Why human soul is immortal?

[STT]

Human soul in Catholicism is form of matter in human being. We know that this form changes and decomposes upon death. The question is how the form can be immortal?

 

[Lee1]

God is immortal and we are made in His image.

Catechism:
366 The Church teaches that every spiritual soul is created immediately by God - it is not “produced” by the parents - and also that it is immortal: it does not perish when it separates from the body at death, and it will be reunited with the body at the final Resurrection.235

Physics has not developed to the stage where it can explain the soul. My intuition tells me that the answer may be found in the field of quantum physics but that is simply an uneducated guess.

 

[jtwp5]

So once a soul is created, it can’t be destroyed? So what makes you you, and what makes me me? Is it not our memories, past experiences? Some people have amnesia, they end up forgetting who they are. Would one not say they are a different person? Would one who suffered from amnesia get their memories back once they pass away? Or do we lose all our memories once we die?

 

[Lee1]

An elderly parishioner told me that his wife had dementia and I instinctively told him that one day she would be made whole again. He was uplifted to think that. I don’t know where I got that from exactly but when you think about the resurrection that must be what happens. Amnesia could be a similar thing.

I’ll do some research on it later.

 

[Wesrock]

Human soul in Catholicism is form of matter in human being. We know that this form changes and decomposes upon death. The question is how the form can be immortal?

Thomists hold that the Intellect (not all consciousness) is immaterial due to the fact that humans are able to grasp abstracted universals from particulars, and that which is immaterial and physically non-composite is incorruptible. Once it exists, it in itself can’t break down as long as God conserves natural laws, and so it persists.

There are two camps among Thomists, between “corruptionists” and “survivalists”, about whether what persists between death and the resurrection can be called a human substance, but since the Intellect is not a material power but a formal power, or a power of the soul, the soul continues to exist after death.

 

[Wesrock]

So once a soul is created, it can’t be destroyed? So what makes you you, and what makes me me? Is it not our memories, past experiences? Some people have amnesia, they end up forgetting who they are. Would one not say they are a different person? Would one who suffered from amnesia get their memories back once they pass away? Or do we lose all our memories once we die?

In Thomist thought, the soul wouldn’t think like we do when with our bodies, barring supernatural assistance. It would rather just have its knowledge and disposition of the will, similar to an angel, though it wouldn’t be an angel. It wouldn’t go through its memories as a discursive operation, like we do.

 

[jtwp5]

But won’t we have our bodies in the end?

 

[Wesrock]

But won’t we have our bodies in the end?

Yes, at and after the Resurrection.

 

[Sophie111]

I believe Aristotle, who defined form/matter and whom the Church adopted in medieval times, did not actually distinguish human and animal forms on this point. For him then the human soul is not immortal according to the purists.

The Church extended his philosophy to make it compatible with Christian revelation.
Personally I do not believe it can be proven that the soul is immortal by means of Physics/Philosophy.

PS Form doesn’t really change in Aristotle’s system. Substances change, sometimes accidentally (eg growth), sometimes substantially (commonly called death).

 

[STT]

So once a soul is created, it can’t be destroyed? So what makes you you, and what makes me me? Is it not our memories, past experiences? Some people have amnesia, they end up forgetting who they are. Would one not say they are a different person? Would one who suffered from amnesia get their memories back once they pass away? Or do we lose all our memories once we die?

Yes, all these questions.

 

[STT]

An elderly parishioner told me that his wife had dementia and I instinctively told him that one day she would be made whole again. He was uplifted to think that. I don’t know where I got that from exactly but when you think about the resurrection that must be what happens. Amnesia could be a similar thing.

I’ll do some research on it later.

Remade again? We know that the form is subject to destruction.

 

[STT]

Thomists hold that the Intellect (not all consciousness) is immaterial due to the fact that humans are able to grasp abstracted universals from particulars, and that which is immaterial and physically non-composite is incorruptible. Once it exists, it in itself can’t break down as long as God conserves natural laws, and so it persists.

These are things which I cannot understand. Why intellect is immaterial? We know that human’s decision and thought are subject to a healthy brain. If human soul is immortal then it does not need God to conserve it.

There are two camps among Thomists, between “corruptionists” and “survivalists”, about whether what persists between death and the resurrection can be called a human substance, but since the Intellect is not a material power but a formal power, or a power of the soul, the soul continues to exist after death.

Substance? It thought that is soul/form which survives death.

 

[STT]

PS Form doesn’t really change in Aristotle’s system. Substances change, sometimes accidentally (eg growth), sometimes substantially (commonly called death).

Thanks for the correction. I thought that substance is the stuff that makes something and form gives the shape to it. What is form then?

 

[Lee1]

Again I’m not as knowledgeable as say wesrock but I can imagine the soul containing the essence of the information needed to recreate the body. This makes sense to me. The soul acting as a kind of blueprint.

Alternatively I can also imagine God knowing the exact form your body took and recreating it at the resurrection if He so desired.

These are my thoughts.

 

[Vico]

Sophie111:

PS Form doesn’t really change in Aristotle’s system. Substances change, sometimes accidentally (eg growth), sometimes substantially (commonly called death).

Thanks for the correction. I thought that substance is the stuff that makes something and form gives the shape to it. What is form then?

Aristotle divides the world into two categories: substances and accidents and the existence of substances is prior to that of accidents. No accident can exist unless a substance exists for it to be in but it is possible for a substance to exist without an accident. Accidents refer to the features of substances. Creation is not made up of elementary particles but substances. Examples of substances are: a human rock, a planet, a particle and, a dog.

Matter (material cause) and form (formal cause) are not material parts of substances, per Aristotle, they are causes, (Greek: hyle and eidos). (There are two other causes efficient kinoun and final telos – these four answer the question why.) The matter is formed into the substance it is by the form it is – matter would have no properties or activities at all without form.

 

[STT]

Again I’m not as knowledgeable as say wesrock but I can imagine the soul containing the essence of the information needed to recreate the body. This makes sense to me. The soul acting as a kind of blueprint.

Alternatively I can also imagine God knowing the exact form your body took and recreating it at the resurrection if He so desired.

These are my thoughts.

How such a thing which has no form, no location and occupy no space can hold information?

 

[Lee1]

no form, no location and occupy no space can hold information?

I won’t be able to help much but all I’d say is that just because we don’t have the devices or means to detect these things doesn’t mean they have no form, no location or occupy space. I’d say since the Holy Spirit exists and He has all knowledge then information can be held in a way we cannot comprehend.

 

[STT]

Aristotle divides the world into two categories: substances and accidents and the existence of substances is prior to that of accidents. No accident can exist unless a substance exists for it to be in but it is possible for a substance to exist without an accident. Accidents refer to the features of substances. Creation is not made up of elementary particles but substances. Examples of substances are: a human rock, a planet, a particle and, a dog.

So he and Aristotle got it completely wrong.

 

[STT]

I won’t be able to help much but all I’d say is that just because we don’t have the devices or means to detect these things doesn’t mean they have no form, no location or occupy space. I’d say since the Holy Spirit exists and He has all knowledge then information can be held in a way we cannot comprehend.

There is no way to detect something which does not have form.

 

[Richca]

These are things which I cannot understand. Why intellect is immaterial? We know that human’s decision and thought are subject to a healthy brain.

In the history of western philosophy, Plato was one of the first, or the first, philosopher to argue for the immateriality of the intellect. He got this from an introspection and examination of human thoughts and particularly universal concepts. Since matter individualizes things, if we have universal concepts than it follows that our intellect is immaterial. This is in contrast to the imagination which can only present to us particular and individualized images because the imagination functions through a material organ of the body. It was Plato who came up with the doctrine or theory of Ideas or Forms whom Aristotle, his pupil, also followed but with some important modifications.

If human soul is immortal then it does not need God to conserve it.

Though the spiritual human soul is immortal and a simple substance as it is not composed of material parts by which to disintegrate, still, the soul’s essence is not it’s existence. God alone is his own being and existence. All creatures have a participated existence and thus need to be conserved in being at every moment in the same way that the air is lightsome as long as the sun is shinning on it.