Chapter 14
Further proofs of the immortality of the human soul
720. I have demonstrated the immortality of the human soul by starting from the principle: 'The nature of every subject is determined by its term' (cf. 676-680). The human soul, by having as its term being in general which of its nature is eternal and impassible, must itself be eternal. All previous proofs of the immortality of the soul are reduced to this. I shall add here, however, the principal proofs of which nothing has yet been said expressly.
721. I. The immortality of the soul was proved by its possession of a heavenly, divine element. The presence of this element in the intellective part of the soul was recognised, although what constitutes it as divine and heavenly was not clearly expressed. Lactantius, for instance, writes:
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Body and soul originate as united and associated. The body, formed of earthy consistency, seems almost the vessel of the soul, which takes its being from subtle, heavenly nature (a caelesti subtilitate deductum). Nevertheless, when some force separates them (the separation is called 'death'), each returns to its own condition: what was made of earth becomes earth, and what sprang from heavenly in-breathing remains and flourishes always. The divine in-breathing is everlasting.(408) |
Prudentius offers the same argument in verse:
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The work of the mouth, |
722. II. The immortality of the human soul was proved in the second place by the soul's lack of contrary elements (destruction always arises by way of struggle between contraries). Now, every substantial subject has a principle and a term, which determines its nature. Contrary elements cannot be present in the subject's principle which can only be a simple activity. Struggle, therefore, can only be found in the term. This, indeed, is what occurs relative to animal life. The multiple, organic term, that which is extended, receives opposing agents which are able to tear it apart and destroy it. The intellective soul, on the other hand, having as its term being which embraces everything under the same relationship of entity, does not oppose elements because in it even contrary entities are unified and rendered equable. The argument that intelligence does not admit in itself any struggle between contraries and consequently is not subject to death is thus reduced, as always, to a discussion totally dependent on intuited being.
Vincent of Beauvais sets out the argument in the following way:
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Notice that the soul, considered according to its origin, that is, in so far as it has being, can be and is contingent and corruptible (contingent) of its nature in the sense that it can return to nothing if the will of the first ens does not prevent this. But considered according to its essence or substance it is incorruptible because it does not result from contrary elements, nor is there anything contrary to its nature which could corrupt it.(411) |
723. III. The normal argument, which proves the immortality of the soul from its simplicity, is similar to the preceding. It is not sufficient to prove that the soul is simple in its principle; the soul of beasts is also simple in its principle. To validate the argument, we have to go further and prove the simplicity of the term on which its nature depends. We have to appeal to being in general, the most simple thing of all.
The argument from simplicity was developed by St. Irenaeus(412) and St. Gregory Thaumaturgus, and repeated by all their successors. This is what St. Gregory says:
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The soul, not having a body, is simple, that is, not composed nor possessed of many parts. But as far as I can see what is simple must be immortal. How shall I show this? Listen! Nothing corrupts itself; if it did, it would be unable to last right from the beginning. Things which become corrupt, are corrupted through contraries. Indeed, that which becomes corrupt, disintegrates; that which disintegrates, is composite; that which is composite has parts; that which has parts, has different parts; and that which is different is not the same. But the soul is simple and not composed of many parts precisely because it is neither composite nor destructible. It follows that it cannot be corrupted; it is immortal.(413) |
He says several parts, if they exist, must be different because if they had no difference their multiplicity would be indiscernible, and altogether non-existent. If, however, the parts are different, the ens composed of them would not be the same, nor entirely equal to itself. Granted differences, contraries must be admitted. But there is no difference in the object of the intellect which conceives everything in the unity of the same being. The holy bishop of Neo-Caesarea rises almost to the speculations of the School of Elea.
724. IV. A fourth, extremely powerful argument, drawn from the rights of justice, was used not only by Greek philosophers, but by ecclesiastical writers such as Origen,(414) Lactantius,(415) Leontius(416) and others. Seeing that rights were not always safeguarded in this life, they realised that another life must exist in which equality will be re-established between the overabundance enjoyed by the wicked here below, and the undue suffering of the good. But how are we to explain why justice must be triumphant? Because, I say, justice is of its nature immutable and eternal. But this eternity proper to justice is based solely on the eternity and immutability of being which shines in the human mind, as I showed in my moral works.
725. V. Socrates, in Phaedo, used the same kind of argument to prove the immortality of the soul. He reasoned that man, made for justice, which he could and should love, must be immortal because he was made and ordained for something immortal. He tries to show that the body is a kind of veil separating the understanding from the glorious vision of justice to which it is naturally united. This means feeling and confessing a holy God, the unknown God of the Athenians.(417)
726. VI. The term of human understanding, as we said, is being, and thus immortal. This immortal essence, which informs understanding, provides it with its nature. It is not surprising, therefore, that understanding possesses the feeling of its own immortal nature. From this feeling we can draw a new proof of the truth of which we are speaking because the feeling, as the work of nature, does not err or deceive. Human beings ceaselessly manifest this feeling of their own immortality in actions and lasting undertakings which go beyond the present life, in their love of future glory, in their contempt for death and even in suicide, of which only humans, not animals, are capable. And, we may add, in the force of thought and spirit which is often characteristic of dying people. St. Athanasius says:
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The soul, when it has entered the body and been bound to it, neither contracts nor accommodates itself to the smallness of the body. Often, it remains alert with its own forces when the body lies in bed deprived of movement. It goes beyond the condition of the body, as though wandering away from the body, yet still within it, as it imagines and beholds superterrestial things. Often, it meets saints and angels outside earthly bodies and, sustained by its purity of mind, manages to reach out to them. Surely it will have an even clearer idea of immortality when the Almighty, who has joined it to the body, separates it from the body?(418) |
727. VII. These totally natural feelings, if not suffocated and extinguished in vice, give rise to the universal agreement amongst all peoples about the immortality of the soul. And this is yet another effective, persuasive argument for this truth.
Notes
(408) Bk. 7, c. 12.
(409) The whole of sacred antiquity agrees in making the divine element present in the soul come from God's first in-breathing to Adam in whom all human nature was included. For me, this element, as we saw, is being in general.
(410) Hymn., 3. - Henry Suso also proves the immortality of the soul from the divine element present in reason: 'The soul lasts eternally ON ACCOUNT OF ITS DIGNITY AS A RATIONAL BEING AND ITS DEIFORM POWERS because God, in whose image the soul is formed, is the superessential mind and intelligence' (In Appendice quarundaum sublimium quaestionum, c. 15). Aeneas of Gaza says that every rational act done by the soul is an argument of its immortality: 'All art, all knowledge, action too and contemplation, are able to show superabundantly that the human soul is immortal' (In Theophr.).
(411) Speculum historiale, bk. 1, c. 34.
(412) Bk. 5, c. 7.
(413) De Anima.
(414) Super Cantica.
(415) Bk. 3, c. 19.
(416) De Sectis, Art. 2.
(417) The intimate sense of moral good as something eternal for which human beings are made has great influence on the spirit of upright men and women. Whether real or imaginary, the discourses of the dying Socrates inserted in Phaedo demonstrate this truth. If they are invented, Plato would never have expressed them so wonderfully unless he had believed them to be highly likely and totally in conformity with the noble character of a person whom he wished to show as a type of the just man. Suidas affirms that the philosopher Hermias felt the same way. 'He was alert and very sharp. So much so that he is said to have stated on oath to the dying Egyptian (brother Theodotes) that the soul is immortal and immune from annihilation. The very integrity of life, which is contrary to bodily nature, gives the soul this confidence as it reflects on itself and notices, at one and the same time, the separation of body and soul, together with its manifest immortality' (under the entry Hermias). If this feeling of the immortality of the soul is so strong in upright, virtuous people, how does the notion of mortality originate? It springs from vice, from wickedness, which makes flesh the object of our thought. The light of decency, and consequently our feeling for what is immortal, is thus extinguished in thought.
(418) Orat. contra idola.