personal, and therefore He is not LESS than it, but MORE than it! But if you say He is a person, you reduce Him completely. Now this is a footnote.--How did, out of primitive collectivism (to which I come later) the idea and the ideal of personality develop? I think there are two reasons for this. The one reason is the experience of personal guilt--this is the inner-religious Jewish development. And the other is the ability of asking questions--this is the Greek development. And on the basis