Father Spitzers Universe and animal souls

[JoeFreedom]

Yes. This is my belief.

 

[Dan_Defender]

A soul is the animating principle of a living being. It used to be said that animals have a material soul and human beings have a spiritual soul. A spiritual soul persists forever, a material soul does not survive the death of the body.

This. And even Aristotle believed in the immortality of the human soul, so it is not a Christian idea, strictly speaking.

 

[Richca]

JimG:

A soul is the animating principle of a living being. It used to be said that animals have a material soul and human beings have a spiritual soul. A spiritual soul persists forever, a material soul does not survive the death of the body.

This. And even Aristotle believed in the immortality of the human soul, so it is not a Christian idea, strictly speaking.

Yes, St Thomas Aquinas and probably most if not all of the scholastic theologians followed Aristotle and possibly Plato too in defining the soul as the animating and substantial formal principle of living things. For Aquinas than, animals have souls but not spiritual and immortal souls like human beings.