Part II, Chapter II, Section 1, Article 2: The Essential Constituents of Man and Their Mutual Relationship

Pohle, God the Author of Nature and the Supernatural, Part II, Chapter II, §1, Article 2 (pp. 136–150)

In proceeding to consider the composite nature of man, we shall have to answer two separate and distinct questions, viz.: (1) Of how many essential elements does human nature consist? and (2) How are these elements mutually related?

To these questions the Church replies: (1) Man is composed of two essential constituents, body and soul. This teaching is called Dichotomy, or Dualism. (2) The rational soul constitutes the essential form of the body, and the two are substantially united in one nature.

That these philosophical questions have an important dogmatic bearing is evident from the fact that Jesus Christ was true man as well as very God. By finding a correct solution for them we shall obtain accurate theological notions on the substantiality, individuality, and spirituality of the human soul. This will obviate the necessity of entering into a separate discussion of these points. As regards free-will, which is unquestionably a natural endowment of the soul, its existence flows as a corollary from the dogmatic teaching of the Church (to be expounded presently) that original sin did not destroy man’s natural freedom of choice.

Thesis I: Man consists of but two essential constituents, viz.: a body and a spiritual soul.

This proposition is strictly de fide.

Proof. All philosophical and theological systems that assume more than two constituents have been condemned as heretical.

Aside from the Platonic theory that there are two or even three souls in the human body,¹ the error under consideration was in ancient times held chiefly by the Gnostics and the Manichaeans, and later by Apollinaris. The Gnostics believed that man has a threefold soul: πνεῦμα, ψυχή, ὕλη, while the Manichaeans thought that the two eternal principles of good and evil, which are essentially opposed to each other, met in Adam, when his soul, which was an emanation from the good principle, was imprisoned in the body by the evil one.² Apollinaris, on his part, made the trichotomy of νοῦς, ψυχή, σάρξ the basis of his Christological heresy that the Logos supplied reason, which was lacking in the purely sensitive soul of Christ. Passing over the trichotomic errors of the Arabian philosopher Averroes, and of Ockam in the Middle Ages, we will mention only the modern heresy of Anton Günther. Though formally adhering to the Dualist system (according to which man is a synthesis of spirit and nature), Günther practically taught Trichotomy by endowing matter, qua matter, with a nature-psyche of its own and refusing to regard the spirit as the sole vital principle, from which the human body derives its “nature life.”³

At the Eighth General Council held in Constantinople, A.D. 869, the Church raised Dichotomy to the rank of a dogma and condemned Trichotomy as heretical: “Veteri et Novo Testamento unam animam rationalem et intellectualem⁴ habere hominem docente … in tantum impietatis quidam … devenerunt, ut duas eum habere animas impudenter dogmatizare … pertentent. Itaque sancta haec et universalis synodus … talis impietatis inventores … magna voce anathematizat. … Si autem quis contraria gerere praesumpserit, … anathema sit” — Both the Old and the New Testament teach that man has one rational and intellectual soul … [nevertheless] some have been impious enough to assert, quite impudently, that man has two souls. This sacred and ecumenical Council … vehemently anathematizes the inventors of such impiety. … If any one shall presume to act contrary to this definition, let him be anathema.⁵

a) Sacred Scripture is quite positive in its teaching that man is composed of but two elements, a material body and a spiritual soul. Gen. II, 7: “Formavit Dominus Deus hominem de limo terrae [corpus] et inspiravit in faciem eius spiraculum vitae [animam], et factus est homo [synthesis] in animam viventem” — And the Lord God formed man [i.e., his body] from the slime of the earth, and breathed into his face the breath of life [i.e., the soul], and man [i.e., the synthesis of body and soul] became a living soul. “Breath of life” (spiraculum vitae) in this context does not mean an independent animal or plant soul, but the spiritual soul. This is obvious from the fact that the sacred writer sets out with the express purpose of describing the origin of the first man (animal rationale). The man thus dichotomically constituted is identical with the one described in Gen. I, 27 sqq., who, created to God’s own image, is commanded to “rule over all living creatures,” which can only mean that he is to hold sway as an intelligent and free being. Hence spiraculum vitae is synonymous with anima rationalis. In Eccles. XII, 7 man is resolved into his constituent elements, and again there are but two: “Et revertatur pulvis [corpus] in terram suam, unde erat, et spiritus [anima spiritualis] redeat ad Deum, qui dedit illum” — And let the dust [the body] return to its earth, from whence it was, and the spirit [the spiritual soul] return to God, who gave it. None but an immortal soul — immortal because spiritual — can “return to God.”⁶

While Sacred Scripture occasionally draws a distinction between “soul” (anima, ψυχή, נֶפֶשׁ) and “spirit” (spiritus, πνεῦμα, רוּחַ), it nowhere countenances the theory that man has two souls. Seemingly discordant passages must be explained either by a poetic parallelism, as in the Psalms, or as a juxtaposition of the higher and lower soul-life, or, lastly, by a desire to differentiate between the pneumatic supernatural life and the merely natural life in man. Under one or other of these aspects it is easy to interpret such texts as Luke I, 46 sq.: “Magnificat anima mea Dominum, et exultavit spiritus meus in Deo, salutari meo” — My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour; Heb. IV, 12: “Usque ad divisionem animae ac spiritus” — Unto the division of the soul and the spirit; 1 Cor. II, 14 sq.: “Animalis homo⁷ non percipit ea, quae sunt Spiritus Dei … spiritualis autem⁸ iudicat omnia” — But the sensual man perceiveth not these things that are of the Spirit of God; … but the spiritual man judgeth all things. The attempt to bolster Günther’s psychology by Scriptural texts has proved utterly futile.

b) The Fathers are all strict dichotomists because they consistently refer to the “soul” as the principle of thought. It must be observed that the word “soul” (anima, ψυχή) is a relative, whereas “spirit” is an absolute term. To identify “spirit” and “soul,” therefore, is tantamount to asserting the existence of but one life-principle in human nature, viz.: the spiritual soul. Thus St. Athanasius says: “The body of man is called body and not soul, and the soul of man is called soul and not body. The one is a correlative of the other, i.e., the spirit of the body.”⁹ Even before St. Athanasius, St. Justin Martyr, who had been unjustly charged with Trichotomy, taught quite positively: “Τί γὰρ ἔστιν ὁ ἄνθρωπος ἀλλ’ ἢ τὸ ἐκ ψυχῆς καὶ σώματος συνεστὼς ζῷον λογικόν;” — What is man but a rational living being composed of soul and body?¹⁰

Thesis II: The spiritual soul is the immediate substantial form of the body.

This is also de fide.

Proof. Body and soul do not co-exist side by side in a loose mechanical or dynamic connexion, as e.g. a demon might exist in an energumen, but are combined in a substantial unity of nature. Consequently, the spiritual soul, as such, is the immediate substantial form (forma substantialis) of the body, and man’s sensitive and vegetative processes proceed from it as their principle. All philosophical systems that deny this substantial union of nature¹¹ directly contravene the teaching of the Church, which the Council of Vienne (A.D. 1311) formulated against Petrus Ioannis Olivi as follows: “Quisquis deinceps asserere, defendere seu tenere pertinaciter praesumpserit, quod anima rationalis seu intellectiva non sit forma corporis humani per se et essentialiter, tamquam haereticus sit censendus” — Whosoever shall pertinaciously presume to assert, defend or teach, that the rational or intellectual soul is not per se and essentially the form of the human body, shall be considered a heretic.¹²

This important dogmatic definition, couched in strictly Scholastic terminology, contains the following heads of doctrine:

(1) Human nature has but two essential constituents, namely, the anima rationalis and the corpus humanum.¹³

(2) The rational soul “informs,” i.e., animates and quickens the human body as its true and real forma; and that (a) per se, not through the instrumentality of a second (sensitive or vegetative) soul, and (b) essentially (per essentiam suam), not through some accidental influence (as, for instance, by a mere dynamic commingling of spiritual energy with the faculties of the body).

(3) The spiritual soul is consequently the true form of the body — forma corporis, forma substantialis corporis — not a mere forma accidentalis seu assistens.

(4) It follows as an obvious corollary that man’s vegetative and sensitive life is derived from his spiritual soul, which is virtually vegetative and sensitive.

Pope Leo X solemnly approved the Viennese definition at the Fifth Lateran Council, A.D. 1512.¹⁴

The misrepresentations of Günther and his school were repeatedly condemned by Pius IX, who, on the one hand, insisted: “Noscimus, iisdem libris laedi catholicam sententiam ac doctrinam de homine, qui corpore et anima ita absolvatur, ut anima eaque rationalis sit vera per se atque immediata corporis forma,” and on the other hand declared: “Sententiam quae unum in homine ponit vitae principium: animam scilicet rationalem, a qua corpus quoque et motum et vitam omnem et sensum accipiat, … cum Ecclesiae dogmate ita videri coniunctam, ut huius sit legitima solaque vera interpretatio nec proinde sine errore in fide possit negari.”¹⁵

a) According to Holy Scripture, man is constituted a “living being” (anima vivens, נֶפֶשׁ חַיָּה = ens vivum) by the union of the limus terrae (i.e., body) with the spiraculum vitae (i.e., spiritual soul). Consequently, his whole life (vegetative, sensitive, and intellectual), must flow from the spiritual soul, which vivifies the body by a process of “information” in the true and proper sense of the word. Ezechiel’s vision of the resurrection of dry bones (Ezech. XXXVII, 4 sqq.) illustrates this truth. “Ossa arida, audite verbum Domini. … Dabo super vos nervos et succrescere faciam super vos carnes, et … dabo vobis spiritum et vivetis et scietis, quia ego sum Dominus” — Ye dry bones, hear the word of the Lord … I will lay sinews upon you, and will cause flesh to grow over you, and … I will give you spirit, and you shall live, and you shall know that I am the Lord. To understand this sublime prosopopeia we must observe that the Sacred Writer enumerates only two essential constituents of man, viz.: the body (sinews, bones, flesh) and the spirit (spiritus). The spirit revivifies the body by entering into the bones, consequently all life comes from the spiritual soul. This would be impossible if both factors did not coalesce into an unum per se by a substantial synthesis of nature.

b) The teaching of the Fathers was brought out most clearly in connection with the Christological heresy of Apollinaris, Bishop of Laodicea.¹⁶ It is worth while to recall Augustine’s drastic dictum against the Apollinarists: “Animam irrationalem eum [scil. Christum] habere voluerunt, rationalem negaverunt; dederunt ei animam pecoris, subtraxerunt hominis” — They attribute to Him [Christ] an irrational, but they deny Him a rational soul; they grant Him the soul of a brute, but they deny Him the soul of a man.¹⁷ Augustine himself held that the human body derives its life from the soul: “Ab anima [scil. rationali] corpori sensus et vita.”¹⁸ How the Fathers conceived the mutual relationship of these two constituent elements appears from their favorite comparison of the union of soul and body in man to the Hypostatic Union of the divine with the human nature in Christ. This simile has found its way into the Athanasian Creed: “Nam sicut anima rationalis et caro unus est homo, ita Deus et homo unus est Christus” — For as the reasonable soul and flesh is one man, so God and man is one Christ.

There is an important Christological axiom: “Verbum assumpsit carnem mediante anima” (the Word assumed flesh by means of the soul), of which the Fathers made frequent use against Arianism and Apollinarianism. Only by assuming a rational soul, they argued, was the Divine Logos able to take bodily flesh into the Hypostatic Union; for soulless flesh, or flesh animated merely by a brute soul (ψυχή ζωτική ἄλογος), would not have been becoming to the Godhead, nor would it have met the requirements of the Redemption. Only flesh animated by a spiritual soul as its essential form constitutes man; similarly the human nature of Christ is constituted only by human flesh animated by a spiritual soul as its essential form.¹⁹ After the outbreak of the Arian and Apollinarian controversy the Fathers never wearied of insisting on the “rationality of the flesh,”²⁰ not, of course, in the sense of a hylozoistic Panpsychism, as advocated many centuries later by Spinoza, but in consonance with the dogmatic definition of Vienne, which, despite its Scholastic phraseology, may be said to flow from Divine Revelation rather than from philosophy.

c) Later theologians have warmly discussed the incidental question, whether the definition of the Council of Vienne can be used as an argument in favor of the Aristotelian doctrine of Hylomorphism as developed by the Scholastics. This philosophic theory holds that all bodies are composed of a substantial form and primordial matter (forma substantialis et materia prima). Is the Vienne definition to be taken as a dogmatic indication that the spiritual soul is immediately united with primordial matter (materia prima, ὕλη πρώτη) rather than with an organized body?

α) St. Thomas distinctly teaches that the spiritual soul is not only the forma corporis, but the unica forma corporis — the sole form of the body.²¹ He conceives the compositum humanum as consisting not of body and soul, but of primordial matter and soul, because it is the spiritual soul which renders the body materia secunda, i.e., constitutes it a body, and thereby gives it its esse corporis.

The Scotists, on the other hand, hold that the body is first constituted by a separate forma corporeitatis, and subsequently receives the intellectual soul as its essential form. In order to obtain an unum per se as the result of this synthesis, the Scotists conceive the forma corporeitatis to be an imperfect, subordinate form, which offers no obstacle to the substantial completion of the whole by the spiritual soul. It is in this sense that Scotus teaches: “Anima est principium formale, quo vivum est vivum. … Est anima immediatum principium formale essendi et immediatum principium operandi,”²² so that “una forma rationalis dat esse triplex, scil. vegetativum, sensitivum et intellectivum.”²³ But the esse corporis is not immediately communicated by the soul; it is derived from the forma corporeitatis, which is distinct from the soul. This explains the Scotist conclusion that the body retains its forma corporeitatis after death, whereas the Thomists are compelled to invent a new form for the dead body, which they call forma cadaverica. Neither of the two systems is free from logical difficulties. The whole question properly belongs to the sphere of philosophy.

β) It would be absurd to say that the Church has raised Hylomorphism to the rank of a dogma and condemned in advance the fundamental principles of modern physics and chemistry as heretical. The Council of Vienne did not mean to affirm the existence of primordial matter. Nor did it intend to deny the existence of a forma corporeitatis in man. We know that the Thomistic doctrine was anything but popular among the theologians of that age. Moreover, the Viennese definition was drawn up by Scotist theologians, who cannot have intended to persuade the Council to condemn a pet theory of their own school and order. “That the Council did not harbor any such purpose,” says Schell, “is proved by the unquestioned orthodoxy of the Scotist and allied schools.”²⁴ The Jesuit Schiffini, who defends the Thomistic doctrine with great zeal and acumen, finds himself constrained to counsel moderation in this controversy and to warn theologians against drawing hasty conclusions.²⁵ So long, therefore, as the Church permits modern scientific Atomism and the Scotistic system to be taught without let or hindrance, so long will the definition of Vienne be sufficiently safeguarded by saying that the spiritual soul animates the human body (not: primordial matter) as its immediate essential form.²⁶ We are confirmed in this view by the sharp disapproval expressed by Pope Pius IX (June 5, 1876) of any and every extreme interpretation of the papal and conciliar definitions against the opponents of the Thomistic system.²⁷ The most that can be said in favor of the latter is that “by laying a sharper emphasis upon the union of body and soul in one essence, it embodies a deeper and more consistent conception of the Church’s teaching, and thereby more emphatically accentuates the direct fusion of the soul with the innermost essence of the body, the utter dependency of the body upon the soul, and the intrinsic perfectioning and unification of the body, as such, by the soul. However, this teaching is hard to understand because of its profundity, and difficult to handle because of its delicacy. Hence it must not be insisted upon too strongly, lest the dogma itself be involved in difficulties insoluble to any but the most subtle minds specially trained for this purpose.”²⁸

Notes

Readings

Thumann, Bestandteile des Menschen und ihr Verhältnis zueinander, Bamberg 1846. Liberatore, Del Composto Umano, 2 vols., Roma 1858. Morgott, Geist und Natur im Menschen nach der Lehre des hl. Thomas, Eichstätt 1860. Soffner, Dogmat. Begründung der kirchlichen Lehre von den Bestandteilen des Menschen, Ratisbon 1861. Vraetz, Spekulative Begründung der Lehre der kath. Kirche über das Wesen der menschlichen Seele, Köln 1865. Katschthaler, Zwei Thesen für das allgemeine Konzil, 2. Abteil., Ratisbon 1870. v. Hertling, Materie und Form und Begriff der Seele bei Aristoteles, Bonn 1871. Zigliara, De Mente Concilii Viennensis in Definiendo Dogmate Unionis Animae Humanae cum Corpore, Romae 1878. Heinrich, Dogmatische Theologie, Vol. V, §§ 295–296, Mainz 1887. E. Rolfes, Die substantiale Form und der Begriff der Seele bei Aristoteles, Paderborn 1896. T. Pesch, S.J., Seele und Leib als zwei Bestandteile der einen Menschensubstanz gemäss der Lehre des hl. Thomas von Aquin, Fulda 1893. W. Lescher, O.P., The Evolution of the Human Body, London 1899. M. Maher, S.J., Psychology, pp. 545 sqq., 6th ed., London 1906. J. T. Driscoll, Christian Philosophy: A Treatise on the Human Soul, New York 1898.

Note on this transcription: numerous Greek and Hebrew terms are woven directly into this article’s argument (the soul/spirit distinction, the Gnostic and Apollinarian trichotomies, Justin Martyr’s definition of man, the “rationality of the flesh” formulas) and were reconstructed from garbled OCR characters with good confidence given how precisely they match the Latin/English glosses the text provides alongside them.