Christ's Human Soul?

[Spero11]

I’ve been reading Theology for Beginners by Frank Sheed and I have some questions about what happened to Christ’s human soul after He ascended.

Chapter 11 talks all about how He has a human will with human emotions and intellect in addition to a divine will and intellect. I knew and understand all of that. It is also explained that He has a human soul that He created for himself. This is pretty neat to really think about!!

Is his human soul with his resurrected body in Heaven? I’m assuming that’s where it is. It’s just such a big idea to grasp, after finally beginning to understand the Trinity. Since a human soul goes with human nature, how does that fit in with the one divine nature and three divine persons of the Trinity? It almost seems that human nature would have to be part of the Trinity if Christ’s human soul is up there, but human nature is not part of the Trinity (that would be strange), right? Maybe I’m again limiting the divine nature of God to what we know as humans, but I was just hoping for any light that can be shed on this! Thanks

 

[Katholish]

When Christ died, his soul and body were separated. His body remained in the tomb and his soul down to Limbo/Hell/Hades to conquer death and free the souls of the just. The Resurrection is the reuniting of the soul and the body, just as our souls and bodies will one day be reunited. Thus, after the Resurrection, Christ’s soul and body were never apart. Christ ascended into Heaven Body and Soul. So yes, Christ’s soul is now in Heaven united with His body.

I know that in contemplating the Incarnation, we are sometimes tempted to think of God the Son as the soul animating Christ’s body, but of course that is not the way it works. God is united both with Christ’s body and His human soul. The difficulty is understanding how Christ’s human soul is not its own person, for indeed, in our regular experience, every human body/soul composite we encounter is a person. I think that question is at the heart of the mystery. Obviously there are aspects of the Incarnation that we simply cannot understand.

 

[Spero11]

The difficulty is understanding how Christ’s human soul is not its own person, for indeed, in our regular experience, every human body/soul composite we encounter is a person. I think that question is at the heart of the mystery. Obviously there are aspects of the Incarnation that we simply cannot understand.

Thanks! I think you said it well and helped me organize my thoughts.

It seems like being able to clearly define the unanswerable (by the human mind)/mysterious question (as you did) helps to make things clearer or at least helps to make peace with what is unclear. It seems like there is a lot of that in theology…

 

[Nita]

The Catechism has a nice section on this topic (#624-628)
vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/_INDEX.HTM

QUOTE (bolding mine):
625 Christ’s stay in the tomb constitutes the real link between his passible state before Easter and his glorious and risen state today. the same person of the “Living One” can say, “I died, and behold I am alive for evermore”:465
God [the Son] did not impede death from separating his soul from his body according to the necessary order of nature, but has reunited them to one another in the Resurrection, so that he himself might be, in his person, the meeting point for death and life, by arresting in himself the decomposition of nature produced by death and so becoming the source of reunion for the separated parts.466

626 Since the “Author of life” who was killed467 is the same “living one [who has] risen”,468 The divine person of the Son of God necessarily continued to possess his human soul and body, separated from each other by death:

By the fact that at Chnst’s death his soul was separated from his flesh, his one person is not itself divided into two persons; for the human body and soul of Christ have existed in the same way from the beginning of his earthly existence, in the divine person of the Word; and in death, although separated from each other, both remained with one and the same person of the Word.469

“You will not let your Holy One see corruption”
627 Christ’s death was a real death in that it put an end to his earthly human existence. But because of the union his body retained with the person of the Son, his was not a mortal corpse like others, for "divine power preserved Christ’s body from corruption."470 Both of these statements can be said of Christ: “He was cut off out of the land of the living”,471 and "My flesh will dwell in hope. For you will not abandon my soul to Hades, nor let your Holy One see corruption."472 Jesus’ Resurrection “on the third day” was the proof of this, for bodily decay was held to begin on the fourth day after death.473