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The principal objection against the doctrine that the
intellective soul is the only form of the body is the
following. An intellective power cannot be the form of a
body. But an intellective substance is more noble than
its power. Therefore an intellective substance cannot be
the form of a body.
St. Thomas replied: "The human soul is not a form
immersed in corporeal matter, or completely comprehended
by matter, because of the perfection of the soul, and
therefore there is nothing to prohibit some power of the
soul from being the act of the body, although the soul by
its essence is the form of the body."[1303]
In other words, the intellective soul is the form of the
body inasmuch as it is eminently and formally vegetative
and sensitive, or inasmuch as the intellective soul does
for the human body what the sensitive soul does for the
animal and what the vegetative soul does for plants. In
this manner the intellective soul is virtually multiple.
This teaching is sometimes misunderstood to mean that the
intellective soul is virtually sensitive and vegetative.
On the contrary, according to the interpretation of
Cajetan, Ferrariensis, and John of St. Thomas, the
intellective soul is eminently and formally vegetative and
sensitive. It is God alone who virtually possesses
vegetative and sensitive life, as He possesses other
mixed perfections which He can produce, and God cannot
be the form of the human body.
The intellective soul contains vegetative and sensitive
life eminently and formally, just as God in the sublimity
of the Deity formally contains the absolutely perfect
perfections, such as being, intellection, love. The
soul therefore can be the form of the human body, but this
would be impossible if the soul were only virtually and not
formally vegetative and sensitive.
But, as in God the absolutely perfect perfections are
only virtually distinct, so the sensitive, vegetative,
and corporeal forms are only virtually distinct in the
intellective soul. This is the clear teaching of St.
Thomas. Some have caused confusion on this point by
saying that the vegetative and sensitive parts are only
virtually in the soul because St. Thomas said that the
intellective, sensitive, and vegetative parts are only
virtually distinct. The term "virtually" refers to
"distinguish" and not to the verb "is," as when we
speak of the absolutely perfect perfections in God.
Moreover, it would be repugnant for the soul to be the
immediate principle of such diverse operations as those of
vegetative, sensitive, and intellectual life, but it is
not repugnant that the soul produce these operations
through the mediation of various subordinate faculties.
No created substance, not even the angel, is immediately
operative; it cannot understand except through the
intellective faculty, nor can it will except through the
will. The created essence is ordered to being, but the
operative faculties are ordered to operations and are
specified by the formal object of these
operations.[1304]
The twofold principle for the solution of the objections
against this traditional doctrine is: the intellective
soul is the form of the body, and yet it is in no way
immersed in matter. This teaching is well stated as the
sixteenth of the Thomistic propositions approved by the
Sacred Congregation of Studies (1914): "This
same rational soul is united to the body in such a way that
it is the only substantial form of the body, and through
this form man is man, animal, living, a body,
substance, and being. This form therefore confers on man
every essential degree of perfection; besides this the
soul confers on the body the act of being by which it
itself is." For the Thomists this proposition is
certain according to the principles that refer to the
distinction between potency and act, and between essence
and being. Suarez, on the contrary, who conceived these
principles otherwise, held that it was only probable that
the rational soul is the only form of the
body.[1305] Denying the real distinction between
created essence and being, he said that the substantial
being of man cannot be one, but that there is a twofold
being just as there are two parts in the essence of man,
namely, matter and form. As in the question of
creation, so here also Suarez differs considerably from
St. Thomas.
From St. Thomas' principles concerning the distinction
between potency and act it follows that the human soul and
body unite in the one being of man in such a way that the
soul does not depend on the body for being, but
communicates its being to the body; and after the
separation from the body, the soul can again communicate
its being to the body, as happens in the resurrection of
the dead. From the same principles it follows that there
is one being in Christ, namely, the being of the Word,
communicated to the human nature, which does not subsist
except in the Word.[1306]
This doctrine of the spirituality and personal immortality
of the soul shows how St. Thomas Christianized that
Aristotelianism which the Averroists interpreted in a
pantheistic sense. We see this likewise in the question
of free creation from nothing. In these two questions the
holy doctor shows how the principles supporting the
preambles of faith are demonstrated and explained by the
Aristotelian teaching on potency and act.[1307]
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