What level of consciousness would one need to have a spiritual soul?

[WannabeSaint]

I’m still confused on why animals dont have spiritual souls and dont have an afterlife.

It has been admitted that animals are conscious, feel pain, have emotions, strategize, and fear death.

I’ve been hearing since they dont understand right and wrong; morality, this means they dont have a spiritual soul. Only a material soul.

By using this logic, would that mean humans born in a perpetually vegetative state dont have spiritual souls?

What’s the caveat?

(Bonus question: Why would God create a conscious creature that fears death and not give them eternal life?)

 

[chercheur]

I think in Catholicism, if we use this line of reasoning we can do so categorically (i.e. “humans”, “non-human animals”, etc.) rather than on an individual level. I guess we can basically use this to explain how we know animals don’t have spiritual souls, but properly speaking animals don’t lack a spiritual soul because they lack the capacity for moral choices…it’s the other way around. So it wouldn’t follow that a human who is not able to make moral choices or lacks full awareness due to some limitation in their physical body does not have a spiritual soul.

But as for your main question, it’s definitely interesting and I don’t have much of an answer to it. Same goes for the bonus.

 

[1ke]

I’m still confused on why animals dont have spiritual souls and dont have an afterlife.

Because God didn’t give them one. Man alone is created in the image and likeness of God.

I’ve been hearing since they dont understand right and wrong; morality, this means they dont have a spiritual soul.

That’s backwards.

It is because they do not have a spiritual soul, the two principle forces of which are intellect and will, they do not know wrong and right.

What’s the caveat?

That you had it backwards.

 

[1ke]

Why would God create a conscious creature that fears death

God didn’t.

This assumes animals have a rational intellect, which they don’t.

 

[WannabeSaint]

God didn’t.

This assumes animals have a rational intellect, which they don’t.

Why do they flee from predators and protect themselves then? That’s gotta come from some fear of death, right?

 

[Thom18]

In our existence, we can see many forms of consciousness. At the bottom you have the animals, who are aware of themselves and others as physical creatures but are not conscious of themselves as being before God. Then you have natural men, the atheists and pagans, who live lives of pure pleasure (not necessarily hedonism, mind you) and are also unconscious of themselves as men before God.

You then have the Christian. He is aware of God as having established him as a material and spiritual being, and is conscious of where he stands in relation to Him, whether he is in God’s friendship or in a state of mortal sin.

Then you have the saints and the damned sinners, the angels and the fallen angels. They enjoy the highest level of spiritual consciousness, and as such live the strongest spiritual existences. They are also either in God’s friendship or are His enemies, and having reached their full spiritual awareness, are no longer in an internal struggle of whether to do good or evil. The angel and the saint can do only good, the fallen angel and the damned only evil.

Your question is one which seeks to tie physical consciousness to spiritual life, but this is not how it works. The man who has not heard of God is surely as “conscious” as you and I, but like the animal, he lacks a spiritual consciousness. This does not mean that he has no eternal destiny if he dies in this place, only that he was not aware of this other part of himself which is beyond our reason.

 

[1ke]

Why do they flee from predators and protect themselves then?

Stimuli. Instinct.

That’s gotta come from some fear of death, right?

Not in the way you posit. Not in the way people know death is coming, can foresee and anticipate action and consequence, pain and suffering, causation.

 

[Thom18]

Thom18:

Your question is one which seeks to tie physical consciousness to spiritual life, but this is not how it works. The man who has not heard of God is surely as “conscious” as you and I, but like the animal, he lacks a spiritual consciousness. This does not mean that he has no eternal destiny if he dies in this place, only that he was not aware of this other part of himself which is beyond our reason.

But this does not answer the question, and conflicts with Church teaching. An atheist still has a soul. A pagan still has a soul. Muslims have souls, and so on.

From your perspective then, what is the difference then between a conscious animal and a Pagan? A human born in the wilderness and never becomes aware of God is then “soul-less”? Do you only get a soul when you acknowledge the Christian Gods existence? Are Jews, Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists and people who believed in Zeus more “spiritually” aware than atheists?

You could say that humans have the potential to perceive God, but animals do not. But that again bypasses the OP’s question, where he or she asked about humans born in a vegetative state. I would also add what about human babies and children, or special needs individuals that have the capacity less. And how do you rationalize your viewpoint with Evolution? At what point did a human being suddenly ‘obtain’ the mental state whereupon he could perceive God? Was he born without a soul, and then when he reached a certain age and mental maturity God gave him one? Or did God know this ‘first human’ at conception would grow to be able to perceive him and give him a soul right then, as a zygote?

The philosophical and theological implications are far to damaging in my opinion to believe animals are not conscious and do not have some form of a soul. And if they have some form of a soul, they participate in the afterlife in some form. Any other rationale is too inconsistent (or horrendously immoral) to support.

I stated in my original answer that unawareness of one’s spiritual life does not negate the spiritual life.

 

[Wesrock]

I’ve been hearing since they dont understand right and wrong; morality, this means they dont have a spiritual soul. Only a material soul.

By using this logic, would that mean humans born in a perpetually vegetative state dont have spiritual souls?

Dogs do not have the capacity for manifesting such properties at all by their “doggyhood”.

Humans have the capacity but the manifestation of these properties/operations is sometimes interfered with due to defects.

The dog-soul does not have intellection as part of its essential powers. They can never manifest in a dog.

The human-soul has intellection as part of its essential powers even if the properties you would expect to normally manifest are interfered with.

It’s not about what level an individual rises to. It’s what are the essential powers of the species by virtue of it being that species. A human that fails to manifest the properties that lead to laughter, abstract thought, etc… still is a rational animal by its kind even if the normal properties that follow are blocked by defects. The defect is in the development of the “thick” matter and the processes required there for those properties to manifest. The defect is not in the soul.

In order to understand the essence of a species one has to observe what properties manifest across many examples, to understand what is typical of a kind, what constitutes a different kind vs what types of things are defects, and so on.

 

[Wesrock]

WannabeSaint:

I’m still confused on why animals dont have spiritual souls and dont have an afterlife.

It has been admitted that animals are conscious, feel pain, have emotions, strategize, and fear death.

I’ve been hearing since they dont understand right and wrong; morality, this means they dont have a spiritual soul. Only a material soul.

By using this logic, would that mean humans born in a perpetually vegetative state dont have spiritual souls?

What’s the caveat?

Excellent questions. Because of the issues you raise, many Christian theologians insist animals feel no pain and are not conscious (self-aware) and therefore there is no conflict.
This was one of theological reasons I am greatly frustrated with the Church.
Claiming animals are not self-aware or do not feel pain is beyond the pale to me, and grossly immoral (in my opinion). I believe it is a grave sin to arbitrarily injure, kill otherwise inflict suffering on another living thing. According to these theologians these acts are not inherently sinful in and of themselves.

A much more moral approach is to believe animals are conscious and self-aware and do persist in the afterlife just as humans do. That’s what I think anyway.

This “animals don’t feel pain” became popular after Descartes and the rationalists. It’s very antithetical to the classical position. St. Thomas did not believe animals grasped universal concepts, but he did think they felt pain (in fact feelings are a power we have from being animals, not a power we get from being rational or having intellects). And certainly they are aware in a sense and conscious (and have a unified perceptual experience/consciousness), though grasping the great concept of “I am” and its import is beyond them.

Descartes truly muddied the waters.

 

[Wesrock]

Just to continue my rant a little bit more, a soul is not a ghost attached to a body. I’m simply referring to “what are the essential properties of a dog?” and “what are the essential properties of a human being?” in the same way I’d ask “what are the essential properties of a hydrogen atom?” Or perhaps “what operations are proper to a human being qua human being?” Now when it comes to human beings we believe that includes immaterial operations (in addition to the material operations) which is the basis for persistence after death and why we have the faculties to contemplate God and philosophy, the ability to be spiritual.

Understanding right and wrong as some type of ethics, having language, doing philosophy are examples of the abstraction of universals from particulars, or intellection, an immaterial operation. These are properties that are expected to normally manifest in a species (when their manifestation is not interfered with) that have the essence of a rational animal.

Feelings, memory, estimation, imagination, perceptions are all material powers. They are not immaterial powers.

 

[JimG]

J. Budziszewski

https://www.undergroundthomist.org/oops

 

[FiveLinden]

Then you have natural men, the atheists and pagans, who live lives of pure pleasure (not necessarily hedonism, mind you)

Please don’t say this sort of thing about me.

 

[Thom18]

Thom18:

Then you have natural men, the atheists and pagans, who live lives of pure pleasure (not necessarily hedonism, mind you)

Please don’t say this sort of thing about me.

I’m just quoting Kierkegaard

I can expand if you want. It would probably sound a lot “better” if I do, but my purpose wasn’t to write an essay on what the aesthetic life looks like, but to answer the OP’s question. I was hoping “this isn’t necessarily hedonism” would’ve covered that base, however.

 

[FiveLinden]

Might you have confused ‘atheist’ with ‘aesthetic’. I don’t recall Kierkegaard saying this or anything like it, although he said a great many things which I confess have made very little impression on me at all.

 

[poche]

Actually people who are born in a perpetually vegetative state have a spiritual soul due to their nature of being human.

 

[aThomist]

Reply to first Question:

Living things are Compose of Souls

Souls are simply the Form of what keeps it different from other things which is not alive

And it is also wrong to believe that Souls and Human Body exist seperately like Soul trapped in a body but souls are Co-Constitutive

Which simply means they maybe distinct but exist together

Plants Animals and Humans have Souls and there Souls have different Faculties/Powers

Plants Souls are consist of this Faculties
Growth Development and Reproduction

While Animals are consist of what lower souls possist (Plants Faculties) but also have

-Movement
-Sense Perception:The Five External Senses and Four Internal senses such as Common Sense, Imagination etc.
-Sense appetite:The Capacity to love what is good and avoid what is Evil

Then Lastly Men obtains lower faculties such as(Animal and Plant Faculties) but have a distinct form which is

Intellect:Immaterial Cognition Approaching Truth, Judge It and Reason upon it.

Will:Our Intellectual appetite when we apprehend something as Good our will inclines us to it

Or simply the will is seat of Intention and Free Choice.

Let’s go back to your question

Plants and Animals Faculties are only seated in material approaches or they have a material soul only focus in material things and there soul only uses material things (there body)

But Men have a Faculty (which is the will and intellect) that is not based on material Factors but seated in Immaterial ones and not dependent of Matter.

Material Souls dies with Material body
But immaterial souls does not die with the Material Body

 

[Thom18]

Might you have confused ‘atheist’ with ‘aesthetic’. I don’t recall Kierkegaard saying this or anything like it, although he said a great many things which I confess have made very little impression on me at all.

No, but I use aesthetic to describe the atheistic existence. Admittedly, I pulled ideas from several of his works into that post, but it’s what I think he was getting at (as his work isn’t a mishmash of different topics, but all seeks to describe a common theme).

The atheist and pagan, in his view, live lives devoid of a spiritual dimension, and so when I said lives of pleasure, I was trying to get across that these are lives whose activities only satisfy the finite, as neither posit the infinite (the soul) as a possibility. They go through the motions of day to day life, satisfying their physical and social demands, but don’t make any movement towards their spiritual selves.

 

[Gorgias]

What is then the spiritual difference between the following individuals:

• A theologically educated Christian believer
• A Christian with no theological understanding (vast majority of Catholics)
• A Muslim or Jew (or fringe Christian)
• A Hindu or Buddhist
• An agnostic
• A pagan
• An atheist
• A person with limited cognitive abilities
• An animal with the same cognitive abilities as a limited human (ie, adult chimps are effectively 3 year old children).

The first eight are ‘human’, and have immortal souls. The last is ‘non-human’, and does not have an immortal soul.

(p.s., adult chimps aren’t "effectively 3-year-old children; they’re chimps, not humans. On the other hand, you might be able to make that argument in the opposite direction about teens… )

 

[FiveLinden]

The atheist and pagan, in his view, live lives devoid of a spiritual dimension, and so when I said lives of pleasure , I was trying to get across that these are lives whose activities only satisfy the finite, as neither posit the infinite (the soul) as a possibility. They go through the motions of day to day life, satisfying their physical and social demands, but don’t make any movement towards their spiritual selves.

Thank you for this explanation. But it seems to me to say nothing other than ‘atheists do not believe in spiritual things’.