Abstract

This book consists of fifteen new essays and an introduction by Zimmerman. Most of the authors are Christian philosophers in the ‘analytic’ tradition, and the book is of particular interest to readers of that sort; but there is nothing here that will interest only Christians. As the title suggests, all the essays have at least something to do with persons as such, and most deal with metaphysical issues. Beyond that they are pretty disparate. Seven papers are on substance dualism or idealism, which get a more sympathetic hearing than current fashion would dictate. Lynn Rudder Baker, Hud Hudson, and Peter van Inwagen discuss materialist accounts of human people that they have developed elsewhere. There are papers on specifically Christian doctrines--immortality, divine incarnation, the trinity, and original sin--and one on the value of human people by Philip Quinn. For better or worse, there is almost no discussion of the existence of God. Even so, no one can accuse the authors of avoiding the big questions and retreating to narrow, technical issues. There is as much at stake in these essays as there is in any work of Plato or Kant.