Ration Mind/Immortal Soul

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Can someone, (briefly), explain the connection between a rational mind and having an immortal soul.

For example: Animals do not have a rational mind, therefore are not immortal. Humans have a rational mind, and are immortal.

I’m speaking simple as possible here without any technical language. Anybody know the connection here? I couldn’t find anything on google.

Thanks,
James
 
JaKael02 said:
Can someone, (briefly), explain the connection between a rational mind and having an immortal soul.

For example: Animals do not have a rational mind, therefore are not immortal. Humans have a rational mind, and are immortal.

I’m speaking simple as possible here without any technical language. Anybody know the connection here? I couldn’t find anything on google.

Thanks,
James
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the rational mind is no more then the faculty of the soul, intelligence. Because the soul is a spiritual entity the intelligence of man is a spiritual power or faculty. the brain is physical, and belongs to a mortal body. The soul is spiritual and can not be destroyed by anything physical so it is called immortal. Intelligence is not the brain, but it needs the brain in our present mode of existence.
 
A rational mind is ordered beyond itself to eternal truths and especially to the eternal truth which is God. An animal mind is not ordered beyond itself; its ultimate purpose is within time, and its soul ends with its death.
 
JaKael02 said:
Can someone, (briefly), explain the connection between a rational mind and having an immortal soul.

For example: Animals do not have a rational mind, therefore are not immortal. Humans have a rational mind, and are immortal.

I’m speaking simple as possible here without any technical language. Anybody know the connection here? I couldn’t find anything on google.

Thanks,
James
Click to expand...
Your rational human mind is a process of your spiritual human soul.

The mind is not the soul, but they go together, including in life everlasting.

But the human soul is not eternal because it generates a rational mind; it is eternal because it is spiritual. A child who dies prior to the development of his/her rational mind (because his/her head has not yet grown enough to support it) will still have an eternal life, because he or she has a spiritual (ie, human) soul.

ICXC NIKA
 
GEddie said:
But the human soul is not eternal because it generates a rational mind; it is eternal because it is spiritual. A child who dies prior to the development of his/her rational mind (because his/her head has not yet grown enough to support it) will still have an eternal life, because he or she has a spiritual (ie, human) soul.

ICXC NIKA
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This is entirely true, but the rationality of the human mind is a classic natural proof of the immortality of the soul.
 
GEddie said:
How does our rational mind prove the eternal soul?
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One must show that rationality implies immateriality. It is a plausible thesis. Here is an example of one attempt.

One also has to argue that the immateriality of rational thought implies some immateriality of the person. In this case, rational thought is a formal cause, and form corresponds to one’s act of existence, so one’s act of existence is immaterial, and thus the form subsists.

I think you’re right that man is immortal because he is spiritual. But I think that ultimately spirituality and rationality are linked. And in the order of epistemology, it is more plausible to show that thought is immaterial than that humans are spiritual. We would probably take humans to be “spiritual” if some religion like Catholicism is true and if there is something non-physical about humans, so it isn’t the best starting point.
 
GEddie said:
Ok, you got me.

How does our rational mind prove the eternal soul?

ICXC NIKA
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The eternal soul is not eternal, if it were it would have always existed. It had a beginning, it is created, finite. It’s existence is maintained eternally because of God’s eternal act so the soul’s apparent being eternal is accidental to God’s creative act.
The soul is finite and immaterial not affected by material, in that sense it is immortal, not capable of being destroyed by matter.
 
ynotzap said:
The eternal soul is not eternal, if it were it would have always existed. It had a beginning, it is created, finite. It’s existence is maintained eternally because of God’s eternal act so the soul’s apparent being eternal is accidental to God’s creative act.
The soul is finite and immaterial not affected by material, in that sense it is immortal, not capable of being destroyed by matter.
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Is human soul finite? Yes.

Was it created? NO. God breathed His Spirit into the created body. Soul is uncreated and always pre-existed in God. It is eternal; it may have a beginning in the sense that it was breathed into the created body but has no beginning really as it was always there in God.

TWO IMPORTANT AXIOMS of Indian Philosophy:

  1. *]That which has a beginning has an end.
    *]That which is imperishable has no beginning.
 
These are great responses and exactly the short, quick answer(s) I was looking for. You guys are sharp!

So concluding, if you subscribe to evolution, our neighboring species (Neanderthal, Homo Erectus, etc.) are not going to have an immortal soul; but rather treated as an animal species. Correct me if I’m wrong here.

Thanks
 
Pitcharan said:
Is human soul finite? Yes.

Was it created? NO. God breathed His Spirit into the created body. Soul is uncreated and always pre-existed in God. It is eternal; it may have a beginning in the sense that it was breathed into the created body but has no beginning really as it was always there in God.

TWO IMPORTANT AXIOMS of Indian Philosophy:

  1. *]That which has a beginning has an end.
    *]That which is imperishable has no beginning.
Click to expand...

  1. The preexistence of the soul is not a position that we can take as Catholics. Origen, for example, was condemned for holding such a view.

    God bless,
    Ut
 
Pitcharan said:
That which has a beginning has an end.
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This is an axiom, of course, so Indian philosophy would not presume to have demonstrated it. But I think it is false in general. I don’t see what would motivate this besides the impossibility of actual infinities, but that wouldn’t work in this case because if something has a beginning, then at any time at which it exists, it has existed for a finite period.

I would concede perhaps that that which has a beginning could go out of existence. But that it must… I don’t see it.

Another issue seems to be tense. Say x had a beginning, but x currently exists. Well, x exists; x doesn’t have an end right now. And that is true even if at some point in the future x does go out of existence.
 
utunumsint said:
The preexistence of the soul is not a position that we can take as Catholics. Origen, for example, was condemned for holding such a view.

God bless,
Ut
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The below is a verbatim excerpt from Bishop Morrow’s Catechism. It is very clear that the human soul was NOT created; then obviously it always pre-existed in God.

God formed the body of man from the slime of the earth; but He breathed the soul into man’s body. In this way the soul came direct from God, and indicates closer likeness to Him.
 
Pitcharan said:
The below is a verbatim excerpt from Bishop Morrow’s Catechism. It is very clear that the human soul was NOT created; then obviously it always pre-existed in God.

God formed the body of man from the slime of the earth; but He breathed the soul into man’s body. In this way the soul came direct from God, and indicates closer likeness to Him.
Click to expand...
You may have interpreted this passage to mean that. However none of the text explicitly says what you think it means. Your meaning is in direct contradiction with Church teaching.
 
Pitcharan said:
Was it created? NO. God breathed His Spirit into the created body. Soul is uncreated and always pre-existed in God. It is eternal; it may have a beginning in the sense that it was breathed into the created body but has no beginning really as it was always there in God.
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My understanding is that the Catechism of the Catholic Church says the soul is immortal, not eternal. Can you cite a passage of the CCC that says it is eternal? :confused:
 
JaKael02 said:
These are great responses and exactly the short, quick answer(s) I was looking for. You guys are sharp!

So concluding, if you subscribe to evolution, our neighboring species (Neanderthal, Homo Erectus, etc.) are not going to have an immortal soul; but rather treated as an animal species. Correct me if I’m wrong here.

Thanks
Click to expand...
This would be orthodox Catholic teaching. While evolution is respected as a theory of biology, there is nothing in the theory that suggests a human soul existed in a specifically non-human (pre-Adamite) creature (or even cousin-creature). We have to believe in Adam having the first soul, or else we have lost the doctrine of original sin and nothing in this sordid world can make sense.

The most obvious difference between us and all other creatures, it would seem, is that they have no recognition of a future state in which death is survived. There is, likewise, in them no need therefore to worry about whether they have been virtuous or sinful. In consequence, their conduct is governed more by instinct than by meditation. What we share with the lower animals is an appetite for food and a little affection.
 
If you say the soul is finite, which it is , and it pre-existed in God then the soul had no beginning because it shared God nature which is Existence, nothing finite could possibly exist eternally, it is a contradiction God does sustain what He creates, but it remain finite, not infinite, any infinity applied to a creature is one of accident, not one of essence. In other words God sustains the soul in existence, the soul can not exist on its own. The soul necessarily has a beginning, if it didn’t that would mean that the soul has existence for its nature, and it doesn’t Apower of the soul is its ability to know itself, I know that I know. If the soul existed always even in God, it would know it. Human experience shows no evidence of this phenominon. God is not subject to time, but created it (Potency and Act) Pre-existence is a human concept applied to God, in God there is no Potency, but pure Act.
 
davidv said:
You may have interpreted this passage to mean that. However none of the text explicitly says what you think it means. Your meaning is in direct contradiction with Church teaching.
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It would be more helpful if you reproduced the Church teaching and explain how my statement is contradicting it.
 
Pitcharan said:
The below is a verbatim excerpt from Bishop Morrow’s Catechism. It is very clear that the human soul was NOT created; then obviously it always pre-existed in God.

God formed the body of man from the slime of the earth; but He breathed the soul into man’s body. In this way the soul came direct from God, and indicates closer likeness to Him.
Click to expand...
The Catechism of the Catholic Church says God created the human soul. Check this link:
scborromeo.org/ccc/p1s2c1p6.htm#382

Specifically this one:
366 The Church teaches that every spiritual soul is created immediately by God - it is not “produced” by the parents - and also that it is immortal: it does not perish when it separates from the body at death, and it will be reunited with the body at the final Resurrection.235
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God bless,
Ut
 
Charlemagne_III said:
My understanding is that the Catechism of the Catholic Church says the soul is immortal, not eternal. Can you cite a passage of the CCC that says it is eternal? :confused:
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You are right. That’s exactly what CCC says: soul is immortal. CCC does not explicitly recognize soul’s pre-existence in God.

Pre-existence of the soul in God is my own deduction from what is revealed in the book of Genesis. I do not see any contradiction but find corroborative evidence in the Gospel. Jesus taught us to call God, Father, which only confirms that we (our souls) emerged from God in Whom we (our souls) pre-existed. It is simple father-child relationship which the Jews probably never knew.
 
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