Article November 24, 1945 Issue

Principle Revealed in True Individuality

ETHEL DANIELS HUBBARD

To claim that there is something superior to human personality is to invite incredulity and resistance from the world thought. Personality, with its physical concomitants, is dominant in literature and human life. Characters in fiction may be selfish, vain, capricious but if the personal appeal is sufficiently vivid, inconsistencies are condoned. There are a few exceptions in a few great books. Jean Valjean, the hero of "Les Miserables," is notable among fictional heroes because of the developing greatness of his character. Personality is forgotten in the colossal deeds of self-sacrifice which he performed. Herein may be found a hint of the fact that there exists something surpassing human personality, something vastly more interesting as well as effective.

Many Bible characters confirm this conclusion. With Moses, Elijah, Jeremiah, Isaiah, there is little inclination to stress the personal, since their appeal lies in their knowledge of God and its application to human need. David attained greatness only as he rose out of the human sense of selfhood with its personal propensities into a knowledge of God and an obedience to Him. It was on the basis of man's spiritual identity as the son of God that he forgave Saul and wrote the noblest of the Psalms. Paul is immortalized by the thirteenth chapter of I Corinthians and the eighth chapter of Romans, rather than by traits of personality.

Neighbors and kinsfolk may have regarded Jesus of Nazareth as an unusually pure and loving human being who went about doing good. His interpretation of himself, however, was radically different. It was his spiritual selfhood, not his human personality, which he was expressing and revealing to mankind. When he declared, "I can of mine own self do nothing" (John 5:30), he was proclaiming the spiritual concept of identity contingent wholly upon God. In that blessed consciousness of oneness with the Father, he performed his mighty healings.

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