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The rational soul is the substantial form of the human body, gives
that body its own nature, for it is the radical principle by which man
lives, vegetatively, sensitively, and intellectively. These various
vital acts, since they are not accidental to man, but natural, must
come from his nature, from the specific principle which animates his
body.
What makes man to be man? Is it his soul alone? No, because each
man is aware that he uses not only his mind but also his sense powers.
But without body there can be no sense activity. Hence the body too
belongs to man's constitution.
But can we not say, with Averroes, that the soul is an impersonal
intelligence, united with the body, say, of Socrates, in order to
accomplish there that act which we call thinking? No, again, because
such a union, being accidental, not essential, would prevent the act
of thinking from being in truth the action of Socrates. Socrates
would have to say, not: "I think," but instead: "It thinks,"
somewhat as we say, "It rains." Nor can we say, further, that
intelligence is united to the body as motor, to move and guide the
body, since thus it would follow that Socrates would not be a natural
unity, would not have one nature only. [637] .
But can then the rational soul be a spiritual thing, if it is the
principle of vegetative and sense life? It can, because, to quote
the saint, [638] "the higher a form is, the less it is
immersed in matter, the more likewise does it dominate matter, and the
higher does its operation rise above materiality." Even the animal
soul is endowed with sense activity. Much more then can the rational
soul, even as form of the body, dominate that body, and still be
endowed with intellectual knowledge. [639] The spiritual soul
communicates its own substantial existence to corporeal matter, and
this existence is the one and only existence of the human composite.
Hence, also, the human soul, in contrast to the soul of beasts,
preserves its own existence after the destruction of the body which it
vivified. [640] It follows, further, that the spiritual
soul, when separated from its body, preserves its natural inclination
to union with that body, just as naturally as, to illustrate, a stone
thrown into the air still preserves its inclination to the center of the
earth. [641] .
Is there possibly only one soul for all human bodies? No, because it
would follow that Socrates and Plato would be simply one thinking
subject, and the one's act of thinking could not be distinguished from
that of the other. [642] .
Since each individual human soul has an essential relation to its own
individual body, it follows that, by this essential relation, the
separated soul remains individualized, and hence has a natural desire
for reunion with that body, a reunion which, so revelation tells us,
will become fact by the resurrection of the body. [643] .
Is the rational soul the one and only form of the human body? Yes,
because from this one form come both sense life and vegetative life,
and even corporeity itself. If there were more than one substantial
form in man, man would be, not simply one, but accidentally one.
[644] Supposing many substantial forms, the lowest of these
forms, by giving corporeity, already constitutes a substance, and all
subsequent forms would be merely accidental forms, as is, to
illustrate, the form we call quantity when added to corporeal
substance. A form is not substantial unless it gives substantial
being. [645] .
Notice how, throughout these articles too, the saint insistently
recurs to the principle of potency and act. "Act united with act
cannot make a thing one in nature." [646] On the contrary,
"only from act and from potency essentially proportioned to that act
can arise a thing of itself one, as is the case with matter and
form." [647] This principle of potency and act is the source
of the wonderful unity in the Thomistic synthesis.
Is there not contradiction in saying that a form essentially spiritual
can, nevertheless, be the source of corporeity? No, because
superior forms contain eminently the perfection of inferior forms, as,
to illustrate, the pentagon contains the quadrilateral. [648]
The rational soul contains, eminently and formally, [649] life
sensitive and vegetative, and these qualities are only virtually
distinct from one another. There would be contradiction if we said
that the soul is the immediate principle of act, intellective,
sensitive, and nutritional. But the soul performs these acts by the
medium of specifically distinct faculties. [650] .
If the rational soul has as object the lowest of intelligible
realities, namely, the sense world, what kind of body shall that soul
have? Evidently a body capable of sense activity. [651] Thus
the body is meant by nature to subserve the soul's intellective
knowledge. Only accidentally, particularly as a consequence of sin,
is the body a burden to the soul.
A summary of the principles which dominate the question of the natural
union of the soul to body is found in the sixteenth of the twenty-four
Thomistic theses. It runs thus: [652] This same rational
soul is united to the body in such wise that it is the one and only
substantial form of that body. To this one soul man owes his
existence, as man, as animal, as living thing, as body, as
substance, as being. Thus the soul gives to man all degrees of
essential perfection. Further, the soul communicates to the body its
own act of existence, and by that existence the body, too, exists.
To Thomists this proposition seems demonstrated by the principle of
real distinction between potency and act, between essence and
existence. Suarez, [653] who has a different understanding of
this principle, holds that the proposition, "the soul is the one and
only form of the body," is not a demonstrated proposition, but only a
more probable one. Here again we see his eclectic tendency.
What we have said of the soul's spirituality, its personal
immortality, its union with the body, shows clearly the degree of
perfection given by St. Thomas to Aristotle's doctrine, which had
been misinterpreted by Averroes as pantheistic. The precision
Aquinas has given to Aristotle, particularly on the question of free
and non-eternal creation, and on the present question of the soul,
justifies the statement that St. Thomas baptized Aristotle. The
principle of potency and act explains and defends these important
preambles of faith. [654] .
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