THE SPIRITUALITY AND IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL: QUESTION 75

The spirituality of the soul is often affirmed in Sacred Scripture. 1. God is said to have formed the body of Adam from the slime of the earth, and into this body He breathed the breath of life, that is, the soul, which is spiritual since man was made to the image of God, who is a spirit.[1268] 2. Those things predicated of the sheol presuppose the immortality of the soul, as does also the resurrection of certain human beings. 3. The spirituality and immortality of the soul are expressly stated in the prophetical[1269] and sapiential books,[1270] and in the Books of the Machabees.[1271] 4. In the New Testament the human soul is said to be entirely distinct from the body, immortal, and capable of eternal life: "Fear ye not them that kill the body, and are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him that can destroy both soul and body in hell";[1272] "For what man knoweth the things of a man, but the spirit of a man that is in him?"[1273]

The Fathers frequently affirm the spirituality and immortality of the soul; in general their teaching is that the soul is incorporeal, immortal, and created by God.[1274]

The Fourth Council of the Lateran declared that the human creature "is constituted of a spirit and a body."[1275]

As Denzinger notes at the end of his systematic index, the Church has declared that the human soul is not generated by the parents, that the intellective soul is not evolved from the sensitive soul, that the soul is substance, not numerically one in all but one in each individual, that it is created by God from nothing, that it does not pre-exist, is not a part of the divine substance, and is immortal.[1276]

St. Thomas proves the spirituality of the soul from reason as follows: "It is clear that whatever is received in another is received after the manner of that in which it is received; thus whatever is known is known according to the form it has in the one who knows. The intellective soul, however, knows a thing in its absolute nature, for example, a stone, which is known absolutely as a stone. In the intellective soul the form of the stone is absolute according to its formal nature. Therefore the intellective soul is an absolute form, not something composed of matter and form. If the intellective soul were composed of matter and form, the forms of things would be received in it as individuals, and the soul would know only the individual, as is the case with the sensitive powers, which receive the forms of things in a corporeal organ."[1277]

This demonstration becomes clearer the more our knowledge abstracts from matter. Following Aristotle, St. Thomas distinguishes three degrees of abstraction. In the first degree our intellect abstracts only from individual matter, knowing, for example, not this mineral, this plant, or this animal, but the nature of the mineral, plant, or animal and the reason underlying their functions. In the second degree our intellect abstracts from sensible matter, or from all sensible qualities and considers the nature of the triangle, circle, sphere, or of numbers, and deduces the necessary and universal laws of their properties, which thus become intelligible and not merely imaginable. Now it becomes clear that the idea of the circle is not only a composite image or the average of individual circles, but expresses the nature of the circle which is verified either in the small, or large, or average circle, and this nature contains the reason for the properties of the circle, which thus become truly intelligible, whereas the image of the circle contains only the sensible phenomena without any intelligibility. Finally in the third degree of abstraction our intellect abstracts from all matter and attains to intelligible being, which is not accessible to the senses or to the imagination, either as a sensible property (color, sound, etc.) or as something sensible in common (as size, figure), but is accessible only to the intellect. Such reasons for the being of things as well as the properties of being, namely, one, true, and good, can also be attributed to pure spirits.

Only the intellect, not the senses or the imagination, can know the intelligible being of things and the first necessary and universal principles of being; the senses and the imagination know only the sensible qualities of things and the individual, not the absolutely necessary and universal principles of contradiction, identity, the nature of being, efficient causality, finality, etc., by which all things gradually become intelligible and by which we demonstrate the existence of the first cause and the first intelligence, which orders all things.

In this third degree of abstraction our intellect knows itself as essentially related to the immaterial, and therefore it must itself be immaterial. Its object is not color or sound or the different sensible phenomena, but the intelligible being of things, and therefore all its concepts presuppose the most universal concept of being. So also in all its judgments the verb is reduced to the verb "is," which is, as it were, the soul of the judgment, and every ratiocination assigns the reason for the being of the conclusion.

Our intellect is therefore essentially related to intelligible being and to the absolutely necessary and universal principles of being because of the abstraction from all matter, and therefore our intellect itself is immaterial. Consequently the intellective soul also is entirely immaterial and intrinsically independent of the organism, since operation follows being and the mode of operation follows the mode of being.

This is the principal proof for the spirituality of the soul, which St. Thomas adopted from Aristotle.[1278]

The imagination cannot attain to the knowledge of a necessary and universal principle, for example, the principle of causality, nor to the first principle of ethics, that the moral good (transcending the sensible, delectable, or useful good) is to be done and evil is to be avoided. In this, man is essentially superior to even the higher animals.

This argument is corroborated by several subordinate arguments.

1. The spirituality of the soul is also proved by the fact that it is able to know the nature of all bodies. "When a thing is able to know other things, it is fitting that it have nothing of these things in its nature, because that which might be in it naturally would impede the knowledge of the other things, just as the tongue that is infected with a bitter taste finds all things bitter."[1279]

Much has been written about the validity of this argument. If it is offered independently from the preceding argument, it is rather difficult,[1280] but it is comparatively simple as a confirmation of the preceding argument.[1281] These two arguments are taken from direct intellection.

2. The spirituality of the soul is also proved from reflex intellection. "The action of no body is reflected back on the agent; as was shown in Physica (Bk. VII, chap. I); no body is moved by itself except with respect to a part, so that one part of the body moves and another is moved. Our intellect, however, acting on itself reflects back on itself by complete reflection, it understands itself not only with regard to a part but with regard to its totality. Therefore it is not a body."[1282] In other words, the intellective soul is entirely devoid of integrating parts and extension.

Moreover, as St. Thomas says: "Our intellect reflects on its own act, not only inasmuch as it knows its act but also inasmuch as it knows its relation to the thing (the extramental thing that is known), which is something that cannot be known unless the nature of the act itself is known together with the nature of the intellect itself."[1283] Thus our intellect knows itself as ordered to the cognition of truth, just as the feet are ordered to walking and wings are ordered to flying. But the cognition of truth is not something corporeal like walking; it is spiritual, revealing the spirituality of the soul.

3. Through the intellect the soul conceives immaterial and spiritual things, among these the eternal, infinite, holy God, the first cause of all being; it conceives even revealed mysteries, which entirely transcend the capabilities of the sensitive faculties, such as the infinite value of the Redemption and of the love of the Son of God, dying on the cross.

4. The spirituality of the soul is confirmed by the object of the will, inasmuch as the will follows the intellect. Our will, specified by the universal good as known by the intellect, is ordered not only to the delectable or useful sensible good but also to the moral, or reasonable, or spiritual good, according to the various virtues of temperance, fortitude, justice, and equity. We know from experience that, while the same material goods, the same house, the same field, cannot be possessed entirely at the same time by many persons, the same spiritual goods, such as the same truth or the same virtue, can be possessed entirely and at the same time by many persons, as St. Augustine and St. Thomas frequently point out. Lastly, our souls by their natural desires are attracted more to spiritual objects than to corporeal things; indeed the soul naturally is drawn to God the author of nature, the principle of truth, of goodness, and of beauty, who is to be loved above all things and even more than ourselves.[1284]

5. Further confirmation is had from human freedom inasmuch as our will, specified by the universal good, remains free with regard "to every object that is not good in every respect."[1285] This reveals the universal scope and immeasurable depth of our will, which cannot be filled except by the clear vision of God.[1286]

6. In man we find a moral conscience, which threatens him when he is about to do wrong and torments him with remorse if he commits the wrong. Only an immaterial and spiritual nature is capable of such a conscience. Moral laws are not imposed on blind matter.

From all this we conclude that, although the human soul is dependent on the senses for the presentation of its proper object, which is the intelligible being of sensible things, it is not dependent on an organism in its specific operation, or in its being (since operation follows being, and the mode of operation follows the mode of being), or in its production, that is, the soul is not educed from matter.

Therefore, as we shall see in the next chapter, the human soul and the body unite in the one being of man in such a way that the soul does not depend on the body in being but communicates its being to the body.

The incorruptibility of the soul follows from the spirituality of the soul, or its intrinsic independence of matter.[1287] Every simple and subsisting form (that is, immaterial and intrinsically independent of matter) is incorruptible "per se" and "per accidens". But the human soul is not only simple, like the soul of the animal, it is also subsisting and intrinsically independent of matter. Therefore it cannot be corrupted either "per se" (because of its simplicity) or "per accidens" when the composite is corrupted (because of its intrinsic independence of matter both in being and in its specific operation).

By God's absolute power, of course, the soul can be annihilated, since annihilation is not repugnant and since the soul needs to be preserved by God. But by His power as directed by His wisdom God does not annihilate a creature which is both "per se" and "per accidens" incorruptible according to the laws established by God Himself. God does not annihilate the soul even miraculously or by an extraordinary use of His power, because, from the viewpoint of the end, there is no motive for such action; such an action is not good in itself, nor can it be directed to a greater good. On the other hand God can permit sin for a greater good, namely, for the manifestation of mercy and justice. The soul, therefore, is immortal by its very nature.

We see from this, in opposition to Scotus, that the immortality of the human soul is not only known by faith but can also be demonstrated by natural reason.

St. Thomas adds the following argument: "In cognitive beings desire follows knowledge. The senses know being only under the aspect of the here and now, but the intellect understands being absolutely and as it is in all time. Hence every being that possesses an intellect naturally desires to be at all times. A natural desire cannot be futile. Therefore every intellectual substance is incorruptible."[1288]

The brute animal does not desire to be always but only here and now, for example, at the moment when it is threatened with death, because the animal does not know being absolutely in all time. Man himself does not naturally desire the immortality of his body, which is naturally mortal, but the soul of man, which knows being absolutely as in all time, naturally desires to be always, and this is a sign that the soul is naturally immortal. This desire of the soul is not a conditional and inefficacious desire, like the desire for the beatific vision, which is essentially supernatural and gratuitous; this desire is for the natural being of the soul to be preserved continually.

Finally, from the fact that the human soul is spiritual it follows that it is not in the potency of matter like the soul of the animal, nor can it be produced by generation. It can be produced only by God by creation from nothing, that is, from no pre-existing subject.[1289] That which operates independently of matter also exists and becomes, or rather is produced, independently of matter. Hence we find among the twenty-four propositions approved by the Sacred Congregation of Studies (1914): "Intellectuality necessarily follows immateriality, and the degree of intellectuality depends on the degree of remoteness from matter" (no. 18).

The human intelligence, therefore, is the lowest of all the intelligences, and correspondingly its proportionate object is the lowest intelligible being, namely, that of sensible things, in which as in a mirror the human intelligence knows higher things.