Spiritual experience?

[free_thinker]

I’m sorry but I am still a little confused or maybe I am misreading something. So when you die you are temporarily separated from your body but then when you go to Heaven you are reunited with your actual physical body… or does your soul just “resemble” your physical body? You don’t have a flesh and blood body do you?

 

[cornbread_r2]

He is not obligated to do so, but He does. To refrain from doing so would to be to contradict how He made us (our ability to produce other humans, and not just human bodies), and that’s not really His style.

But if he for some reason did not give a human a rational soul, the only other options are an irrational soul or a dead body (since the soul can be called the life principle). An irrational soul would probably be impossible to recognize, since the absence of those things normally brought about by rational souls could also be caused by a damaged body. I hear that red hair is a hint though, but I’ve never really understood why.

Please correct me if I’m using the wrong terms, but as I understand it, plants have just one type of soul – an animating soul; other non-human animals have an animating soul and a sensitive soul; humans have those two plus a rational soul. I’m also given to understand that possession of a rational soul does not imply that a given individual is rational since even the most severely mentally disabled people are still considered to have rational souls. If all of that’s true, then it would seem to be impossible to tell if a person had a rational soul or not and everyone just assumes that God always does so.

 

[Iron_Donkey]

Please correct me if I’m using the wrong terms, but as I understand it, plants have just one type of soul – an animating soul; other non-human animals have an animating soul and a sensitive soul; humans have those two plus a rational soul. I’m also given to understand that possession of a rational soul does not imply that a given individual is rational since even the most severely mentally disabled people are still considered to have rational souls. If all of that’s true, then it would seem to be impossible to tell if a person had a rational soul or not and everyone just assumes that God always does so.

I was under the impression that it wasn’t a matter of possessing multiple types of soul, but of possessing one of the three types and that the higher souls have the functions of the other souls. But that may well be little more than semantics (or I could just be wrong), in either case the distinction doesn’t seem to make much difference for this question.

As for the second part, you are correct. Through observation alone, we cannot tell whether a severely mentally retarded person has a rational soul or not. The reason why we know that such people have rational souls is because of what we know about God, not because of what we observe about them. For God to not give a human body a soul at its conception would contradict how He designed humans. Humans conceive and give birth to humans, not animals or plants, and while tragedy may well cause us to occasionally give birth to dead children, they did not start out that way.

Rational souls are part of who humans are, as is the fact that humans beget humans. Since both of these facts come from God and He does not contradict Himself, we know that all those conceived have rational souls.

 

[Iron_Donkey]

I’m sorry but I am still a little confused or maybe I am misreading something. So when you die you are temporarily separated from your body but then when you go to Heaven you are reunited with your actual physical body… or does your soul just “resemble” your physical body? You don’t have a flesh and blood body do you?

Those in heaven now are not reunited with their bodies (with a few exceptions of those who bodily ascended). At the resurrection, they will be, but that has yet to happen.

You could make a case that time is not necessarily experienced in the same way by the dead as it is here (which is probably true) and argue that it would be possible for everyone to experience the last moments and resurrection at once and together, immediately after death (despite dying at separate earth-times), but I’m pretty sure this is not the case.

 

[Portofino]

For a person of your persuasion this was very good. Second to last paragraph would not be held by Catholics of course.

Why, thank you

 

[Portofino]

I’m sorry but I am still a little confused or maybe I am misreading something. So when you die you are temporarily separated from your body but then when you go to Heaven you are reunited with your actual physical body… or does your soul just “resemble” your physical body? You don’t have a flesh and blood body do you?

My understanding is that, yes, it is a flesh and blood resurrection of the body. The resurrection of Lazarus --or of Jesus, for that matter – would be examples.

Or, perhaps, a more complete example would be the doctrine of the Assumption of Mary: that Mary was assumed “body and soul” into heaven. Her fleshly body – just as the fleshly body of Jesus – was indeed ascended or assumed into heaven. So heaven, perhaps, is not an entirely immaterial place? Or perhaps the body is transformed – “transfigured”, if you will; yet, to my knowledge, belief in a resurrection of the body is not metaphorical, but literal (just as transubstantiation is not metaphorical, but literal).

You are right to point out that the interval between death and the resurrection of the body entails a period of “disembodiment.” Upon death, the soul experiences what is known as “particular judgment” (before God), upon which one goes to heaven, hell, and purgatory. The Second Coming of Christ, on the other hand, is known as the “general judgment”, I believe. It’s at that moment that body and soul are reunited. If I’m not mistaken, anticipation of a literal resurrection of the body is one reason for Christian burial, and also why the burning of a heretic was such a strongly symbolic condemnation.

I understand your logic of, “if soul can exist without body, why reunite with the body at all?” I could see why the body would be viewed as limited, the soul unlimited.

I also can understand the logic – held by Seventh Day Adventists, for example – that the soul dies with the body (thus, there is no after-death awareness) but that body and soul are brought to life on Judgment Day, at the same time. This doctrine is known as “soul sleep” and is not, of course, part of Catholic teaching.

 

[cornbread_r2]

…]

As for the second part, you are correct. Through observation alone, we cannot tell whether a severely mentally retarded person has a rational soul or not. The reason why we know that such people have rational souls is because of what we know about God, not because of what we observe about them. For God to not give a human body a soul at its conception would contradict how He designed humans. Humans conceive and give birth to humans, not animals or plants, and while tragedy may well cause us to occasionally give birth to dead children, they did not start out that way.

Rational souls are part of who humans are, as is the fact that humans beget humans. Since both of these facts come from God and He does not contradict Himself, we know that all those conceived have rational souls.

You almost make it seem as though possession of a rational soul is a product of heredity, which I know is something the RCC expressly denies. You also make it seem as though God is compelled in some way to give every living thing with human DNA a rational soul – which would seem to limit his omnipotence to some degree.

Thanks for responding. I’ll give it some more thought.

 

[R_C]

I’m sorry but I am still a little confused or maybe I am misreading something. So when you die you are temporarily separated from your body but then when you go to Heaven you are reunited with your actual physical body… or does your soul just “resemble” your physical body? You don’t have a flesh and blood body do you?

We call it a glorified body. It has many peculiar characteristics that we don’t really know about in this life. We only know what we have seen in Christ: namely, what we saw in the Transfiguration and after the Resurrection. Other resurrected bodies (ex. Lazarus) were only in a temporary coming back to life: they experienced natural death later on in life.

Here, scrolling down, we find the paragraph “Characteristics of the risen body” that can provide more info on the Catholic understanding of the glorified body.

The reunification with the flesh only takes place on the last day, that is, on the final coming of Christ. Souls in heaven are not there in body, only in spirit. That does not mean, of course, that God does not allow them to manifest themselves with the appearance of a body, just like the angels do even though they are pure spirits who never have and never will receive a physical body.

 

[Iron_Donkey]

You almost make it seem as though possession of a rational soul is a product of heredity, which I know is something the RCC expressly denies. You also make it seem as though God is compelled in some way to give every living thing with human DNA a rational soul – which would seem to limit his omnipotence to some degree.

Thanks for responding. I’ll give it some more thought.

If I made it sound as though the rational soul was a product of heredity, then I made it sound incorrect. We do not create the soul that our children get, but God does guarantee that our children will be human. It’s not a product of heredity, it is simply guaranteed to occur when heredity occurs.

Same if I made it sound as though God is compelled to do so by an outside force. God is not compelled to do anything by anything other than who He is.

What I was trying to say that because of what we know about God by what God has told us, He guarantees that all humans will have a rational soul. He is not compelled to do so in the sense that we have a claim on Him to do so or that there is some exterior law He is following, but He does keep His word. I suppose you could say that He compels Himself to do so, and that may be accurate, but I tend to dislike that language. Rather, I would say that He freely chooses to do so, and freely choosing to be faithful to His word, will continue to freely choose to do so.

 

[Iron_Donkey]

My understanding is that, yes, it is a flesh and blood resurrection of the body. The resurrection of Lazarus --or of Jesus, for that matter – would be examples.

Or, perhaps, a more complete example would be the doctrine of the Assumption of Mary: that Mary was assumed “body and soul” into heaven. Her fleshly body – just as the fleshly body of Jesus – was indeed ascended or assumed into heaven. So heaven, perhaps, is not an entirely immaterial place? Or perhaps the body is transformed – “transfigured”, if you will; yet, to my knowledge, belief in a resurrection of the body is not metaphorical, but literal (just as transubstantiation is not metaphorical, but literal).

We are more or less uncertain on how the material exists in heaven. The Resurrection is certainly literal, however: we do believe that we will have actual material bodies. But we also say they will be glorified, and we don’t really know an awful lot about what that means, or how exactly our glorified bodies will be present anywhere, or what exactly being present entails.

You are right to point out that the interval between death and the resurrection of the body entails a period of “disembodiment.” Upon death, the soul experiences what is known as “particular judgment” (before God), upon which one goes to heaven, hell, and purgatory. The Second Coming of Christ, on the other hand, is known as the “general judgment”, I believe. It’s at that moment that body and soul are reunited. If I’m not mistaken, anticipation of a literal resurrection of the body is one reason for Christian burial, and also why the burning of a heretic was such a strongly symbolic condemnation.

I understand your logic of, “if soul can exist without body, why reunite with the body at all?” I could see why the body would be viewed as limited, the soul unlimited.

I also can understand the logic – held by Seventh Day Adventists, for example – that the soul dies with the body (thus, there is no after-death awareness) but that body and soul are brought to life on Judgment Day, at the same time. This doctrine is known as “soul sleep” and is not, of course, part of Catholic teaching.

I think that we would say that both body and soul are limited, but to say that a bodiless soul is inherently less limited than a bodied soul may not be correct. I mean, angels are certainly less limited than we are, but I would hesitate to say that is is because they are bodiless so much as because they were designed to be less limited than we are and that design just happens not to contain a body (and so that a bodiless human does not necessarily become as unlimited as an angel). Jesus, for example, has a body and I would be loath to say that this makes Him more limited than a pure spirit. So a bodiless human, insofar as he is incomplete and not at his whole potential, is in fact more limited than a bodied human. Or at least a human in a glorified body, perhaps (almost certainly) a person in heaven without a body is less limited than a person here with one, but I would tend to think that he would not be less limited than one of the handful who were assumed bodily.

I can of course see how such a conception of body and soul can arise and be held, though. I just don’t think that it’s necessary.

As for the “soul sleep” - yeah, we don’t buy that. “He is not the God of the dead, but of the living.” Again, I can see how the idea has an appeal when considered independently of everything else though.

 

[LEMAITRE]

I’m sorry but I am still a little confused or maybe I am misreading something. So when you die you are temporarily separated from your body but then when you go to Heaven you are reunited with your actual physical body… or does your soul just “resemble” your physical body? You don’t have a flesh and blood body do you?

The process as taught by the Church as I understand it is:

1. Immediately after death the ‘soul’ faces an Particular Judgement as to where you will spend eternity and is sent there immediately after that Judgement. The soul will either enter directly to Heaven, directly to Hell or to Heaven via Purgatory.
2. The ‘body’ is buried in consecrated ground.
3. When Jesus returns there will be a General Judgement after which the ‘soul’ will be reunited with our ‘glorified body’ for eternity either in Heaven or Hell.

What does ‘glorified body’ mean? I’m not sure but I think we will look the same because Moses and Elijah appeared to Jesus at the Tranfiguration and Peter, James son of Zebedee and John the Apostle witness this.

 

[Blue_Horizon]

This actually supports why I think our soul exists before our body. Anything from the mind of God is ultimately in existence, is it not?

No not really FT.

 

[Blue_Horizon]

I’m sorry but I am still a little confused or maybe I am misreading something. So when you die you are temporarily separated from your body but then when you go to Heaven you are reunited with your actual physical body… or does your soul just “resemble” your physical body? You don’t have a flesh and blood body do you?

FT if I may kindly make some observations on the way you search for the truth…
You are guided perhaps excessively by your feelings/intuition (this is great for a (ex) Catholic as we Catholics for too long have erred the other way). However such excessive reliance on intuition also has its weaknesses…if it doesn’t immediately “fit” you seem to flitter off to another flower without seriously reflecting on what has been offered. I believe it is only when we harmonise all our human powers (including the labour of thinking/rationality) that we will most quickly and certainly find the answers that satisfy all levels of our being.

FT your understanding of the terms (at least as defined in Catholic Philosophy) is a little superficial/weak which is why you are having trouble here.

The summary provided by Portofino (#5) is an excellent summary of Catholic Scholastic Philosophy on this (with the needed correxction by Linus… at #20).

Death, by definition, is “separation” of body and soul. This is not an optional description.
Separation is not a good word, though necessarily used when talking to children.

The soul is to body as form is to matter. This comes from the philosophy of Aristotle to explain change. It was adopted by the Church to explain the things you are coming to grips with in Hebrew understanding of God, humans and death.

There is no quick and easy explanation as to the relationship between form and matter. You need to look it up in wiki or elsewhere and ponder deeply on what is meant by this. It is in the pondering you will come to understand. It is in fact very deep.

 

[Portofino]

I think that we would say that both body and soul are limited, but to say that a bodiless soul is inherently less limited than a bodied soul may not be correct. I mean, angels are certainly less limited than we are, but I would hesitate to say that is is because they are bodiless so much as because they were designed to be less limited than we are and that design just happens not to contain a body (and so that a bodiless human does not necessarily become as unlimited as an angel). Jesus, for example, has a body and I would be loath to say that this makes Him more limited than a pure spirit. So a bodiless human, insofar as he is incomplete and not at his whole potential, is in fact more limited than a bodied human. Or at least a human in a glorified body, perhaps (almost certainly) a person in heaven without a body is less limited than a person here with one, but I would tend to think that he would not be less limited than one of the handful who were assumed bodily.

I can of course see how such a conception of body and soul can arise and be held, though. I just don’t think that it’s necessary. .

Thanks for your thoughts. It is interesting how we intuitively tend to conceive of spirit as being more unlimited than corporality. To some extent, the gospels seem to support this: “God is a spirit, and those that worship Him must do so in spirit and in truth.” God is omnipresent and, of course, it is paradoxical to conceive of anything but spirit as capable of omnipresence. In the beginning was the Word, then the “Word was made flesh”, so it would seem that spirit is primary, corporality secondary.

It’s also paradoxical because, to an important extent, we tend to conceive of the mind as having fewer limitations than the body, at least in a particular sense. The mind, for example, can contemplate past, present, and future all at once; or, through the “wings of imagination”, can contemplate that which has never existed or never will exist (“hold infinity in the palm of your hand, and eternity in an hour”–William Blake). The body does not possess “wings” (an unglorified body, at least ). The mind, metaphorically speaking, does .

On the other hand, I can understand how – on earth – mind without body would be limited. It is as if mind is “will” and body is “muscle.” Without body, “mind” would have lots of ideas, but no way to execute them or to make them real.

 

[Blue_Horizon]

I’m sorry but I am still a little confused or maybe I am misreading something. So when you die you are temporarily separated from your body but then when you go to Heaven you are reunited with your actual physical body… or does your soul just “resemble” your physical body? You don’t have a flesh and blood body do you?

When we die it means our soul is no longer able to vivify our former body (which is for that very reason now a corrupting corpse of lesser organic material with no unity of cohesion other than the now “accidental” local proximately of these lesser constituent organic/mineral parts).

Whether one goes to heaven hell or purgatory we are talking only of the soul (we will only be complete again (“raised”) at the end of time).

At the end of time all who have died will be reunited with a body corresponding to the unique proclivity (potency) for such that is still defined within the very essence of our souls.
Obviously our old bodies have worn out and corrupted and turned to dust - yet our souls are able to uniquely re-vivify matter when God should provide the conditions for such (just as when we were conceived).

However the matter of this 2nd “rising” is not the same as that of this world. It is “glorified” (that is what some people seem to mean by “spiritual” body which is confusing because matter and spirit are almost opposites by definition) We know this from Jesus’s own Rising. His body was “glorified” - and those in heaven will vivify the same sort of glorified bodies also.

Those in hell also receive bodies “more powerful” than those we possess now. (It may be more correct to say that our souls are more powerfully vivifying our bodies than they are now). That is why, after the resurrection of the dead, we are immortal - there is no more death. However we do not say their bodies are glorified.

Those in hell (if anyone is actually there) do not appear to have fully glorified bodies as 7 special qualities attach to glorification - one of which is impassability (the inability to suffer). The damned appear to only share 3 of these qualities with those who see God.

This link may or may not help.
newadvent.org/cathen/12792a.htm