I agree with A.J. that most of the time, individual is just a short-hand for one person, and nothing theological need be read into it.
I also agree with K that Christianity is intrinsically tied up with community, and that the language of individualism is not perhaps a felicitous choice for those who want to fully express who a man is.
It has been said that at the root of nearly all the ancient heresies (most of which regularly pop up periodically in different forms) was the confusion of nature and person (hypostasis). Or put more simply, the confusion of "what" with "who."
The fathers wrote, as I recall, that the Divine essence and nature are uniquely enhypostasized as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Likewise, human nature is uniquely enhypostasized in each human being (and was also uniquely enhypostasized in the hypostasis/person of Jesus Christ.) Uniqueness and community are not in dialectical opposition with each other, although some of the pagan Greek philosophers felt otherwise -- A.J. knows more about those guys than I do.
This shared single human nature is what makes Christ the living bridge between God and man. This connectedness of the single human nature is why Christ's incarnation, life, death, and resurrection has transformed and healed human nature, making it possible for us to achieve salvation, and to be one day resurrected.
If by calling Christ an "individual," one fails to consider Christ's shared divine essence and nature, we end up with 3 gods at best, and with subordinationism and a "creaturely Christ" Arianism at worst. If by calling Christ an "individual," one fails to consider Christ's sharing of human nature with us, then we make Christ's work of no effect for us.
Of course, it is what it is -- what we believe doesn't change who God is and who we are. But what we believe does change how we think and act, and how we respond to God. And how we think and act affects our ability to change to become like Christ and to draw closer to him.
It has, hasn't it? Good to talk again. From what I've seen you spend most of your FR time in the Religion forum, which is also where I spend most of mine, but you're on Orthodox threads and I'm on Protestant ones.
The fathers wrote, as I recall, that the Divine essence and nature are uniquely enhypostasized as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Likewise, human nature is uniquely enhypostasized in each human being (and was also uniquely enhypostasized in the hypostasis/person of Jesus Christ.)
I'm not sure I'm comfortable with this. Not that I actually disagree, but I also don't see where a tritheist would disagree. Not that I'm calling you a tritheist, of course. (Incidentally, have there ever been any heresies that held to tritheism? The Mormons sometimes make tritheistic sounding noises, but they're polytheists, or maybe heno-tritheists. Was there ever real tritheism, or is it just a hypothetical error a person could fall into and a false accusation against orthodoxy from Jews, Modalists, Arians, Muslims, and other varieties of unitarian?)
I would also say that God is one Being enhypostasized (it's unfortunate "impersonated" already means something completely different and we have to resort to a word like enhypostasized) in three Persons, and each human is one being enhypostasized in one person, although in Christ that One Being is the Being Who created the universe and is also enhypostasized in two other Persons Who are not human. Or whatever the right way to put it is, the Persons of the Trinity are One in a way humans are not, or rather humans are isolated from each other in a way the Persons of the Trinity aren't. And not just, I think, because of the Fall. Eve evidently thought God forbade touching the forbidden fruit, which means there was some sort of miscommunication between her and Adam. But maybe this won't be the case in Heaven, because the saved are being taken up into the life of Christ.
But I completely agree that it's the interconnectedness of humanity that makes the Incarnation of benefit to us. He is, after all, our Kinsman.
Uniqueness and community are not in dialectical opposition with each other, although some of the pagan Greek philosophers felt otherwise -- A.J. knows more about those guys than I do.
Something in the friend's response reminded me of Plato. :-)
It said: The INDIVIDUAL is characterized and defined/ defines himself in terms of his differences from other individuals. Individualism is inherently and inevitably atomistic (hence profoundly contrary to human nature -- see below). Where it is the dominant functional philosophy, society is always in flux between the extremes of anarchy and collectivism (which is the revenge human nature takes on radical individualism), leaving man with a choice between the life of the solitary wasp or that of the hive. The human PERSON, though unique, is defined in terms of his relation to other human persons.
Plato said the city would only be united if all men said "mine" and "not mine" at the same time, in relation to goods and even -- especially -- to people. Which is why the ideal city abolished the family. Particular relations with particular people also sets people apart; a man has one particular woman as wife rather than some other woman, one set of relatives, some people rather than others as friends, and so on. So Plato's ideal city got to extreme collectivism through atomized individualism.
I think Plato's view of love is interesting to note here. Take romantic love. I like girls who, beside being beautiful (everyone likes that) are intelligent and can hold up their end of a good conversation. Plato would say what I really like are Beauty and Intelligence and Good Conversation, and particular humans are merely fungible instantiations. But I don't like Good Conversation, I like having good conversations, and you can't have a good conversation with Good Conversation, you can only have one with a person.