Explains the concept
scripturelink.googlepages.com/search?cx=001763116401597409521%3Af7idlv7awxw&cof=FORID%3A11&q=animals+souls
Aquinas says
"Now life is shown principally by two actions, knowledge and movement. The philosophers of old, not being able to rise above their imagination, supposed that the principle of these actions was something corporeal: for they asserted that only bodies were real things; and that what is not corporeal is nothing: hence they maintained that the soul is something corporeal. This opinion can be proved to be false in many ways; but we shall make use of only one proof, based on universal and certain principles, which shows clearly that the soul is not a body. "
newadvent.org/summa/1075.htm#article1
p.s. animal’s current souls are temperal, as with our
current bodies, while human souls are aeviternal. i.e. last forever, so we cannot risk harming our souls, but can risk harming animals or plants, as they will either ciese to be or be recreated (body and soul). Soul literally means life, so all living things have souls, to intentionally deny this is heresy, but mostly it is unintentional, and is only materially so. Human souls are different from Angel souls, although of one species of soul, and wherein the difference is oft termed “accidental”, the fact being the positions of the two, man, the heirs, angels which are already perfect, or utterly deformed.
the Catechism says
"359 "In reality it is only in the mystery of the Word made flesh that the mystery of man truly becomes clear."224
St. Paul tells us that the human race takes its origin from two men: Adam and Christ. . . the first man, Adam, he says, became a living soul, the last Adam a life-giving spirit. the first Adam was made by the last Adam, from whom he also received his soul, to give him life… the second Adam stamped his image on the first Adam when he created him. That is why he took on himself the role and the name of the first Adam, in order that he might not lose what he had made in his own image. the first Adam, the last Adam: the first had a beginning, the last knows no end. the last Adam is indeed the first; as he himself says: "I am the first and the last.“225”
vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/_P1B.HTM
Summary on animal life
So, the soul animate (c.f. anima- latin - soul) the body, and allows intelligence. God is life itself, spirit, as the bible says, so our soul is our part which most manifests him, when not in sin, and harmful habit, or state.
Animals temporarially
manifest life, but may again become channels of life later. Man has an
eternal life, and in that an “eternal” (
aeviternal for both) soul.
Love the recommendation of the Divine Mercy chaplet. Besides, it’s a twofer because you pray it on a “regular” rosary.
