THE NOTION OF THE PERSON ACCORDING TO DANIEL CLARK WALSH AND
THOMAS MERTON Thomas Merton, prolific spiritual and monastic
author, is well known and studied; yet the influence upon
Merton's thought of his teacher from Columbia University, Daniel
Clark Walsh, is not taken into account by Merton scholars. A
knowledge of the teachings of Walsh on the notion of the person
helps to reveal the metaphysical depths in Merton's thought and
to clarify the meaning of Merton's distinctions between person,
nature, and individual.^ In the Christian tradition authors
concerned to refine definition of person have regarded person as
a type of being. To understand a person as a type of being is to
distinguish persons from other types and thereby to determine
how persons fit into a hierarchy of beings. Such an approach
leads to "what" a person is, not the "who" of personal
existence. In contrast to such a view Merton and Walsh
understand person as relationship with God and image of God.
Person originates in, is guided by, and is