How could the human soul be immortal if it is sustained?

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STT said:
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SPBlitz:
No, that’s is most definitely not what it means. Like I pointed out before, your definition of immortal is mistaken.
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What is the right definition of immortal?
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See this by Kevin I Flannery:
https://www.faith.org.uk/article/ma...he-subsistent-soulaccording-to-thomas-aquinas
For something to perish is for something to be separated from something, but in this case there is only form – and nothing to take it away from, or to take away from it. Being, therefore, is intrinsically bound up with a subsistent form, since there is nothing in the latter – or linked to it – that could possibly cause it to cease to be. This is the bit that sounds like Plato; but, whether it is Platonic or Aristotelian or both or neither, it is Thomas’s primary basis for asserting that the human soul is incorruptible.
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Wesrock said:
God sustains material parts in existence even as he allows them, as composites, to be dissoluble. God gives these things there own causality. They are not mere occurrences.
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What you said does’t address my point.
 
vz71 said:
Everything is sustained by God.

Is it your intent to claim on this basis that God alone is immortal?
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Sure. And that is the first step. I also want to show that the Aquinas’s argument on immortality of rational soul doesn’t have any relevance.
 
vz71 said:
Ok.
What precisely is the definition of immortal that you are laying claim to?
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Never dying under any circumstances. The opposite is mortal which means can die under specific circumstances, in the case of the ration soul when God doesn’t sustain it anymore.
 
vz71 said:
If God failed to sustain us, we would simply cease to be. I am not certain that fits the definition of death.
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I can buy that. My problem however is that the argument of Aquinas doesn’t have any relevance then. In another word all souls, whether rational or not, need God as sustainer.
 
STT said:
What do you mean with incorruptible?
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Per Thomas Aquinas (ST1.75.6): if God were to cease to sustain a soul in being, it does not mean that it would perish, it does not mean it would corrupt. To corrupt means to perish, which means to go out of existence because of something in the nature of that which perishes.

http://www.newadvent.org/summa/1075.htm
 
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STT said:
The rational soul is sustained by God. Therefore, they would vanish if it is not sustained. So there is no need for an act of annihilation.
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That’s not what the Catholic Church teaches.
 
It is contingent, as is everything, upon God for existence, from moment to moment.
 
thistle said:
That’s not what the Catholic Church teaches.
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Does the Catholic church teaches that God sustain everything? If yes, the soul would perish if God doesnt sustain it. Therefore there is no need for act of annihilation. Annihilation is needed for something which can persist to exist on its own.
 
vz71 said:
Everything requires God to sustain it.
I do not see your point.
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First, apparently @Vico does not agree with you. Please see post #50. Moreover, my problem is that I don’t understand what is the point of Aquinas about the immortality of rational soul. In realty, all souls need sustainer so all are mortal.
 
STT said:
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Vico:
Per Thomas Aquinas (ST1.75.6): if God were to cease to sustain a soul in being, it does not mean that it would perish, it does not mean it would corrupt. To corrupt means to perish, which means to go out of existence because of something in the nature of that which perishes .

http://www.newadvent.org/summa/1075.htm
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So rational soul doesn’t need a sustainer?
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God sustains and could cause something to no longer exist but that is not the same as to corrupt which could only occur from the thing itself, not the Creator.

S. T. I, Q75, A6, Reply to Objection 2
But a thing is said to be corruptible because there is in it a potentiality to non-existence.
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I believe that STT’s definition of immortality is something who’s cause of existence is in itself - something who doesn’t need a sustainer outside of itself. Under that definition, only God is immortal.
 
Then the definition is truly unique…and not what Aquinas was using.

So the argument seems to be on a false assumption and not what is really there.

If one wishes to show Aquinas wrong, one needs to use the same definitions. Otherwise nothing is gained.
 
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