Soul and body problem

[adrian1]

Im asking about the soul, is the soul dependent of functions of body? A baby soul can have spiritual life without a body and a brain full mature, in case that the baby die until the body is ready to work.

 

[Vico]

Im asking about the soul, is the soul dependent of functions of body? A baby soul can have spiritual life without a body and a brain full mature, in case that the baby die until the body is ready to work.

Modern Catholic Dictionary

SOUL. The spiritual immortal part in human beings that animates their body. Though a substance in itself, the soul is naturally ordained toward a body; separated, it is an “incomplete” substance. The soul has no parts, it is therefore simple, but it is not without accidents. The faculties are its proper accidents. Every experience adds to its accidental form. It is individually created for each person by God and infused into the body at the time of human insemination. It is moreover created in respect to the body it will inform, so that the substance of bodily features and of mental characteristics insofar as they depend on organic functions is safeguarded. As a simple and spiritual substance, the soul cannot die. Yet it is not the total human nature, since a human person is composed of body animated by the soul. In philosophy, animals and plants are also said to have souls, which operate as sensitive and vegetative principles of life. Unlike the human spirit, these souls are perishable. The rational soul contains all the powers of the two other souls and is the origin of the sensitive and vegetative functions in the human being.

 

[guanophore]

Im asking about the soul, is the soul dependent of functions of body? A baby soul can have spiritual life without a body and a brain full mature, in case that the baby die until the body is ready to work.

God is able to empower the human soul, despite physical form, such as when Moses and Elijah appeared during the transfiguration.

In general, we are souls, but we have a body. Our souls were designed to live withn the body. The soul of a baby cannot have a “fully mature brain”, but can behold God fully in their present form. This is why we baptize babies.

 

[RichardsPlanet]

We don’t know very much about the soul and how it interacts with the physical body.

What we do know about the soul is that it is immortal, divine, and endows us with free will.

From a Catholic point of view, free will is not the ability to choose to act - animals choose to act (whether from instinct or learned behaviour) - but to choose or reject God.

The ability to choose or reject God is independent of our bodies. Consider the angels which rejected God, they were purely spiritual.

As I said, there are a lot of things we don’t know or understand about how the soul interacts with our physical body. The document Humani Generis has this to say:

“The Church’s magisterium does not forbid the doctrine of “evolution” as long as it seeks the origin of the human body from already existing and living material - the Catholic faith requires us to maintain that souls are directly created by God.”

In other words: There is no problem with body originating according to “natural laws”, but the human soul is directly created by God.

How do the two interact? I have no idea. You will need a better thinker than me.

 

[Richca]

Im asking about the soul, is the soul dependent of functions of body?

Yes and no. Firstly, the body is more dependent on the soul than the soul is on the body since it is the soul that animates and gives life to the body. The lower powers of the soul such as the sensory and vegetative powers depend on the body or various organs of the body for their operations. Accordingly, the acts of the sensory and vegetative powers of the soul are acts of the composite being, i.e., the soul and body together. The acts of the higher rational and spiritual powers of the human soul, i.e., the intellect and will, are acts that operate or function independently of the body or any bodily organ. However, in this life on earth, the intellect depends for its knowledge on the sense powers of the soul which powers act through the body because in this life we receive knowledge through the senses so Aristotle stated that our intellects are like a clean slate when we are born into the world.

When human beings die here on earth their souls live on and leave the body but they still have their spiritual powers of intellect and will by which they have knowledge and can make acts of will such as love. As the Church teaches, when we die we face the immediate judgement of God whereby we either go to heaven, purgatory, or hell. The souls in heaven see and know God through their intellect and love him with their will and they are eternally happy. The souls in purgatory are undergoing purification and the souls in hell are eternally miserable.

A baby soul can have spiritual life without a body and a brain full mature, in case that the baby die until the body is ready to work.

Yes, this is why we baptize infants that in case they die they will go to heaven and be eternally happy with God. In the case of baptized infants who die before their spiritual faculties of intellect and will are properly developed, God supplies the deficiency here when they go to heaven so that they have full use of their intellect and will analogous as it were when God created the angels who were created with infused knowledge and full use of their intellects and wills at their creation as St Thomas Aquinas teaches. In the case of unbaptized infants who die, aborted or misscarriaged babies, it has not been revealed to us by God what is precisely their fate except we are taught by the Church that they definitely do not suffer the punishment of the damned in hell (this is where the idea of limbo plays a part according to some of the scholastic theologians).The Church says that we entrust them to the infinite mercy of God and that there is good reason to hope that they go to heaven (cf. the Catechism of the Catholic Church and the document from the International Theological Commission ‘THE HOPE OF SALVATION FOR INFANTS
WHO DIE WITHOUT BEING BAPTISED’ commissioned by Pope John Paul II).