Cold in Purgatory

[Thomas_White]

Actually, there are two ‘pains’ that Aquinas describes in this part of the Summa. First, though, it’s necessary to state a caveat: this description of Purgatory is from the appendix to the supplement of the Summa Theologiae. It was not written by Thomas, so to speak; after his death, his colleagues compiled his (unfinished) discussion on penance, and added to them other things he had written elsewhere, and appended these to the Summa. So… ‘grain of salt’ time, if you want to say that this is Aquinas writing in the Summa, right?

While the remainder of the quoted comment is germane, it is simply too long to quote. If it is of interest, it is above.

There are several Questions numbered 75 in various sections of the Summa Theological. The question 75 to which I referred appears in a section entitled ‘Treatise on Man’ and it is located early in the main text. It was written by Aquinas.

The relevant discussion of Purgatory is in Question 1 of Appendix 1 of the Summa Theological. Though the Appendix was compiled by friends following the death of Aquinas, it complier’s name is thought to be known. The text was taken from an early manuscript written by Aquinas, though it cannot be said with certainly that the words in the Appendixes to Summa Theologica are the very words of Aquinas. This is understood. However, It became the classic formulation of the Doctrine of Purgatory in the Catholic Church. It is what matters.

The teaching is closely related to St. Augustine’s concept of Purgatory. Augustine believed in a literal suffering by fire in Purgatory, and so dreaded the prospect he pleaded with God to impose any punishment on the temporal Augustine. It was Augustine who wrote that this two-fold pain was far greater than any pain experienced during human existence.

The teaching of Summa Theologica, found in its second appendix contains a long argument concerning the issue of the immaterial soul suffering actual corporeal pain. In the end, Aquinas (?) agrees with Augustine. He says that all bodily sensation is from the soul and “it follows of necessity that the soul feels the greatest pain when a hurt is afflicted on the soul itself.” There is both the pain of loss felt from "the delay of divine vision, and the pain of sense, namely punishment from corporeal fire. "The “sense of pain” the soul experiences from the corporeal flames is the same pain felt by bodily sensation, only it is far worse. Aquinas says that “one suffers from the bodily fire is at present taken for granted*…Therefore, it follows that the pain of purgatory, both of loss and of sense, surpasses all the pains of life.”

*Cf. XP, Q[70], A[3]: “It is impossible for the soul to lose any of its powers after being separated from the body.”

That the pain of the senses is like what one experiences while alive on earth in the physical body, and this has been the universal teaching of the Doctors of the Church: the fire of Purgatory is the fire of Hell. Pope St. Gregory, Saint Bellermine, St. Augustine, Thomas a Kempis, St. Catherine of Genoa as well as Aquinas, among many others, shared this view,

One’s opinion may differ with this concept of Purgatory, of course. The Catechism of the Catholic now teaches that Purgatory “is entirely different from that of the damned.” I am happy to know it, trust me. Perhaps your opinion is likely in line with current teaching, and so is mine. I was only attempting to provide the historical view of Aquinas, but what I believe is much the same, and likely the same, as yours. And I certainly know the importance of the theology of Saint Thomas Aquinas in the Catholic Church. I first studied it more than half a century ago.

But I don’t think anyone’s opinion could ever persuade me that I wasn’t taught what in fact I was during my years of Catholic education during the pre-Vatican II era.

Peace

 

[GEddie]

Actually, there are two ‘pains’ that Aquinas describes in this part of the Summa. First, though, it’s necessary to state a caveat: this description of Purgatory is from the appendix to the supplement of the Summa Theologiae. It was not written by Thomas, so to speak; after his death, his colleagues compiled his (unfinished) discussion on penance, and added to them other things he had written elsewhere, and appended these to the Summa. So… ‘grain of salt’ time, if you want to say that this is Aquinas writing in the Summa, right?

OK, anyway: you seem to be conflating the two pains described here. One is, as you mention, the pain of the coulda-shoulda-woulda recognition: it’s that pain of realizing that, but for our sins and the damage they did to us, we would be in heaven, in the presence of God, right now!!!, but that we need to be cleansed of these imperfections before attaining to heaven. Think of Christmas morning, when you were a kid. You knew there were toys from Santa down in the other room… you just knew that they were there, just waiting for you! But… you weren’t allowed to get up and start opening them until Mom & Dad gave the ok. (Longest… morning… evar!!!) And so, you lay there in bed, wide awake, just dying inside until it was ok for you to go to the Christmas tree and start opening your presents. That’s the kind of pain Aquinas is talking about… just that it’s not Christmas presents, it’s eternal bliss that we’re missing out on.

There’s a second kind of pain, and that’s the one described as “punishment by corporeal fire.” There’s another name for this pain right there in the question you’re referencing: it’s the pain of sense.

It’s really not all that mysterious. Time for an experiment: close your eyes and remember the greatest pain you ever felt: it might have been physical pain (giving birth, some sort of accident or illness) or emotional pain (the heartbreak of a relationship that ended). For just a minute, close your eyes and remember that pain… in fact, re-live it. Go ahead… I’ll wait.

OK – are you breaking out in a cold sweat right now? Is the memory of that pain so vivid that you were able to begin experiencing it all over? Good. 'Cause that’s what Aquinas is talking about here. It’s not that pain is, by definition, “flesh on fire.” Rather, pain is that sensation that we have. That sensation is felt by our soul. So, the pain that the soul feels, Aquinas is asserting, is the sensation of pain, as if by fire.

In q. 70 of the appendix, in speaking of the fires of hell, Aquinas asserts that it’s not just that the soul sees the fire, and therefore feels pain, or even that it perceives it as painful and therefore feels the pain that it thinks it should. Aquinas agrees that corporeal fire cannot ‘touch’ the soul. But, the fire is the agent of God’s punishment (that is, he’s talking about fires in hell, remember?), and the soul can be considered to be ‘located’ in the fires of hell, and from that location, experience the pain of the punishment of the fire.

If that still sounds mysterious, then consider it this way: your soul is not physical, and therefore, it does not exist in a given ‘place’ (after all, ‘place’ is a quality that only physical things have). But, your soul is united to you; and so, your soul has that quality of being located ‘with’ you. (This being united to you, and therefore, sharing (in a sense) in your location, is what Aquinas is getting at: if your soul is ‘here’, united with you while your body is alive, then it can certainly be considered to be ‘there’, united with the fires of hell if you are damned to hell.

The same sort of argument applies to the ‘fires of Purgatory’, at least as far as the notion of the soul being ‘there’ and feeling their pain. It’s the pain of sense, not of physical sensation, and if it’s reasonable to think that our souls are united to us, then it’s reasonable to think that they can be caused to be united to the ‘fire of Purgatory’ or the ‘fire of hell’.

No, they’re not Scripture… but, they are utilized, in various places and in various ways, to explain magisterial teaching – which, along with Scripture as part of the Deposit of the Faith, does have the force of Scripture, so to speak.

Just as people continue to feel “phantom limbs” that are no longer on them, I have no doubt that if Purgatory is indeed experienced by naked souls, these souls would experience a “phantom body.”

ICXC NIKA.

 

[Gorgias]

(Recapitulation of my post snipped for the sake of brevity.)

I was only attempting to provide the historical view of Aquinas… But I don’t think anyone’s opinion could ever persuade me that I wasn’t taught what in fact I was during my years of Catholic education during the pre-Vatican II era.

Huh? Who ever said that they disputed what you were taught?

On the other hand, perhaps what you were taught wasn’t a good interpretation of what the Summa states. If what you were taught led you to wonder what in the world Aquinas was talking about when he spoke of the “pain of sense”, then perhaps you have your answer right there…

 

[Thomas_White]

(Recapitulation of my post snipped for the sake of brevity.)

Huh? Who ever said that they disputed what you were taught?

On the other hand, perhaps what you were taught wasn’t a good interpretation of what the Summa states. If what you were taught led you to wonder what in the world Aquinas was talking about when he spoke of the “pain of sense”, then perhaps you have your answer right there…

I have quoted in an above comment what Aquinas wrote:

“I answered that in Purgatory there will be a two-fold pain; one will be the pain of loss, namely the delay in the Devine vision, and the pain of sense, namely the pain of corporeal fire. With regard to both the least pain of purgatory surpasses the greatest pain in this life.”

“That the soul suffers pain from the bodily fire is at present taken for granted…”

One is free to argue that this does not mean what it plainly and clearly says. But pain is felt. For Aquinas what is felt is pain from corporeal fire. And this was the Doctrine of Purgatory as understood and taught by the Fathers of the Church.

The argument by Aquinas is difficult. It seems that what you have used from Q.70 of the Appendix to explain your point is largely taken from objections that Aquinas describes prior to refuting them.

It is true nobody disputed what I was taught. What I was taught was the teaching of the Church during that era, and what I meant was that it was not likely that I could be persuaded it was otherwise. And this included the teachings of Saint Thomas Aquinas.

 

[Gorgias]

I have quoted in an above comment what Aquinas wrote:

One is free to argue that this does not mean what it plainly and clearly says. But pain is felt. For Aquinas what is felt is pain from corporeal fire.

Huh? Why is it that you think that I’m saying that there’s no pain? That’s clearly what Aquinas is saying! The question, though, is how pain can be felt by an immaterial soul by virtue of physical fire. Aquinas is clear on this: “in order to understand perfectly how the soul suffers from a corporeal fire: so as to say that the fire of its nature is able to have an incorporeal spirit united to it as a thing placed is united to a place; that as the instrument of Divine justice it is enabled to detain it enchained as it were, and in this respect this fire is really hurtful to the spirit”.

Like I said earlier: what you learned as a child may not have gone into this kind of detail. Perhaps, for the sake of simplicity, they chose to stress “physical fire” and “physical pain.” But, in any case, it seems somewhat uncharitable to assert that an explanation of Aquinas is somehow at odds with “the Doctrine of Purgatory as understood and taught by the Fathers of the Church.”

The argument by Aquinas is difficult. It seems that what you have used from Q.70 of the Appendix to explain your point is largely taken from objections that Aquinas describes prior to refuting them.

Actually, no. I’ve used his respondeo, which addresses these issues. Perhaps you might wish to re-read q.70 …

It is true nobody disputed what I was taught. What I was taught was the teaching of the Church during that era, and what I meant was that it was not likely that I could be persuaded it was otherwise. And this included the teachings of Saint Thomas Aquinas.

Here’s the thing: it’s not the “teaching of the Church”; it’s the “teaching of your teachers, whom you trusted to be accurately passing on the teachings of the Church”, right? (I mean, that’s the way it always is – we trust our teachers to accurately convey the subject matter they’re addressing.)

But, “during that era”, there were teachings that clearly weren’t what the Church taught – instead, they were what the good Sisters taught. Some of these were accurate; others were merely pious; some, well… not so much. We all lump them together into “the Teachings of the Church”, in a naive sort of way. It’s unlikely that you could be persuaded otherwise? It’s unlikely that you would give Aquinas – a Doctor of the Church – more credence than you give to your grade-school religion teachers? Oh, my… :ehh:

 

[Mike_Dye]

I believe any conversation on Purgatory is purely speculative. The only thing I know for sure is that Purgatory does exist, and the souls there will eventually go to Heaven, and that our prayer’s and sacrifices can help them.

 

[Thomas_White]

Huh? Why is it that you think that I’m saying that there’s no pain? That’s clearly what Aquinas is saying! The question, though, is how pain can be felt by an immaterial soul by virtue of physical fire. Aquinas is clear on this: “in order to understand perfectly how the soul suffers from a corporeal fire: so as to say that the fire of its nature is able to have an incorporeal spirit united to it as a thing placed is united to a place; that as the instrument of Divine justice it is enabled to detain it enchained as it were, and in this respect this fire is really hurtful to the spirit”.

“in order to understand perfectly how the soul suffers from a corporeal fire: so as to say that the fire of its nature is able to have an incorporeal spirit united to it as a thing placed is united to a place; that as the instrument of Divine justice it is enabled to detain it enchained as it were, and in this respect this fire is really hurtful to the spirit”. (Summa Theologica)

How is it that this is clear? The fire would be identical to corporeal fire, with both form and substance. A thing is “united” to a place by virtue of its material substance whatever its form. A thing occupies, or exists, in a place—this is what “united” to a place would mean. It would be “enchained” to its material substance. Aquinas says the soul, thought immaterial, has a human form. How would this fire prove “really hurtful to the spirit”?

A thing has both material substance and form. It is not united to a place but occupies a place by being, or existing, in that place as both form and matter. Its corporeal spirit is its form, and flame cannot exist in this world as form alone, other than as a concept. If flame has an incorporeal existence, as a form, it is a form in the way of a Platonic Form, or Idea. It would be like a Euclidian point which does not entail place.

There seems no difference between Aquinas’s corporeal flame and his incorporeal one. How it retains both form and matter but is “really hurtful to the spirit”, which is immaterial, is not explained. It retains its material substance, " the “place” to which it is enchained, yet also has a spiritual existence, i.e., form (as does the soul in the form of the human body), says Aquinas.

In my original comment on this thread I noted the following: “How the immaterial soul, without corporeal matter and form, could suffer from corporeal fire does seem mysterious.” What I did not say, however, was that I agreed with Thomas Aquinas and his Summa Theologica in every respect. I no longer understand your position. Are you now agreeing with Thomas Aquinas about Purgatory?

 

[Gorgias]

How is it that this is clear? … A thing is “united” to a place by virtue of its material substance whatever its form.

Hmm… not quite. Aquinas asserts that the soul is united to a body and to corporeal fires of hell or purgatory… and neither of these are the soul’s “material substance.” (Elsewhere, Aquinas argues that the soul is itself subsistent.)

A thing occupies, or exists, in a place—this is what “united” to a place would mean.

That’s not what Aquinas is asserting, although I can see how, if you think that’s what he’s saying, then the rest of his assertion wouldn’t make sense to you.

How would this fire prove “really hurtful to the spirit”?

Aquinas’ point is that it would prove “really hurtful” in the same way that the pains your body experiences are felt by your soul.

A thing has both material substance and form. It is not united to a place but occupies a place by being, or existing, in that place as both form and matter.

Aquinas isn’t saying that souls ‘occupy’ a place.

Its corporeal spirit is its form, and flame cannot exist in this world as form alone, other than as a concept. If flame has an incorporeal existence, as a form, it is a form in the way of a Platonic Form, or Idea. It would be like a Euclidian point which does not entail place.

The point isn’t that flames have an incorporeal existence. (They don’t, by the way.)

There seems no difference between Aquinas’s corporeal flame and his incorporeal one.

You misunderstand. Aquinas isn’t asserting that a corporeal flame has an incorporeal spirit; the ‘incorporeal spirit’ he’s talking about is a soul that is united to the corporeal flame.

How it retains both form and matter but is “really hurtful to the spirit”, which is immaterial, is not explained.

Sure, it is! By way of example, in the same way that your soul senses the pains of your body, by virtue of being united to it, Aquinas asserts that your soul senses the pains of the corporeal fire, by virtue of being united to it (through God’s will).

I no longer understand your position.

“My position”? I haven’t staked out a position; I’ve merely been trying to explain what Aquinas was saying, given that you said his explanation was mysterious to you.

Are you now agreeing with Thomas Aquinas about Purgatory?

Where did I ever say I disagreed with him?

 

[OraLabora]

I believe any conversation on Purgatory is purely speculative. The only thing I know for sure is that Purgatory does exist, and the souls there will eventually go to Heaven, and that our prayer’s and sacrifices can help them.

This!

All I know about purgatory is that it exists, it will be unpleasant, and it behooves me to work harder on my inner conversion so I minimize my suffering in purgatory.

 

[Thomas_White]

This!

All I know about purgatory is that it exists, it will be unpleasant, and it behooves me to work harder on my inner conversion so I minimize my suffering in purgatory.

That is truly all 'ye need to know. But for now I’ve got to figure out Aquinas.

 

[Thomas_White]

Hmm… not quite. Aquinas asserts that the soul is united to a body and to corporeal fires of hell or purgatory…

What follows is intended to put the question into a proper context. The actual arguments are far more detailed and complex. In Western philosophy, beginning with Plato, there is the dualism of form and matter, of mind and body. For Plato, the Mind is the same concept as the Soul. This concept is fundamental in the history of Western philosophy, from Plato and though at least the philosophy of Descartes. Aristotle’s philosophy was firmly in this tradition, as was the Scholasticism of Aquinas.

The earliest Christianity had its roots in the Asian religion of both Jews and Christians. Augustine, as a philosopher/theologian of the Fourth Century, sought to legitimize Christianity within the Western tradition, relying on the works of both Plato and Aristotle. It was an attempt to provide a theology for Catholicism. Aquinas, nearly a millennium later, continues the attempt to provide an intellectual underpinning and understanding of Catholicism.

For both philosophers, God created the Soul from nothing. Now, under this concept, the soul is neither mind nor body or any visible thing. For Aquinas, the mind is in the body but the eternal soul is not affected by the mind or its state. Mind is the intellectual capacity to think and it performs the action of thinking. As such, it is affected by both good works and sin. Sin is of the body, the flesh and the concupiscence of Augustine, and it does not and cannot affect the immaterial soul. The separate existences of both mind and soul become a great difficulty to resolve with in a dualistic system.

The mind is the entity that thinks and calculates, and it is said the soul is the entity that feels things like joy and grief. This involves a Becoming in time. Feeling is of the material body and of the senses, and the flesh is the source of sin. What the soul experience is a ‘sense’ of things like joy or grief. The difficulty is this function ceases with the death of the material body. Aquinas attempts to explain this by reason.

The attempt is grandiose, with Aquinas attempting to explain all that can be intellectually known and understood in all of Creation. He even attempts to prove by reason the existence of God. The eternal soul, by definition, exists outside of time. But eternity is the absence of time and is the eternal present, without past or future. Aquinas might not recognize it, but neither exists even in the temporal world: in the temporal world, the past no longer exists and the future does not yet exist. During the temporal existence of the body, in time, the soul is united with it. This ends with the death of the body. Aquinas says that the soul is immaterial but is in the form of the body. When body and mind no longer exist, there is for Aquinas a major difficulty.

Here is a quote you provided from Summa Theologica: “in order to understand perfectly how the soul suffers from a corporeal fire: so as to say that the fire of its nature is able to have an incorporeal spirit united to it as a thing placed is united to a place; that as the instrument of Divine justice it is enabled to detain it enchained as it were, and in this respect this fire is really hurtful to the spirit”.

This is impossible outside of temporal life.

And it does not mean there is no Purgatory. A soul in Purgatory would yet be in time: there is a beginning and an end to time in Purgatory. That this could occurs after temporal existence ends is yet another difficulty for Aquinas. It is not possible for the eternal soul to exist in time after the death of the temporal body. For good or ill, it then exists in the eternal present. The mechanism that allowed for any sensation, or sense of it, is dead and no longer exists. For the soul to have any sense of pain in Purgatory requires the reintroduction of some corporeal component, of both flame and soul. Reasoning fails here in its attempt to explain this in the Western philosophical tradition. What is quoted is without logical sense.

Both Augustine and Aquinas sought an intellectual understanding of Christianity (Catholicism). Though this was controversial in its time, it was tolerated. The Summa Theologica is an analytical work of the human intellect that attempts to explain by reason all that can be known. What becomes known is no longer belief. It is knowledge. The concepts of knowledge and belief are concepts within the philosophical tradition and framework of dualism: form and matter; mind and body; true and false; reason and emotion; good and evil; and on and on and on. The attempt to bridge the gap, to know what is ineffable (that is, what is belief) simply cannot succeed in this system. In the end, it is the failure of classical philosophy itself as it proves unable to resolve the dilemma. It concerns the limits of the human intellect and human language.

The failure to prove by reason the existence of God of course is no proof that God does not exist. In this way, Purgatory is not understood either. The eternal soul is pure Being and outside of time. It is created, as all is created, by God, the Supreme Being. It exists in the universal Absolute—the eternal present always. What is necessary is to return to the roots of the faith, to belief and the realization that we do not yet know all there is to know. Revelation is a continual process and will not be fully known until its veil is lifted with the Last Judgment and the end of time. This is not entirely incomprehensible. There can be but one eternal present. Jesus promises the good thief that he will that very day be with Him in paradise. This is the judgment of Christ. Whatever salvation occurs with the Last Judgment occurs in the one eternal present as does the salvation of the good thief. It is outside of time and if seen otherwise it is misunderstood.

 

[GEddie]

If our human soul were pure being, would it not be necessary that the soul had always existed?

ICXC NIKA.

 

[Thomas_White]

If our human soul were pure being, would it not be necessary that the soul had always existed?

ICXC NIKA.

“Always” implies time. Perhaps our souls simply exist.

Eternal life and immortal life are not the same thing. Both Aquinas and the Cathoic faith teach that the soul is created. The difficulty is that what is created in time must have a beginning and an end, and definitively so at the end of time. Yet those souls that attain salvation at the end of time enter eternal life.

What is confounding, I think, is the concept of time. There can exist one and only one eternal present. The judgement of both the good thief and the Last Judgment are the judgments of Christ “in glory” (that is, as true God) and are necessarily of the same eternal present. In that way, the eternal life of the soul has meaning. It is outside of time and not open to the understanding of the limits of reason and the intellect, both of which exist in time.

This is not easily understood, and I don’t think Aquinas understood it either. Purgatory, for instance, has for the soul a beginning and an end. It therefore experiences time. How this is possible for the soul while not in union with the body in temporal time and existence is inexplicable.

There are other long and very significant traditions in the Catholic Church, such as monasticism, contemplation, prayer and mysticism. My own belief is that these traditions are open to the experience of the ineffable, an experience that the intellect cannot understand let alone experience.

 

[Thomas_White]

Note to my comment above: The concept that God always was, is now, and ever shall be” is an attempt to express what is Infinite within the limits of language (which is not infinite). “Always was” and “always will be” are only understandable when the words are expressed relative to time. This is true of any intellectual concept.

In the phrase above are also the words “is now”. “IS” is what is important, and perhaps that alone is a better explanation. God IS. Once “always” and “ever shall be” are added, the phrase becomes a concept relative to time—to a past and to a future, neither of which exist

Can there be ‘Nothing’? How could there BE Nothing? The question itself implies that “something” or some “thing” would then exist, even if there were ‘Nothing’. What would exist would at least BE the concept of ‘Nothing’. ‘Nothing’ is then a noun: a person, place, or THING. A thing is by definition something. To say there “WERE” Nothing is itself the same difficulty. Existence is implied. This is the brick wall reason and language encounter in any attempt to describe or explain what is beyond their limits.

 

[Gorgias]

Aquinas says that the soul is immaterial but is in the form of the body.

“The soul is the form of the body”, not “the soul is in the form of the body”, no?

When body and mind no longer exist, there is for Aquinas a major difficulty.

Hmm… a ‘bump’ in the road, perhaps, given that the body will exist in eternity, but not a “major difficulty”, wouldn’t you say?

Here is a quote you provided from Summa Theologica: “in order to understand perfectly how the soul suffers from a corporeal fire: so as to say that the fire of its nature is able to have an incorporeal spirit united to it as a thing placed is united to a place; that as the instrument of Divine justice it is enabled to detain it enchained as it were, and in this respect this fire is really hurtful to the spirit”.

This is impossible outside of temporal life.

OK; got it. You don’t have a problem with what I’m saying – you have a problem with Aquinas.

And it does not mean there is no Purgatory. A soul in Purgatory would yet be in time: there is a beginning and an end to time in Purgatory.

No. Time, as we know it, is bound to the material universe. ‘Purgatory’ is a notion experienced by immaterial souls. Therefore, there is no ‘time’ in Purgatory (as we understand what ‘time’ is). Is there ‘change’ in purgation? Yes; so, there may be something ‘in purgatory’ that works like time works in this material universe. However, this does not imply that there is ‘time’ in purgatory.

For the soul to have any sense of pain in Purgatory requires the reintroduction of some corporeal component, of both flame and soul.

Corporeal flame, yes. Corporeal soul? No.

Reasoning fails here in its attempt to explain this in the Western philosophical tradition. What is quoted is without logical sense.

That doesn’t seem to hold up. Can God cause the immaterial soul to be associated with a material body, such that the soul can ‘sense’ what the material body experiences? Of course. Can God cause the immaterial soul to be associated with the “fire of purgatory”, such that the soul can ‘sense’ the pain that fire causes? Why not?

What becomes known is no longer belief. It is knowledge. … The attempt to bridge the gap, to know what is ineffable (that is, what is belief) simply cannot succeed in this system.

Does one not ‘know’ the things that he believes? Does that knowledge mean that the belief no longer exists? Of course not.

The failure to prove by reason the existence of God of course is no proof that God does not exist.

But, Aquinas does not attempt a ‘proof’ of the existence of God; rather, he provides demonstrations of the existence of God. In this effort, the demonstrations do not fail…

 

[Thomas_White]

“The soul is the form of the body”, not “the soul is in the form of the body”, no? …et allia.

Aquinas accepts Aristotle’s assertion in De Anima II.1 that the body and soul are one. Aristotle says the question of whether they are one is pointless. They are one: form and matter. Aquinas maintains that the soul is capable of existing apart from the body after the death of the body, as did Plato. Aristotle disagrees—body and soul differ but they exist as one, form and matter. Animals also have souls, but the soul cannot exist separately following the death of the corporeal body. The mind is the soul, and animal existence is one of soul/mind and body.

How then does the soul exist apart from the body? The answer for Aquinas is to introduce a third property. In the argument of question Ia.75 of the Summa Theologica there is body, intellect or mind, and soul. While animals also have souls, Aquinas says, their souls do not exist apart from their bodies following death. Only the soul of man has this distinction. The argument is an attempt to go beyond the dualism of soul/mind and body. This is not easily accomplished. The argument is very complex, and to sustain his argument Aquinas uses analogy and semantic plasticity, with concepts having dual meanings. It is philosophy in an attempt to provide answers to theological questions.

Following the death of the body, the soul is in the form of the corporeal body. It cannot be the very form of a thing that is one thing when that one thing no longer exists, as Aquinas would have it. What is unique about man, he says, is that s/he has the unique activity of understanding and intellect. It is separate from the corporeal body. Other animals do not have this capacity, the use of reason. It is unique to man. The remainder of the argument follows from this premise. However, even in 2014 it is not yet certain that humans are even the most intelligent animals let alone the only intelligent creatures. The critical premise of Q75 in Summa Theologica is prima facie false. We need go no further.

For Aquinas, it is an entanglement in the dualism of classical Western philosophy. In Platonic dualism there is the dichotomy of form and matter: being/becoming; reason/belief; rational/irrational; light/dark; mind/body; good/evil. While this dualism is central in classical Western philosophy, the question I raise is whether it is truly fundamental to the Catholic faith. My belief is that we do not yet know all there is to know. In the Prologue to his book “God in the World”, then- Cardinal Ratizinger emphatically agrees: There is further revelation yet to come and this is true for both us and the Church itself.

Both Plato and Aristotle thought of mind and soul as the same thing. Since he thought the mind, or soul, was distinct and had a separate existence from the body, Plato believed the soul survived the death of the human body. Aristotle disagreed. The soul and body and were unable to exist apart. Though the philosophies Plato and Aristotle were centuries before the time of the historical Jesus, both Augustine and Aquinas were profoundly influenced by both philosophers and sought to incorporate Christianity (Catholicism) into the limits of this philosophical tradition. I believe there is more of Catholicism than that.

An example of the way that philosophical concepts are used with semantic plasticity by Aquinas is seen in your comment: “Time as we know it is bound to the material universe. Purgatory is a notion experienced by immaterial souls. Therefore, there is no time in Purgatory (as we understand what ‘time’ is). Is there ‘change’ in Purgation? Yes; so, there may be something ‘in purgatory that works like time works in this material universe. But this does not imply that there is ‘time’ in Purgatory.”

When concepts no longer mean what they mean there is a misuse of language. This is what I meant by ‘semantic plasticity”. ‘Notion’ is an individual’s conception or impression of something known or experienced. ‘Notion’ is a theory or belief and is historically associated with the mind or intellect. It does not follow that if this ‘notion’ is experienced by immaterial souls then there is no time in Purgatory but that nevertheless in Purgatory there may be something that works like time. What is this notion that works like time in the material universe but isn’t time and does not imply that there is ‘time’ in Purgatory? Even ‘semantic plasticity’ has its limits.

The eternal present cannot be experienced in time. Think for a moment of watching from some distance a batter hitting a baseball. What we hear and see from some considerable distance is not in the present. We experience an illusion. The starlight we see is perhaps hundreds of millions of year old. What we experience as the present is not the eternal present or even the temporal present. Plato realized this and extended it to include the entirety of the temporal world. It is illusory. But there can BE but ONE eternal present. The past no longer exists and the future does not yet exist. But while in time our awareness, or consciousness and even our identity-- our self and sense of self-awareness–is bound up in the past and future with our temporal lives relative to it. The experience is relative and subjective, and it is what is beyond this and experienced in contemplation, prayer and spirituality that is important to me as a Roman Catholic. That the sun seems to rise in the east and set in the west is an existential phenomenon experienced by the observer for whom—particularly in history—it could appear real and could be called a subjective or relative truth, but most of us know it is not objective reality.

I am Roman Catholic, through and through. What is in question is merely an academic disagreement that occurs in the history of Western philosophy.

 

[Thomas_White]

Note to my above comment: As for animals having souls, we are as Catholics free to believe what we will. There is no official teaching. While Aquinas thought that all animals had souls, only man had an eternal soul. The argument is more complex with Aquinas than the way I necessary stated it in my prior comment–a forum comment has a limit. The argument concerns the higher intellect of man and his superior consciousness and awareness. It is complex.

However, there is an article on the front page of today’s New York Times (12/12/14) concerning this very issue. The article explains that Pope Francis recently consoled a little boy whose dog had died by saying, “paradise is open to all of God’s creatures.”

Pope Francis was also quoted in the Italian media as saying “One day, we will see our animals again in the eternity of Christ. Paradise is open to all of God’s creatures.”

I was struck when I read this article right after I had posted my preceeding comment above. The paper was there on the table. The article explained that Pope Pius IX, whose tenure of Pope was from 1846 to 1878, “supported the conservative doctrine that dogs and other animals have no consciousness.”

In 1990, Pope John Paul II, in an apparent reversal, said that animals do have souls, (as Aquinas said), and are “as near to God as men are.” However, in 2008 during a sermon, Pope Benedict said that when an animal dies “it just means the end of existence on earth.” Aquinas thought so too: the animal soul does not have eternal existence. But the implication of Pope Francis’ recent remarks is that, if he did mean that all animals go to heaven, then it would seem animals not only have a soul but that it is eternal.

Pope Francis’ comments surely were not proclaimed as a definitive teaching in the context of papal infallibility. But his comments are interesting, and we do not know what will follow, if anything. The issue has been controversial in the Church for a long time. It was a topic for Aristotle neary 2,400 years ago, and as we see in today’s NYT, it remains a topic right now. And there is a great deal here that would remain unexplained in the context of this thread.

 

[GEddie]

“even in 2014 it is not yet certain that humans are even the most intelligent animals let alone the only intelligent creatures.”

The postmodern romanticism toward oceanic mammals does not in any way imply that other animals are more intelligent than human life.

ICXC NIKA.

 

[GEddie]

Whatever may, or may not have been said by recent Popes, it has been understood all the way back to Scripture that animals have souls, by definition. Soul, in Latin, is anima.

Soul is life and so living beings possess soul.

The only difference is the higher functioning ascribed to the **human **soul.

ICXC NIKA

 

[GEddie]

“When body and mind no longer exist…”

Even if body no longer existed, there would remain the mind, which AIUI is an aspect of the human soul.

Which does not mean that part or all of the mind might not go into abeyance until once again in a live human head.

ICXC NIKA.