Soul and resurrection?

[Bahman]

Are you saying that a person with Alzheimer’s does not have a soul?

No. The problem I have is why a person with Alzheimer doesn’t recall his identity when s/he is alive, meaning that soul is not separated from body.

If so, exactly when does the soul leave the body, given that it is usually a long, slow disease?

The person with Alzheimer is alive so s/he still have a soul.

What about a baby who doesn’t know their identity yet?

A baby also doesn’t know their identity while being alive.

 

[Maddie26]

I don’t get what you’re trying to say with this Alzheimer’s argument. Can you elaborate, please?

 

[Bahman]

God can, and must, or God is not God and that is a different thread
Especially if God Himself is not a physical creature. Doesn’t it make sense that an immaterial God can see an immaterial soul?

One thing needs to have shape to be visible. Shapeless soul cannot be visible hence the act of resurrection is impossible.

This is what I was trying to get at. Shape matters for things that naturally have shape. Since a soul never has a shape it has its own special quality that is particular to a soul.

Please read the previous comment.

So justify it. The Alzheimer’s argument doesn’t make sense. If your soul is a physical shape of matter, where is it?

The argument for Alzheimer make sense and it is the only argument I have since we cannot communicate with any dead person.

When I say the soul cannot be located but it can be discerned I mean that, since I do not believe the soul has a shape it cannot be seen physically. It can be discerned, ie. known about because we see it’s action. It’s the same way we cannot see gravity, but we see the apple that gravity causes to fall.

That I can accept it but you need to tell me how a soul can function on a body when it is shapeless and doesn’t have any location.

 

[Vico]

So you mean that identity is an attribute of soul?

Why then soul cannot turn into intelligible object when person is alive?

Could you please elaborate which part of our memories is sensitive and which part is insensitive?

Identity is the substantial being: the parts of a substance receive identity by being those parts.

It is the sensitive part which apprehends individual things. The memory is only in the sensitive part when in the notion of memory we include its object as something past.

The mode of action in an agent follows from its mode of existence, and the soul has one mode of being when in the body, and another mode of being when apart from it.

The soul union with the body is not an accidental thing, but that union belongs to the formal aspect of its nature.

 

[Bahman]

I don’t get what you’re trying to say with this Alzheimer’s argument. Can you elaborate, please?

I mean a person with Alzheimer is alive hence s/he has a soul. My question is that why the person loses his identity when s/he is still alive? Identity is apparently a property of soul.

 

[GEddie]

I mean a person with Alzheimer is alive hence s/he has a soul. My question is that why the person loses his identity when s/he is still alive? Identity is apparently a property of soul.

They do not lose their identity, but their ability to remember or to express their identity is suppressed because their head is not adequately functional. No head, no life; damaged head, subdued life.

ICXC NIKA

 

[Bahman]

They do not lose their identity, but their ability to remember or to express their identity is suppressed because their head is not adequately functional. No head, no life; damaged head, subdued life.

ICXC NIKA

How a shapeless thing, soul of a dead person, could accommodate any memory? Memory is information and information has structure.

 

[You]

How a shapeless thing, soul of a dead person, could accommodate any memory? Memory is information and information has structure.

memory, information, and material exist as real things only because they exist in the mind of the creator.’ in Him we live, move and have our being.’
these material things already live and exist in him who is spiritual in nature and their essential spiritual character can exist with him in in heaven.
if you saw the soul of a person in heaven they would look exactly as a living person, in that they have arms, legs, a head, personality, knowledge, etc.

 

[Bahman]

memory, information, and material exist as real things only because they exist in the mind of the creator.’ in Him we live, move and have our being.’
these material things already live and exist in him who is spiritual in nature and their essential spiritual character can exist with him in in heaven.
if you saw the soul of a person in heaven they would look exactly as a living person, in that they have arms, legs, a head, personality, knowledge, etc.

The soul alone cannot have any shape hence it cannot have any memory.

 

[You]

The soul alone cannot have any shape hence it cannot have any memory.

but the soul is not alone, it exists in its creator who gives it life and all that goes with life.

 

[Bahman]

but the soul is not alone, it exists in its creator who gives it life and all that goes with life.

Soul needs body in order to have an alive person.

 

[adamhovey1988]

I am puzzled with the concepts of soul and resurrection for a while. The problem is as following: Soul is defined as form of body. Soul gets separated from body upon death. This means that soul is formless after death hence all attributes like, personality, identity, etc are gone upon death meaning that all souls do look similar after death. The act of resurrection is problematic now since all attributes related to a person is gone upon death.

Your thought?

I think that you fail to believe the Christian beliefs because of misunderstanding what you said sounds closer to Hindu metaphysics

 

[You]

Soul needs body in order to have an alive person.

a soul needs a body to have a material existence as a person. the material body and brain are the physical expression of the person and personality of the spiritual soul.

 

[GEddie]

a soul needs a body to have a material existence as a person. the material body and brain are the physical expression of the person and personality of the spiritual soul.

He’s got a partial point, in that the soul in itself is not a human being nor person, but a ghost.

Personhood and humanhood require the human body.

ICXC NIKA

 

[Vico]

He’s got a partial point, in that the soul in itself is not a human being nor person, but a ghost.

Personhood and humanhood require the human body.

ICXC NIKA

Going back to post #92:

St. Thomas Aquinas, in Summa Theologica, Supplement, Q75 The Resurrection wrote:

Article 1. Whether there is to be a resurrection of the body?

**Objection 2. **Further, Our Lord proves the resurrection by quoting the words: “I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. He is not the God of the dead but of the living” (Matthew 22:32; Exodus 3:6). But it is clear that when those words were uttered, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob lived not in body, but only in the soul. Therefore there will be no resurrection of bodies but only of souls.

Reply to Objection 2. Abraham’s soul, properly speaking, is not Abraham himself, but a part of him (and the same as regards the others). Hence life in Abraham’s soul does not suffice to make Abraham a living being, or to make the God of Abraham the God of a living man. But there needs to be life in the whole composite, i.e. the soul and body: and although this life were not actually when these words were uttered, it was in each part as ordained to the resurrection. Wherefore our Lord proves the resurrection with the greatest subtlety and efficacy.
newadvent.org/summa/5075.htm​

And from post #107:

Catechism of the Catholic Church
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.

 

[You]

He’s got a partial point, in that the soul in itself is not a human being nor person, but a ghost.

Personhood and humanhood require the human body.

ICXC NIKA

i see it from the point of view of Moses appearing to the apostles. Moses’ ghost was not a lie or contrivance neither was it unhuman or not a person. Moses stood and spoke and listened as a person still alive. and i don’t see why he would not.

 

[Vico]

i see it from the point of view of Moses appearing to the apostles. Moses’ ghost was not a lie or contrivance neither was it unhuman or not a person. Moses stood and spoke and listened as a person still alive. and i don’t see why he would not.

Did you note the Summa Theologica classification, of a living being (e.g., Abraham himself) is the total composite of two parts, soul and body, such that the soul alone is not properly Abraham himself?

 

[You]

Did you note the Summa Theologica classification, of a living being (e.g., Abraham himself) is the total composite of two parts, soul and body, such that the soul alone is not properly Abraham himself?

yes, and thats totally fine with me too. but just because he is a composite doesn’t mean that his separated soul has to be some amorphous, nebulous spirit with nothing distinguishable about it.
i don’t see why his soul cannot retain Abrahams’ shape and personality.

 

[Vico]

yes, and thats totally fine with me too. but just because he is a composite doesn’t mean that his separated soul has to be some amorphous, nebulous spirit with nothing distinguishable about it.
i don’t see why his soul cannot retain Abrahams’ shape and personality.

The attributes of the rational soul are will and intelligence but is suited to the particular body that it was created with, and that potential in the rational soul distinguishes it from other rational souls. The sensitive and vegetative souls (Aquinas), which are not moral, die with the body.

 

[GEddie]

yes, and thats totally fine with me too. but just because he is a composite doesn’t mean that his separated soul has to be some amorphous, nebulous spirit with nothing distinguishable about it.
i don’t see why his soul cannot retain Abrahams’ shape and personality.

Just to play “Devils’ advocate”:

Because shape, limbs, heads etc are characteristics of **bodies, **not souls?

Because “personality” requires a **person – ** i.e., soul and body; not a ghost?

ICXC NIKA