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Why does death make the soul immutable, either in good or in evil?
The most explicit answer is found in the Summa contra Gentiles.
[995] .
Our will for a definite last end depends on our will's disposition;
as long as this disposition lasts, the desire of this end cannot
change, since it changes only by the desire of something more desirable
as last end.
Now the soul's disposition is variable during its union with the
body, but not after separation from the body. Why? Because changes
in the body bring corresponding changes in the soul's disposition,
since the body has been given to the soul as instrument of the soul's
operations. But the soul, separated from the body, is no longer in
motion toward its end, but rests in the end attained (unless it has
departed in a state of failure toward this end).
Hence the will of the separated soul is immutable in the desire of its
last end, on which desire depends all the will's goodness, or then
all its malice. It is immutable, either in good or in evil, and
cannot pass from one to the other, though in this fixed order,
immutable as regards the last end, it can still choose between means.
[996] .
In this line of reasoning we see again the force of the doctrine on the
soul as form of the body. Since the body is united to the soul, not
accidentally, but naturally, to aid the soul in tending to its goal,
it follows that the soul, separated from the body, is no longer in a
state of tendency to its good.
Cajetan proposes on this subject an opinion which seems to disregard
the distance that separates the angel from the human soul. Having said
that the angel's choice of a good or evil end is irrevocable, he adds
these words: "As to the soul, I hold that it is rendered obstinate
by the first act which it elicits in its state of separation and that
its final act of demerit occurs, not when it is in via, but when it is
in termino." [997] .
Thomists in general reject this view. Thus Sylvester de Ferrara,
who says: The soul in the first moment of its separation has indeed
immutable apprehension, and in that first moment begins its state of
obstinacy. But it does not, as some say, have in that moment a
demeritorious act, because human demerit like human merit presupposes
man. Now the separated soul is not a man, not even in its first
moment of separation. Rather, that moment is the first moment of its
non-existence as man. Therefore its obstinacy is caused,
inchoatively, by its last mutable apprehension of its last end before
death, but irrevocably by that apprehension which becomes immutable in
its first moment of separation. [998] .
The Salmanticenses [999] pronounce thus on Cajetan's
opinion, saying: "This mode of speaking does not agree with
Scripture, which states expressly that men can merit or demerit before
death, but not after death. 'We must work while it is day: the
night cometh when no man can work. ' " [1000] .
Cajetan conceived the matter too abstractly. He saw correctly that
man's road to God is terminated by the moment when that road closes.
[1001] But he did not notice that merit belongs to the man who
is on the road, not to the separated soul. The last merit, or
demerit, so St. Thomas and nearly all his commentators, is an act
of the soul still in union with the body, and this act of the united
soul becomes immutable by the soul's separation from the body.
Hence it is wrong to say: The condemned soul, seeing its misery,
can still repent. Of such a soul, as of the fallen angel, we must
rather say: The pride wherein it is immovably fixed closes the road of
humility and obedience whereby alone it could repent. Could a soul
repent after final impenitence, it would no longer be condemned.
The contrary immutability, that of those who die in the state of
grace, the immutability of their free choice of the Supreme Good,
supremely loved, is a wonderful echo of the immutability of God's own
freedom of choice. God, knowing beforehand all that he has either
willed or permitted to come to pass in time, can have no reason to
change. Thus, when the separated soul of one of the elect receives
the beatific vision, it loves God seen face to face with a love beyond
its freedom, a love that is indeed spontaneous, but necessary and
inamissible. [1002] .
We have here, then, in the grace of a good death, a new view of the
grand mystery, namely, the mystery of the inner harmony between
infinite mercy, infinite justice, and sovereign freedom, a harmony
realized in the pre-eminence of the deity, but obscure to us as long
as we have not been raised to the beatific vision.
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