Tim Staples "seven proofs" for college speech

[namax91]

Hello. I posted yesterday that I’m giving a speech about the human soul trying to use secular arguments, and part of it involves paraphrasing Tim Staples’ Seven Proofs for the Natural Immortality of the Human Soul. Before I give the speech, I would like to make sure one of my arguments is correct.

a. “Action follows being.” In other words, we can discover something of a thing’s nature by taking note of its actions.
b.By taking note of the actions of the human soul, we can discover its nature.
c.The human soul can know of concepts such as justice, love, etc. These concepts are not physical things that one can observe, but are spiritual in nature.
d. Therefore, the soul itself is spiritual in nature.

Also, while this is not the most important part of my argument, I want to show that the vegetative and sensitive souls cease to exist after death, but I didn’t understand how
Tim Staples argued for that. Thank you and God bless!

 

[polytropos]

Hello. I posted yesterday that I’m giving a speech about the human soul trying to use secular arguments, and part of it involves paraphrasing Tim Staples’ Seven Proofs for the Natural Immortality of the Human Soul. Before I give the speech, I would like to make sure one of my arguments is correct.

a. “Action follows being.” In other words, we can discover something of a thing’s nature by taking note of its actions.
b.By taking note of the actions of the human soul, we can discover its nature.
c.The human soul can know of concepts such as justice, love, etc. These concepts are not physical things that one can observe, but are spiritual in nature.
d. Therefore, the soul itself is spiritual in nature.

It seems like this argument could be correct, but what it will turn on (in terms of convincing anyone) is arguing that justice and love are real and cannot be given a reductive explanation in terms of physical things. That justice and love are “spiritual in nature” seems to be precisely what people who would deny the immortality of the soul would deny.

There is a scholastic argument from the universality of things known. In this case, the object does not need to be something abstract like justice or love. A human can know what a cat is (the essence of a cat) over and above any particular instantiations of the cat. But since all actual cats are particular (or all physical things, really), the human’s knowledge of the cat’s essence is not material. (This has to be tightened up, of course.)

Also, while this is not the most important part of my argument, I want to show that the vegetative and sensitive souls cease to exist after death, but I didn’t understand how
Tim Staples argued for that. Thank you and God bless!

How he would apparently argue this is implicit in your characterization of his argument. Those things with vegetative and sensitive souls cannot think about justice or love, so the argument does not apply to them. (This shows that the argument for immortality doesn’t work. It is not an argument for mortality! But it’s plausible if the argument for immortality of the human soul is.) I would adapt this, as I mentioned above, in terms of knowing universals forms/essences rather than justice and love. I believe it would be easier to get a foothold among those who disagree on that count, though surely they still would not accept the argument. (But you can’t expect to convince anyone of the immortality of the human soul, which is tantamount to theism, in a college speech, anyway.)

 

[namax91]

That justice and love are “spiritual in nature” seems to be precisely what people who would deny the immortality of the soul would deny.

You have a good point there. Instead of using concepts like justice and love, I will argue from the universality of things known. Thank you very much!

 

[Linusthe2nd]

Hello. I posted yesterday that I’m giving a speech about the human soul trying to use secular arguments, and part of it involves paraphrasing Tim Staples’ Seven Proofs for the Natural Immortality of the Human Soul. Before I give the speech, I would like to make sure one of my arguments is correct.

a. “Action follows being.” In other words, we can discover something of a thing’s nature by taking note of its actions.
b.By taking note of the actions of the human soul, we can discover its nature.
c.The human soul can know of concepts such as justice, love, etc. These concepts are not physical things that one can observe, but are spiritual in nature.
d. Therefore, the soul itself is spiritual in nature.

Also, while this is not the most important part of my argument, I want to show that the vegetative and sensitive souls cease to exist after death, but I didn’t understand how
Tim Staples argued for that. Thank you and God bless!

Here is a good post by Edward Feser on Immateriality which is related to any discussion on the human soul.
edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2014/12/progressive-dematerialization.html#more

Pax
Linus2nd