Becoming and Belonging by Norman PittengerDr. Pittenger, philosopher and theologian, was a senior member of King’s College, Cambridge for many years, then Professor of Christian Apologetics at the General Theological Seminary in New York City, before retiring in 1966. Published by Morehouse Publishing, Wilton, Connecticut, 1989. This material was prepared for Religion Online by Ted and Winnie Brock.Chapter 3: The Human PersonNone of us can live to, of, and for self alone. To be human is not only to "become" but also to "belong" -- to belong with other people, sharing with them in the human situation, participating in their interests, receiving from them and giving to them. This is why talk about ourselves as "individuals" is misleading; we are not so much individuals as persons. The dictionary definition of individual is ‘one instance of a class, species, or type"; no mention is made of relationships. But the word person suggests -- or ought to suggest, if we have regard for the historical development of its usage -- just such relationships, contexts, and setting. When people speak of individuals, they usually imply a stress on the self alone, almost, if not always, in isolation or separation from others. When they speak of persons, they imply the notion of social belonging in which men and women are so related that one might very well say that personality and sociality are two sides of the same coin, two aspects of the same reality.In this chapter we shall begin with exactly those ideas, first with reference to ourselves. Then the next chapter will be a consideration of the one other to whom we are most intimately related, be it wife or lover or husband or very close friend. After that we shall look at wider relationships, first with the family and then with neighbors. Finally, we shall discuss the "city," or the broad and inclusive social group to which we belong. The purpose throughout will be to arrive at some understanding of what human becoming and...