Ensoulment and Body Parts

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WannabeSaint

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The Church teaches that the soul of a person is their body. I have a few questions on the topic:
  1. If a person’s organ was transplanted to someone else, does that mean that person shares a piece of the same soul with us
2)When we lose a part of our body (ex: baby teeth, finger nail clippings, loose hairs), are those returned to us in Heaven? If not, does that mean a part of our soul will be annhilated? I’ve heard stories that certain martyrs who have been amputated have the same amputation in Heaven. Does that mean someone like St. Denis has had his head annhilated?
 
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You don’t have a soul, you are a soul. You have a body.

(I think CS Lewis wrote that, not sure though.)
 
The soul is a spiritual substance. It has no parts and does not have spatial dimensions. It cannot be subdivided. Body and soul united make a human being.
 
WannabeSaint said:
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No dogma is given that states that the same atoms are brought together, in fact the body is not a fixed set of atoms over time.

Catechism
365 The unity of soul and body is so profound that one has to consider the soul to be the “form” of the body: 234 i.e., it is because of its spiritual soul that the body made of matter becomes a living, human body; spirit and matter, in man, are not two natures united, but rather their union forms a single nature.

234 Cf. Council of Vienne (1312): DS 902.

990 The term “flesh” refers to man in his state of weakness and mortality.536 The “resurrection of the flesh” (the literal formulation of the Apostles’ Creed) means not only that the immortal soul will live on after death, but that even our “mortal body” will come to life again.537

536 Cf. Gen 6:3; Ps 56:5; Isa 40:6.
537 Rom 8:11.
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This statement is contrary to Catholic teachings.

We are a composite being made of body and soul.
WannabeSaint said:
The Church teaches that the soul of a person is their body.
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Source for this?
 
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The Church doesn’t teach that the soul of a person is their body, it teaches that a person is body and soul. They are their body and soul.

Organ transplants aren’t some mystery. Keep in mind the body over its lifetime continues to build itself with new material and shedding old material. That was a weird way to phrase it, but the matter you’re made of from day to day shifts.

A hylemorphic explanation is that the soul is the form of a human being. It is what makes that matter that you call a body a human body and not something else, while also being the intellectual principle in a rational animal.
 
WannabeSaint said:
2)When we lose a part of our body (ex: baby teeth, finger nail clippings, loose hairs), are those returned to us in Heaven? If not, does that mean a part of our soul will be annhilated? I’ve heard stories that certain martyrs who have been amputated have the same amputation in Heaven. Does that mean someone like St. Denis has had his head annhilated?
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After we die our soul goes to Heaven or Purgatory or Hell. Body decomposits. In Judgment Day our bodies will be united with our soul, but our bodies will be PERFECT. Without a flaw, illnesses and defects. Our bodies will resurrect as Jesus resurrected. And His Resurrection is our hope for our resurrection.

After someone loses hand or leg he doesn’t lose part of soul because soul is not body and soul isn’t material but is inside body during our lives until death, and soul isn’t located in places as matery in form we look at locating of material things, soul is “unbreakable” and non divisible.
You have heard wrong story, that is not possible because soul is in Heaven not body.
To be honest I cannot even imagine someone to be in Heaven without a head. Wouldn’t that be somehow strange?
If that all what you wrote in last sentences would be true then God would somehow make defective things which he doesn’t do.
 
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1- no, the soul does not have parts. The soul is an immaterial, non-spatial principle which animates the body and performs spiritual acts such as reasoning and conceptual thinking. So it is deeply connected to the body, but it is not the body and is not materially enclosed by it;

2- that’s up for speculation, but a lot of people believe we will be perfectly restored. You will have a complete human body.
 
If I lose 20 pounds do i lose some soul - if I spit on the ground do i spit out my soul. Is the body you or are you inside the body.
 
Short answer: No. The souls is material to this thread, but the soul is immaterial in all other senses. I am a chimera, having two separate DNAs. Long story, but my son’s immune system (bone marrow) was transplanted into me. My blood type changed and I picked up his allergies. But, my soul is my own - sadly. :roll_eyes:
 
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