What exactly is the soul?

[Blue_Horizon]

BHorizon:
Is that what Al was on about?
Pretty obvious I would have thought too.

---

“What you wrote makes no sense at all.”***
Of course it doesn’t, you have a completely different world view from what I am presenting!
So it will therefore take effort to understand. But is the problem really with what I wrote?

Personally over the years I have put a lot of effort into understanding both sides. That is one of the reasons I formally trained in Scholasticism 30 odd yrs ago. I was debating the principles with my Aquinas philosophy lecturers from day one.

So my current position as above is not totally “off the cuff” (admittedly some of it is) like a lot of stuff thrown out here by either side on this thread.

However what I wrote above is, I thought, helpfully based on standard Thomistic Catholic philosophy basics as taught anywhere in the world at a Catholic University or even in online tutorials.

My proffered application to modern day science is of course debatable (as are the finer Thomistic points).

But I am using a terminology that should at least serve as good agreed common ground for Catholics educated enough in Aquinas to understand the basics.

(Which is why I find Linus’s view, now that I understand he is rejecting some of the traditional Catholic basics, intriguing. At least I now know where he is really coming from).

If you do not have a background in Aquinas fair enough, I can see why you might think it “pretentious”.

If that were the case wouldn’t it be better just to be a passive observer of my sub-thread with others though - rather than get upset and say its pretentious, obfuscation and a mishmash? It is tiresome having to explain the basics before a deeper discussion can get going - so yes, I suppose you could say I am not aiming at Thomist neophytes and I apologise for that if its this that irks you enough to speak of obscurantism.

But if you think I am being “pretentious” because I have got Aquinas’s philosophy of Apprehension seriously wrong then I would be concerned and eager to hear where I may have gone astray?

 

[inocente]

If you read the paragraphs of the CCC I referred to, you will see that what is called the NMS ( non-material substance ) is a justified appallation. There the soul is described as the " spiritual principle " of man to which it contrasts the body as " made of matter. " It is also called the principle of life for man. And of course he is a rational creature because he is made in the image of God.

That section of the CCC doesn’t mention immaterial, non-material or substance.

*Man’s rationality is based on the fact that he can think and reason, that he can know universal ideas. Lumps of matter cannot think and reason even if living. Only man, among all living creatures of the world can do these things. This implies the existence of a something in man which is altogether different from the life principle in other creatures.

In nature there are material beings and spiritual beings ( man and angels ). As far as man’s body is concerned, he obeys the physical laws of nature. Man’s mind or intellect obeys the nature which God gave the soul. When man is thinking, reasoning, willing, he follows the law of his spiritual nature. In other things he follows the laws of the physical aspect of his nature.*

You wrote this in response to me saying “you’ve provided no argument, you just keep asserting it, and you just made another assertion”, and you’ve just made more assertions!

You’ve still given no reason why brains can’t think and reason, nor have you explained how, if both brains and your NMS obey the laws of nature, there is anything your NMS can do which a brain can’t.

O.K., now I am. How would you define the soul? Or perhaps you do not think man has one?

I wonder if you realize that the bible makes none of the complicated divisions that Aristotle, Thomas or your good self make, nor does it speak of Cartesian dualism.

In the bible, a soul is simply any living being. The body is animated by a life force (spirit), and soul = body + spirit. For instance, God forms Adam’s body out of dust, then breaths life (spirit) into him, and Adam becomes a soul. God doesn’t add the soul to the body, the soul is simply the body once it is animated by God’s breath.

If you don’t believe that’s the biblical view, there’s a helpful footnote for that verse in the NAB, and more in Wikipedia and elsewhere.

Now we of course know that “life force” is, technically, metabolism, but my view of soul is probably otherwise close to the bible.

I wasn’t redefining, " NMS " and " soul " are one in the same. The soul is the form of a living creature. The form and the matter of a creature are called its nature. This nature has certain powers by which the creature acts naturally, according to the kind of nature that it is. Vegetation has by nature the power to live, consume and use nutrition for its well being, to reproduce, and perhaps to respond to certain stumuli. And I am assuming that God creates these immaterial souls at conception just as he does for the soul of man.

Hang on. So God has to rush round giving plankton and bathroom mold NMS at conception, NMS made of the immaterial substance of Cartesian dualism, NMS which does what their bodies could do all on their own? As the theory, that adds twiddly bits on to twiddly bits on to twiddly bits. What a complicated world you must live in .

I don’t think God creates diseases. According to Thomas and the Church every creature is created good. They teach that evil ( material and spiritual ) are caused by sin. First, that of our first parents, then our own. Some how nature revolted at sin. For God told Adam and Eve that now they would have to earn their bread by the sweat of their brow and their efforts would be made more difficult because of the presence of nettles, weeds, and thorns. " And all creation groans even to now. " And from then on the other animals would prove hostile to man.

So a further complexity is that God creates souls except where He doesn’t.

Do you have to employ a team of lawyers to manage all the get-out clauses you have?

 

[inocente]

It means that those who believe that memory is located in an ISS will have a way to explain memory illnesses.

But they can’t, since they’ve already said that the main (well, let’s be accurate) the only property of ISS is that ISS is inexplicable.

*At any rate, I would put it this way:

1. Oxygen is a material substance.
2. It is assumed that oxygen is made up only of material components.
3. None of its properties can be found in its components.
4. Therefore, if 3 is true, then oxygen’s properties are not reducible to its components’ properties.
5. Therefore, oxygen’s properties are inexplicable in terms of its components’ properties.
6. Therefore, it is not true that oxygen is made up only of material components Or
7. Oxygen is an inexplicable material substance.

You would have to say that a miracle occurs, but you don’t like miracles; you will prefer to say then that the new properties emerge from where they were not. However, your “emergence” would be a miracle.*

Try instead:

1. Therefore, if oxygen’s properties are explicable, they must rely on the specific organization of the components.
2. This has been found to be the case.

Where I’ve said organization, I guess Aristotle would say form. You’ve tried to ignore form, and reached a false conclusion as a result.

Before I do the replacement you are suggesting, you will need to repair your argument above. It doesn’t work.

You’ll now see that’s in error as you forgot about organization/form.

I have a more basic question: What does it mean that you learn logic?

Same as learning anything else, I guess. Thought patterns (routes through the brain) are strengthened by repetition. At a low level, we can go back to that UT Houston course: neuroscience.uth.tmc.edu/s4/chapter07.html

You have said you are a monist, and that mind emerges from matter. I have inferred from that that you are a materialist. Are you not?

Please see the third section of post #567.

 

[Linusthe2nd]

Perhaps the even more spiritually mature “trick” is to resist subjective paranoia in one-self and assume good faith in the other party especially when they are polite enough on other occasions.

As the Buddhist saying goes, “Its easier to wear shoes than carpet the world in leather.”

But I am intrigued Linus, do you actually like poetry or anything with ambiguity?
Personally as I get older I find philosophy is more inexact art than accurate science.
Words keep getting in the way of ideas .

Yes indeed, it is a hard trick to learn.

Linus2nd

 

[Linusthe2nd]

That section of the CCC doesn’t mention immaterial, non-material or substance.

Yes, I told you that. I said that it shows how we are justified in calling it a non-material substance. Those paragraphs talk about the soul being the principle of life, the thing which makes man an image of God, that which makes his soul an intellectual substance with a free will, which makes his soul a spirit.

You wrote this in response to me saying “you’ve provided no argument, you just keep asserting it, and you just made another assertion”, and you’ve just made more assertions!

I said man has an intellectual soul by which he grasps universal ideas and concepts, which ideas and concepts are formed by the mind without direct dependence on the brain. This shows that the intellectual principle in man is a spirit. A spirit has no parts and therefore cannot die, and the fact that man has an intellect and free will shows that there is a principle in him which spiritual and makes him accountable for his actions, which shows not only that he will not die but that he will be eternally responsible for his acts. Also, the Church teaches dogmatically that man has an immortal ( eternal ), rational, spiritual soul ( immaterial substance ), created immediately by God. in time.

These are not assumptions to me.

You’ve still given no reason why brains can’t think and reason, nor have you explained how, if both brains and your NMS obey the laws of nature, there is anything your NMS can do which a brain can’t.

I realize my reasons are unacceptible to you. What’s new about that? That does not mean they are not true.

I wonder if you realize that the bible makes none of the complicated divisions that Aristotle, Thomas or your good self make, nor does it speak of Cartesian dualism.

And where in the Bible does it say that all of God’s Revelation is contained in the Bible? Where in the Bible does it say that we are free to make our own private interpretation of what the Bible says? Does the Bible use any ot the terms I have used? I really cannot say, since I don’t know Aramaic, or Greek, or ancient Hebrew, do you? When Genesis said God " breathed life " into Adam and Eve and created them in his own image and likeness, the Catholic Church and the Fathers of the Church teach that that means he gave men an immortal, rational, soul, as I describe above. Of course, since Henery Vlll, every man outside the Catholic Church is his own Pope and walks his own way, dismissing all authority but his own - just a little to convenient to give on much assurance.

In the bible, a soul is simply any living being. The body is animated by a life force (spirit), and soul = body + spirit. For instance, God forms Adam’s body out of dust, then breaths life (spirit) into him, and Adam becomes a soul. God doesn’t add the soul to the body, the soul is simply the body once it is animated by God’s breath.

Of course that is incorrect. See my explanation above. God creats man’s soul at the moment of creation, it is the form of the body. His life force is his soul, that is what separates inanimate objects from living creatures.

If you don’t believe that’s the biblical view, there’s a helpful footnote for that verse in the NAB, and more in Wikipedia and elsewhere.

The first quote from the NAB backs my statement that the Catholic Church interprets this to mean man is a composit of body and soul. And your second reference also reinforces my contention even stronger - if you read the whole thing. And the Didache Bible, based on the Catechism of the Catholic Church comments as follows on this passage: " In the second story of creation, we see both the physical and the spiritual aspects of human beings. Man was formed out of the earth, giving him a physical body and then God breathed into him the " breath of life, " animating him and endowing him with a spiritual soul. The Hebrew rushh means both " breath " and " spirit. "

And then there is Gen 1, 26-29:"
The Didache Bible ( based on the Ignaturs Bible Edition ), based on the Catechism of the Catholic Church interprets this passage as follows: " While material creation reveals vestiges of God’s beauty, power, and intelligence, human beings, who are spiritual and corporeal, are made in God’s own image and likeness. Human nature comprises a material body and an immortal soul. This union of both the physical and the spiritual ( means )…we are made in God’s image and likeness, possessing intelligence and free will …"

Cont. on next post.
Linus2nd

 

[Linusthe2nd]

Post 570 cont.

Now we of course know that “life force” is, technically, metabolism, but my view of soul is probably otherwise close to the bible.

Oh, I see. Now science is going to interpret Revelation? I don’t think science can judge what " life force " means, can it show me " live force, " can it put it under a microscope, can it weigh it? Philosophy and interpreting Revelation are beyond the perview of science in my humble opininon.

Hang on. So God has to rush round giving plankton and bathroom mold NMS at conception, NMS made of the immaterial substance of Cartesian dualism, NMS which does what their bodies could do all on their own?

No, each living creature is a single being composed of matter and form. And in living creatures the form is a living soul.

As the theory, that adds twiddly bits on to twiddly bits on to twiddly bits. What a complicated world you must live in .

How is it more complicated than what your science proposes?

So a further complexity is that God creates souls except where He doesn’t.

I would say he creates even the souls of non-intelligent, living beings the same way he creates the human soul. But that is just my opinion.

Do you have to employ a team of lawyers to manage all the get-out clauses you have?

No more than you do to explain how living creatures can live without a soul.

So the bottom line is that you do not believe that man and other living creatures have a soul that is distinct from their bodies but are united to form a single being? So in your opinion man does not have a spiritual soul.

Have you looked at what the early Fathers of the Church had to say? Or do you think that everything taught about the Faith prior to the English Baptist Assembly of 1689 is invalid and that now God has empowered us with special graces and gifts to interpret Revelation as we see fit?

Linus2nd

 

[Richca]

This issue is off topic. But I think Thomas is wrong. He says that vegetative and sentient souls are immaterial ( spiritual substances ) since they are the principle of life in these living substances and the principle of their activities. An immaterial substance, by that fact is not subject to corruption because it has no material parts which can be corrupted. Therefore, I see no reason to say that they cease to exist when their material bodies die.

 

[Richca]

Further. Man has no sentient soul, which both these worthy gentlemen refer to. Man has only one soul, the intellectual soul. Therefore it does all the things common to sentient soul and the vegetative soul. The greater soul does the work of all three.

Linus2nd

(continued)

This is not entirely correct. Aquinas calls the souls of humans an intellectual soul because the highest powers of the human soul are the spiritual powers of intellect and will. The intellectual soul of humans is what distinguishes our souls from the brute animals and thus man is called a rational animal. St Thomas teaches that the spiritual powers of intellect and will are not the only powers of the human soul. Aquinas distinguishes five genera of powers in the human soul, namely, the vegetative, sensitive, appetitive, locomotive, and the intellectual. Accordingly, the intellect in human beings is not what senses. It is the sensory powers of the human soul which act through corporeal organs of the body that senses. However, the lower powers of the soul excluding the vegetative are under the command of man’s higher spiritual powers of intellect and will. A human soul simply has all the powers of the souls of plants, the souls of brute animals, with the additional spiritual powers of intellect and will by which we are made in the image and likeness of God. The intellectual soul of human beings is not of the same species as the substance of an angel who is entirely immaterial. The very nature of the intellectual soul of humans is to be united to an animal body which requires the souls of humans to have vegetative and sensory powers. And so man is defined as a “rational animal.”

 

[Aloysium]

I still can’t keep straight concepts such as substance, form, phantasm, etc.
Trained in science, what I know is that “mental” phenomena be they human or animal are not a type of physical property or force, like say gravity or electrochemical interactions.
While neurophysiological processes define the brain, mind is a different dimension or way of describing the nonmaterial aspects of the mind-brain unity.
The animal soul requires matter in the same way that these words require a brain. What appears to be two are different ways of approaching, of understanding what is one “thing”.

Matter does not come together and thereby create a larger whole.
I would say that God creates the individual animal as He creates each atom and each subatomic particle. Each of these, individually form a whole. It seems like a lot to do, but given that everything and everywhere that exists, exists, and that there is eternity to be spent forming each microsecond, I don’t see it being impossible for God.

There is a unity that is an animal that when it dies physically, it dies completely. Maybe I am wrong in this but that’s what I think.

Human beings are not animals, our souls are eternal. Because of our physical nature we do share with animals, certain attributes (hunger, pain, anger, along with behaviours related to social interaction, etc), but more so we appreciate beauty, we can know truth, be self-aware and we can love. The increase in brain mass does not cause these to exist, but permits their expression as participants in this world.

Although our mind-brain’s are one, when the brain dies, what makes for the existence of mind persists. We are ultimately relational beings whose existence is beyond an encasement in skin but enters into the relationship with what is other, ultimately God.

 

[Linusthe2nd]

According to A/T, the souls of animals are not a substance. They are the formal part of the substance of the animal; the other substantial part being matter or the body of the animal. The substance is the whole animal, form and matter being its principle parts. The souls of animals depend on matter or the body for their existence; they are not subsistent like the human soul. The human soul because of the spiritual powers of intellect and will can subsist without the body. These powers of the human soul have an operation independent of any bodily organ unlike the sensory or vegetative powers of the soul which require a material organ or organs of a living body for their operation. When the body of an animal ceases to exist, so does its soul. Animal souls are wholly tied to matter. I’m not saying that there may not be animals in heaven or on the renewed creation or earth. Maybe God will re-create many of them, who knows.

 

[ynotzap]

There’s probably not much more that can be said re the authority of Aristotle on this one as there are two well established and opposed schools of Aristotelian “disciples” on this point.

Being “not wrong” doesn’t actually make one correct. In this case it simply means we will never know. However it does seem strange that Aristotle would not have more clearly enunciated such a stupendous, purely philosophic discovery (well before immortality of the human spirit was mainstream in Judaism or Christianity).

As for Aquinas/Scholastics/Christians being the best interpreter of Aristotle…hmmmn.
I don’t mean he wasn’t, but who exactly is the all knowing judge to decide on this matter when there is divergence amongst his followers? Muslim commentators twist the fine/ambiguous points to suit Muslim theology, Christians to suit Christian teaching and Atheists to suit atheist beliefs. If they are each internally consistent who is the arbiter to say the best rep of each is right or wrong on points Aristotle was never clear on to start with .

Man’s advancement in the knowledge of the truth in every situaltion whether in the material universe, or the spiritual-the field of knowledge and understanding is not in knowing the essence of things (what is it), but in knowing being, what is and what isn’t, knowing the being of things, being is the actuality of essence, the act by which something is. For Thomas this was most important. To know who would be the arbiter ,of truth and right (as humans go) would be an impossible task, for there are many knowers,(I assume) and thinkers all fallible. So we do the best with what we have, and those that represent the best we have. In my own limited judgement it would be St.Thomas- confirmed by my faith and reason. There are so many things I can say but time and sometimes effort will not permit.

I will offer instead quotes from Anton C. Pegis, President Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, Toronto.
We are heirs of generations of philosophic speculation according to which man is a thinker and a mind. Now it is a fact that the Thomistic man is a knower rather than a thinker, and he is a composite rather than a mind. If we are to judge matters as Thomas has done, we are bound to say that the European man became a thinker after he ruined himself as a knower, and we can even trace the steps of his ruination.-- from Augustinian Platonism to the mominalistic isolationism of Ockam, to the despairing and desparate methodism of Descartes. For what we call a decline of mediaeval philosophy was really a transition from man as a knower to man as a thinker- from man knowing the world of sensible things to man thinking abstract thoughts in separation from existence. What is thinking but dis-existentialized knowing? St. Thomas sets himself the problem to explain how it is that we know concrete sensible things. It is not abstactions that we know, though we use abstractions; it is things. We know things as being, not as essences, not that they are essences. The notion of act is fundamental in metaphysics and epistemology of St.Thomas, is the name of things from the standpoint of act. Essence itself, as St.Thomas understands it, is not a thing or reality in itself. If you ask "what is a thing" to Thomas the question means: what sort of being does a thing have?

 

[Linusthe2nd]

(continued)

This is not entirely correct. Aquinas calls the souls of humans an intellectual soul because the highest powers of the human soul are the spiritual powers of intellect and will. The intellectual soul of humans is what distinguishes our souls from the brute animals and thus man is called a rational animal. St Thomas teaches that the spiritual powers of intellect and will are not the only powers of the human soul. Aquinas distinguishes five genera of powers in the human soul, namely, the vegetative, sensitive, appetitive, locomotive, and the intellectual. Accordingly, the intellect in human beings is not what senses. It is the sensory powers of the human soul which act through corporeal organs of the body that senses. However, the lower powers of the soul excluding the vegetative are under the command of man’s higher spiritual powers of intellect and will. A human soul simply has all the powers of the souls of plants, the souls of brute animals, with the additional spiritual powers of intellect and will by which we are made in the image and likeness of God. The intellectual soul of human beings is not of the same species as the substance of an angel who is entirely immaterial. The very nature of the intellectual soul of humans is to be united to an animal body which requires the souls of humans to have vegetative and sensory powers. And so man is defined as a “rational animal.”

That is what I just said, the intellectual soul of man assumes the powers which the lowers souls of animals and plants have. I also said the intellectual soul governs every act of man.

Linus2nd

 

[Linusthe2nd]

Richca;13083002:
Sorry, I goofed.

Linus2nd

 

[Linusthe2nd]

According to A/T, the souls of animals are not a substance. They are the formal part of the substance of the animal; the other substantial part being matter or the body of the animal. The substance is the whole animal, form and matter being its principle parts. The souls of animals depend on matter or the body for their existence; they are not subsistent like the human soul.

But I disagree. If the animals and vetetation have souls for forms that means they have an immaterial principle which gives them life. An immaterial soul has no parts to corrupt. So unless it is annihilated, it will live forever after the death of the creature.

The human soul because of the spiritual powers of intellect and will can subsist without the body. These powers of the human soul have an operation independent of any bodily organ unlike the sensory or vegetative powers of the soul which require a material organ or organs of a living body for their operation. When the body of an animal ceases to exist, so does its soul. Animal souls are wholly tied to matter. I’m not saying that there may not be animals in heaven or on the renewed creation or earth. Maybe God will re-create many of them, who knows.

See my comment above.

Spiritual substances are substances with intelligence and will. Non-human animals do not have intelligence and will. Therefore, the souls of non-human animals are not spiritual. The human spiritual soul can subsist without the body and so St Thomas calls it a substance. But it is not a complete substance in its own right. St Thomas calls the seperated human soul an incomplete substance because it is of the nature of the human soul to be united to a human body. The soul is the form of the body and from this union we have a human being with a human nature.

See my first comment above.

If your thinking that A/T taught that brain matter alone is imagination or the phantasm, then you would be disagreeing with A/T on something they don’t teach. I tried to point this out a few posts ago. Sensation is an act or operation of the composite animal, namely, the soul and the body or bodily organ. Sensation is neither the act of a bodily organ alone, or of a power of the soul alone. Recall that the soul animates the body. Without the soul, the body is lifeless and dead. The sensory powers of the soul need the body or some bodily organ to function correctly. This is obvious. For example, the soul’s power of sight needs bodily eyes for the animal to see. If we don’t have eyes or our eyes are defective such as in blindness, then we are not going to see anything. The same goes with the other external senses as well as with the internal sensitive powers of the soul.

Of course the soul needs the body. But it is the soul that produces images or the phantasm - as far as I am concerned.

An animal soul is not united to a body for nothing. The body supplies the organs through which the sensory and vegetative powers of the soul act.

Correct, except I say that it is the soul that " reads " the data the senses receive, collates them and produces an image or phantasm and saves them in memory.

I’m not sure whether your disagreement with A/T is actually a disagreement on something they actually taught.

Yes, I disagree with what they taught. Aquinas, as I understand him, taught that images and phantasms are produced by a sense organ he called the " common sense " which is an organ of the brain then stores them in memory, which he agains says is located in the organ of the brain. And I disagree with all that.

Supposing it is, well, you can disagree all you want on the point at issue, I think, without detriment to your eternal salvation or the catholic faith as it is not an article of faith.

Not only is it not an article of faith, the Church teaches nothing about human psychology or about the non-intellectual souls of animals and plants or insects and bacteria and viruses. .

But, nonetheless, is your disagreement true? I think your disagreement is going to have philosophical ramifications if we followed it to its conclusions. It is possible that we may end up with an unrecognizable human nature or natures of animals and plants or even the proper distinction between humans and animals.

I don’t think there is any danger of that.

Also, we may consider that Aristotle’s keen and sharp analysis of the nature of souls and their powers and the natures of plants, animals, and humans has held up to the test of time for some 2400 years or so. The point at issue in which you disagree with A/T and you think they may be in error has never been demonstrated to be false by the sharpest intellects on the planet. The teaching of A/T on the point at issue is still taught today to philosophy and theology students especially among catholics. The christian philosophy of Aquinas who of course takes a lot from Aristotle is also backed by the Church. Pope Innocent VI has said that no one who holds the doctrine of St Thomas “will ever be found to have strayed from the path of truth; whereas anyone who has attacked it has always been suspected as to the truth.”

The Pope was obviously using hyperbole.

Sure, both Aristotle and Aquinas have made some errors. But, it would be against what the Church has said concerning the doctrine of St Thomas as well as against reason, for one (not meaning you) to hold that because of a few errors, the entire body of doctrine of St Thomas is in error. The Church has given the title of the “common or universal doctor” of the Church to St Thomas for a reason.

Yes, they made some humm dingers.

Linus2nd

 

[Aloysium]

Imho:
Animals and vetetation have souls which are immaterial and give them life.
The animal or plant is a unity of soul/matter.
Our spirit is eternal; we are rooted outside time.
The animal or vegative soul would be tied to the material composition (perhaps like water would be to the energy of which it is physically ultimately constituted), so that when the body dies, it ceases to exist.
I might be wrong.

 

[Blue_Horizon]

(continued)

This is not entirely correct. Aquinas calls the souls of humans an intellectual soul because the highest powers of the human soul are the spiritual powers of intellect and will. The intellectual soul of humans is what distinguishes our souls from the brute animals and thus man is called a rational animal. St Thomas teaches that the spiritual powers of intellect and will are not the only powers of the human soul. Aquinas distinguishes five genera of powers in the human soul, namely, the vegetative, sensitive, appetitive, locomotive, and the intellectual. Accordingly, the intellect in human beings is not what senses. It is the sensory powers of the human soul which act through corporeal organs of the body that senses. However, the lower powers of the soul excluding the vegetative are under the command of man’s higher spiritual powers of intellect and will. A human soul simply has all the powers of the souls of plants, the souls of brute animals, with the additional spiritual powers of intellect and will by which we are made in the image and likeness of God. The intellectual soul of human beings is not of the same species as the substance of an angel who is entirely immaterial. The very nature of the intellectual soul of humans is to be united to an animal body which requires the souls of humans to have vegetative and sensory powers. And so man is defined as a “rational animal.”

Agreed, these distinct powers within the human soul have their own proper relation to the body. The intellectual power is not directly responsible for the formation/operation of the interior sensitive faculties.

It is interesting that the presence of the intellective power has Aquinas calling the “vis aestimativa” in animals … “vis cognitiva” in humans. It is still a corporeal organ (and therefore this suggests only quantitatively different in man) and so also organised by the human soul’s sensitive power.
I understand that its superior functionality is possibly due in some way to the interaction of
this highest sensible power with the intellective power (via the phantasm perhaps).
Alternatively it may be due to the intellective human soul itself “pulling” the best out of its own sensitive spiritual powers - which still act in a corporeal bodily organ but are consequently capable of supporting much more brain sophistication than is possible in an animal.

A bit like a very fine form only capable of being supported in marble but not in sandstone.

 

[Blue_Horizon]

Man’s advancement in the knowledge of the truth in every situaltion whether in the material universe, or the spiritual-the field of knowledge and understanding is not in knowing the essence of things (what is it), but in knowing being, what is and what isn’t, knowing the being of things, being is the actuality of essence, the act by which something is. For Thomas this was most important. To know who would be the arbiter ,of truth and right (as humans go) would be an impossible task, for there are many knowers,(I assume) and thinkers all fallible. So we do the best with what we have, and those that represent the best we have. In my own limited judgement it would be St.Thomas- confirmed by my faith and reason. There are so many things I can say but time and sometimes effort will not permit.

I will offer instead quotes from Anton C. Pegis, President Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, Toronto.

       We are heirs of  generations of philosophic speculation according to which man is a thinker and a mind.  Now it is a fact that the Thomistic man is a knower rather than a thinker, and he is a composite rather than a mind.  If we are to  judge matters as Thomas has done, we are bound to say that the European man became a thinker after he ruined himself as a knower, and  we can even trace the steps of his ruination.-- from Augustinian Platonism to the mominalistic isolationism of Ockam, to the despairing and desparate methodism of Descartes.  For what we call a decline of mediaeval philosophy was really a transition from man as a knower to man as a thinker- from man knowing the world of sensible things to man thinking abstract thoughts in separation from existence.  What is thinking but dis-existentialized knowing? St. Thomas sets himself the problem to explain how it is that we know concrete sensible things.  It is not abstactions that we know, though we use abstractions; it is things.  We know things as being, not as essences, not that they are essences.  The notion of act is fundamental in metaphysics and epistemology of St.Thomas, is the name of things from the standpoint of act.  Essence itself, as St.Thomas understands it, is not a thing or reality in itself.  If you ask "what is a thing" to Thomas the question means: what sort of being does a thing have?

Interesting insight thanks.

What say you Linus - if believed, your mind is capable of holding an abstract concept of triangularity without any sensible exemplar of a particular triangle to hang it on…for you believe not in phantasms?

In which case you would be a thinker not a knower .

 

[Blue_Horizon]

Of course the soul needs the body. But it is the soul that produces images or the phantasm - as far as I am concerned.
Linus2nd

That statement is so generic as to be meaningless I think Linus.
Yes, God could be just as unhelpfully said to make the bodies of every new born baby.

But between the first cause and the last effect is much more that can be said about human apprehension and intermediating powers and organs.

 

[inocente]

Yes, I told you that. I said that it shows how we are justified in calling it a non-material substance. Those paragraphs talk about the soul being the principle of life, the thing which makes man an image of God, that which makes his soul an intellectual substance with a free will, which makes his soul a spirit.

That section of the CCC still doesn’t mention immaterial, non-material or substance. First Law Of Holes: when in one, stop digging.

*I said man has an intellectual soul by which he grasps universal ideas and concepts, which ideas and concepts are formed by the mind without direct dependence on the brain. This shows that the intellectual principle in man is a spirit. A spirit has no parts and therefore cannot die, and the fact that man has an intellect and free will shows that there is a principle in him which spiritual and makes him accountable for his actions, which shows not only that he will not die but that he will be eternally responsible for his acts. Also, the Church teaches dogmatically that man has an immortal ( eternal ), rational, spiritual soul ( immaterial substance ), created immediately by God. in time.

These are not assumptions to me.

I realize my reasons are unacceptible to you. What’s new about that? That does not mean they are not true.*

You’ve never given any reasons! I keep asking why you say brains can’t think and reason, and why, if your NMS obeys the laws of nature, there is anything your NMS can do which a brain can’t, and you never answer. No worries, I draw my own conclusion.

And where in the Bible does it say that all of God’s Revelation is contained in the Bible? Where in the Bible does it say that we are free to make our own private interpretation of what the Bible says? Does the Bible use any ot the terms I have used? I really cannot say, since I don’t know Aramaic, or Greek, or ancient Hebrew, do you? When Genesis said God " breathed life " into Adam and Eve and created them in his own image and likeness, the Catholic Church and the Fathers of the Church teach that that means he gave men an immortal, rational, soul, as I describe above. Of course, since Henery Vlll, every man outside the Catholic Church is his own Pope and walks his own way, dismissing all authority but his own - just a little to convenient to give on much assurance.

Now come on, I know you’re no sectarian bigot. Perhaps you were reeling from the shock that even in the NAB translation, God clearly made Adam from dust and “the breath of life” alone, and then Adam became a living being, a soul.

*Of course that is incorrect. See my explanation above. God creats man’s soul at the moment of creation, it is the form of the body. His life force is his soul, that is what separates inanimate objects from living creatures.

The first quote from the NAB backs my statement that the Catholic Church interprets this to mean man is a composit of body and soul. And your second reference also reinforces my contention even stronger - if you read the whole thing. And the Didache Bible, based on the Catechism of the Catholic Church comments as follows on this passage: " In the second story of creation, we see both the physical and the spiritual aspects of human beings. Man was formed out of the earth, giving him a physical body and then God breathed into him the " breath of life, " animating him and endowing him with a spiritual soul. The Hebrew rushh* means both " breath " and " spirit. "

And then there is Gen 1, 26-29:"
The Didache Bible ( based on the Ignaturs Bible Edition ), based on the Catechism of the Catholic Church interprets this passage as follows: " While material creation reveals vestiges of God’s beauty, power, and intelligence, human beings, who are spiritual and corporeal, are made in God’s own image and likeness. Human nature comprises a material body and an immortal soul. This union of both the physical and the spiritual ( means )…we are made in God’s image and likeness, possessing intelligence and free will …"

There is no composite. The NAB footnote still says “The Israelites did not think in the (Greek) categories of body and soul”. We don’t need commentaries, just look at the interlinear.

You asked me for my view on soul, and I told you. I see no incompatibility between the bible and modern science on this, as science has no theory on judgment day. But all I really want to say on this point is that across the world’s different religions there are and have been thousands of views about soul, with no way to choose except by decree. In that situation, the mind-as-immaterial-substance belief doesn’t help anyone, whereas the mind-from-the-wet-stuff-between-our-ears belief does, since it enables investigation.

 

[Aloysium]

. . . the mind-as-immaterial-substance belief doesn’t help anyone, whereas the mind-from-the-wet-stuff-between-our-ears belief does, since it enables investigation.

I think an encounter, in which one considers another and what they are saying as being merely the mind-from-the-wet-stuff-between-our-ears, helps if one is a neurologist, neurosurgeon, psychiatrist or anyone who is assisting someone with a mental or neurological disorder. If one treats a healthy spouse, a neighbour, the kids, grandkids, or a traffic cop in this fashion, the reaction may not be to one’s liking. Better treat them like persons and try to understand their feelings and point of view.