This book is an attempt to answer the question 'What is a person?'. Although the answer is given in largely theoretical terms, the author is concerned primarily with practice: what does it mean to live as a human person in community with others? What personal, social, and political practices are required by personal being? The central insight, that human identity is most productively understood in communicational terms, leads to an account of personhood which is both compassionate and which - at the same time - keeps sight of the particularity of each individual.

"The value of this book lies in its detailed exploration of the implications for theology of an important current in contemporary thought.... His book deserves to be widely read and incorporated into current debates on theological anthropology, the doctrine of the Triune God, and the implications of contemporary philosophy and the social sciences for theology." Theological Studies June 92