B
Blue_Horizon
Guest
Yes, the philosophy of Aristotle teaches that animals have souls but the animal soul has no intrinsic power to survive death. But is this teaching truly of Christian faith as well?
Mainline medieval Scholastic Philosophy, based on this foundation, went beyond Arisistotle (who has nothing definitive to say re our Christian teaching of the imperishability of the human soul).
Scholasticism claimed that Man’s soul was eternal because the power of human intellect necessarily implied eternity of the human soul. They saw Aristotle was mistaken re his understanding of the human soul (or he somehow didn’t express himself very well on this important matter). This tied in nicely with Christian belief.
Yet I recently realised that ancient (and modern) Christian faith, when separated from scholastic philosophical systems, doesn’t actually have anything much to say about the fate of animal souls after death.
The most that the CCC says is that animals are inferior to humans and we have care and stewardship over them (as one would in less recent times with wives, children, slaves and the native peoples of the New World all of whom were at various times considered less than human by European males).
Questions:
(a) So is there any defined teaching re the perishability of animals beyond death?
I have not yet found anything satisfactory.
(b) And if it is a matter simply of scholastic philosophy how does the inferred logic work?
We cannot seem to base it purely on Aristotle. His philosophic system works quite well with the souls of both man and animals being considered perishable.
(c) Is there any serious opposition with other well accepted Christian Doctrines (despite the denials of our scholastic philosophical system) if one were to personally be open to the ongoing life of some animals beyond death (eg dolphins, primates)?
(d) And if such belief does not deny Christian faith…is it possible to reconcile Scholastic philosophy with this supposition?
Mainline medieval Scholastic Philosophy, based on this foundation, went beyond Arisistotle (who has nothing definitive to say re our Christian teaching of the imperishability of the human soul).
Scholasticism claimed that Man’s soul was eternal because the power of human intellect necessarily implied eternity of the human soul. They saw Aristotle was mistaken re his understanding of the human soul (or he somehow didn’t express himself very well on this important matter). This tied in nicely with Christian belief.
Yet I recently realised that ancient (and modern) Christian faith, when separated from scholastic philosophical systems, doesn’t actually have anything much to say about the fate of animal souls after death.
The most that the CCC says is that animals are inferior to humans and we have care and stewardship over them (as one would in less recent times with wives, children, slaves and the native peoples of the New World all of whom were at various times considered less than human by European males).
Questions:
(a) So is there any defined teaching re the perishability of animals beyond death?
I have not yet found anything satisfactory.
(b) And if it is a matter simply of scholastic philosophy how does the inferred logic work?
We cannot seem to base it purely on Aristotle. His philosophic system works quite well with the souls of both man and animals being considered perishable.
(c) Is there any serious opposition with other well accepted Christian Doctrines (despite the denials of our scholastic philosophical system) if one were to personally be open to the ongoing life of some animals beyond death (eg dolphins, primates)?
(d) And if such belief does not deny Christian faith…is it possible to reconcile Scholastic philosophy with this supposition?
- for example, who is to say that all primates in fact do have rational souls but due to some ongoing indisposition of pre-conceptual material from the parents (a recessive gene sort of thing) this rationality cannot be animated in the body. Not all actual humans exhibit rationality in their lifetimes…and conversely we do rarely come across individual animals in a species that seem to demonstarte “human” rationality.
) I don’t think we have to go so far as to say that a creature must have a rational mind to have a spiritual or immaterial soul. I don’t think it’s really necessary. I don’t think it’s even necessary to insist that animals have consciousness to have an immaterial soul. That animals have souls is a given. Now, the Church makes no distinction between animals: “Oh, well, primates seem rational, so they have souls, but insects don’t seem rational, so they have no souls.” Let me repeat that. The Church makes no distinction between which animals have souls and which do not (assuming some do not). The reason why God purportedly chose to make human souls eternal and animal souls transitory eludes me. I cannot find such reasoning anywhere in Catholic documentation so far. Logically, it makes no sense. Wouldn’t it have been “easier” (taken less of His energy) to create only one kind of soul and place it in all creatures? Even if one rejects this rationale, how can one argue that God cannot create as many different kinds of immortal souls as there are different creatures? (To do so would be heresy, implying that God is not omnipotent) Personally, I cannot see how saying that an animal has an immortal soul would deny or contradict anything in Catholic belief. And it’s not like the Church would have to edit thousands of official texts if she changed her belief. She would, however, have to modify some of her attitudes about animal cruelty and welfare.