Part II, Chapter II, Section 1, Article 3: The Immortality of the Human Soul

Pohle, God the Author of Nature and the Supernatural, Part II, Chapter II, §1, Article 3 (pp. 151–161)

1. The Teaching of the Church and Various Heresies

There is a threefold immortality: the essential immortality of God, the natural immortality of the soul, and the supernatural immortality of the body. It is an article of faith that the human soul is immortal. That this immortality is natural, i.e., founded on an exigency of human nature, may be said to be Catholic teaching.

There are three revealed truths which the Church declares to be demonstrable by philosophical arguments. They are: (1) The existence of God, (2) the spirituality of the soul, and (3) free-will.¹ The dogma of the soul’s immortality is based on its simplicity and spirituality. Whether this truth is philosophically demonstrable or not is a question that the Church has left open out of consideration for the Scotists.

In every age there have been men who denied the immortality of the soul; these the Church has always treated as heretics.

a) We have it on the authority of Eusebius² and St. Augustine³ that, as early as the third century, there existed in Arabia a sect called Hypnopsychites,⁴ who held that the soul slept, i.e. temporarily ceased to exist after death, until the resurrection of the flesh. Nicephorus Callistus⁵ relates how at an Arabian Council held in 247, Origen combated this heresy with such convincing eloquence that all who had espoused it returned to the pale of the Church.

The theory of a “soul-sleep” does not directly contravene the dogma of immortality, especially if it confines itself to the assertion that the soul survives after a fashion in a dreamy, semi-conscious state. This attenuated Hypnopsychism was combated by Tertullian in his treatise De Anima. He raises the question: “What will happen during the time that we are in the nether world? Shall we sleep?” and answers it as follows: “The soul never sleeps, not even in this life.”⁶

Another, still more radical sect is mentioned by St. John Damascene. Its adherents were called Θνητοψυχῖται, because they believed that the souls of men, like those of brutes, cease to exist at death.

b) The question of the immortality of the human soul entered upon a new phase when, towards the close of the fifteenth century, paganizing humanists of the stamp of Pietro Pomponazzi alleged that the soul is by nature necessarily mortal. Abul Ibn Roschd, commonly called Averroes, denied that there are individual rational souls. There is, he said, one universal impersonal and objective over-soul (intellectus universalis), which, by illuminating the inferior souls of individuals, enables mankind to participate perennially in the great eternal truths. “This doctrine involves the extinction of the individual consciousness and the impersonality of life after death: human individuals die, but humanity is immortal in the eternity of the objective, universal intelligence.”⁷ Against this heresy the Fifth Council of the Lateran, under Pope Leo X (A.D. 1512), defined: “Cum … diebus nostris … (nonnulli ausi sint dicere) de natura … animae rationalis, quod mortalis sit aut unica in cunctis hominibus, … sacro approbante Concilio damnamus et reprobamus omnes asserentes, animam intellectivam mortalem esse aut unicam in cunctis hominibus” — As … in our days (some have dared to assert) concerning the nature of the rational soul, that it is mortal, or that there is but one soul in all men, … with the approval of the sacred Council we condemn and reprobate all who assert that the intellectual soul is mortal or is but one in all men.⁸

The decree proceeds as follows: “Cum illa [scil. anima intellectiva] non solum vere per se et essentialiter humani corporis forma existat, sicut in generali … Viennensi Concilio … continetur;⁹ verum et immortalis, et pro corporum, quibus infunditur, multitudine singulariter [i.e., individualiter] multiplicabilis et multiplicata et multiplicanda sit.”

An analysis of this dogmatic definition, and of the reasoning by which it is supported, gives us the following points of view:

(1) This definition condemns two distinct heresies: (a) That the spiritual soul is mortal, and (b) that there exists but one universal soul in all men. Consequently, the contradictory proposition, that the spiritual soul is immortal and individual, is an article of faith.

(2) The individuality of the soul is a necessary postulate of personal immortality, and is therefore specially emphasized, first by reference to the dogmatic definition of Vienne concerning the forma corporis, and again by reference to the individual origin of each human soul in the process of generation.

(3) By the immortality of the soul Leo X and the Fifth Council of the Lateran understand that physical indestructibility (incorruptibilitas) which flows as a logical corollary from its nature as a spiritual substance. For this reason the dogmatic definition quoted above begins with the statement that the condemned errors concern the “nature of the rational soul” (natura animae rationalis). Unlike the bodily immortality of our first parents in Paradise, the immortality of the soul therefore is not a pure grace.

The above-quoted definition is the most important and the clearest pronouncement ever made by the Church on the subject of the natural immortality of the soul.

c) In modern times Materialism and emanatistic Pantheism deny the natural immortality of the soul as well as its spirituality and individuality. Materialism asserts that nothing is immortal except force and matter,¹⁰ while Pantheism ascribes immortality solely to the impersonal Absolute, of which it holds each individual man to be merely a part. The Vatican Council contented itself with condemning Materialism and Pantheism in globo and re-affirming the spirituality of the soul, which forms the philosophical basis of its natural immortality.¹¹

2. Proof of the Dogma from Revelation

The demonstration of the immortality of the soul properly belongs to Eschatology. However, as this doctrine forms so important and fundamental a part of our faith, we cannot pass it over in the present treatise.

a) Most non-Catholics hold that the Old Testament Jews did not believe in the immortality of the soul, and that this doctrine is the result of a slow and laborious evolution. We admit that the idea of temporal reward and punishment in the present life had a far stronger attraction for the Jews than retribution in the life beyond. Yet it is entirely wrong to say, as so many Rationalist critics do, that the Old Testament contains no trace of belief in the immortality of the soul. To begin with the Protoevangelium or prophecy of Paradise, its promise of redemption through the seed of the Woman who was to crush the head of the ancient Serpent, would be utterly meaningless if the souls of men ceased to exist after death. The Patriarchs looked upon this present life as a pilgrimage¹² and spoke of death as “going to the fathers.”¹³ By clearly distinguishing between “going to the fathers,” or “being gathered to their people,” and burial in a common sepulchre,¹⁴ Moses indirectly asserted the survival of the soul in the world beyond. Such phrases as: “I will go down to shed”¹⁵ and “You will bring down my gray hairs with sorrow unto sheol,”¹⁶ do not refer to the grave, but to the “nether world” (שְׁאוֹל) considered as the abode of departed souls. In confirmation of His teaching on the resurrection of the flesh, Jesus, arguing with the Sadducees, quotes Exod. III, 6: “I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob,” and adds by way of explanation: “He is not the God of the dead, but of the living.”¹⁷ Personal immortality could not be more plainly taught than in this exclamation of the pious Job:¹⁸ “I shall see my God, whom I myself shall see, and my eyes shall behold, and not another.”

The so-called Sapiential Books of the Old Testament are especially rich in proofs for the immortality of the soul. Cfr. Wisd. III, 2 sqq.: “Visi sunt [iusti] oculis insipientium mori, … Illi autem sunt in pace, … spes illorum immortalitate plena est” — In the sight of the unwise they [the souls of the just] seemed to die, … but they are in peace. … Their hope is full of immortality. Wisd. IV, 7: “Iustus si morte praeoccupatus fuerit, in refrigerio erit” — The just man, if he be prevented with death, shall be in rest.

The ghost of Samuel said to Saul: “Why hast thou disturbed my rest, that I should be brought up?”¹⁹

These and similar texts represent immortality as a natural endowment of the soul and not as a gratuitous gift of grace. This follows from the fact, recorded in Gen. I, 26, that the spiritual soul of man was created to the likeness of God. The soul is an image of God, not because it is the principle of vegetative and sensitive life (which is perishable), but because, being an imperishable, indestructible spirit, it resembles the infinite and immortal spirit of Yahweh.

It has been asserted that Ecclesiastes III, 19 is incompatible with the doctrine of immortality, because it puts the death of man on the same plane with the extinction of the brute beast: “Unus interitus est hominis et iumentorum, et aequa utriusque conditio” — The death of man and of beasts is one, and the condition of them both is equal. But the context clearly shows that the Sacred Writer does not mean by this comparison to deny the immortality of the human soul. His purpose is to emphasize the mortality of the body, and to remind man that he who once aspired to equality with God was in punishment for his presumption reduced to the level of perishable beasts.²⁰ Nor is this train of thought disturbed by the sceptical question: “Quis novit, si spiritus filiorum Adam ascendat sursum, et si spiritus iumentorum descendat deorsum?” — Who knoweth if the spirit of the children of Adam ascend upward, and if the spirit of the beasts descend downward?²¹ For a little later Ecclesiastes himself insists on the immortality of the soul: “Revertatur pulvis in terram suam, unde erat; et spiritus redeat ad Deum, qui dedit illum” — The dust return into its earth, from whence it was, and the spirit return to God, who gave it.²² Assuredly it will not do to interpret Eccles. III, 21 as implying denial or doubt of a truth so clearly taught in Eccles. XII, 7. How, then, are we to understand this difficult text? Exegetes have suggested different interpretations. Some think that the Sacred Writer wished to adapt himself to the mind of the average person, who can perceive no essential difference between the symptoms of agony in man and beast. Gietmann²³ holds that the hagiographer simply desired to intimate the uncertainty of man’s fate in the world beyond, because three verses farther up he speaks of the judgment of God, and no man knows, before that judgment has been pronounced, whether he will enjoy everlasting bliss or be condemned to suffer eternal punishment in hell. Thus interpreted the text furnishes a new proof for the doctrine of immortality. Other exegetes, among them Cornely,²⁴ think Eccles. III, 21 is meant to censure the carelessness of men in regard to their future destiny. In this hypothesis the question would mean: “Who payeth the slightest attention to whether the spirit of man tends upward and the spirit of the beast downward?” It is quite obvious that the Jews before Christ could not have had such well-defined ideas about the other world as we Christians have, who know that we are destined to enjoy the beatific vision in Heaven. This fact sufficiently accounts for their gloomy conception of sheol or the nether world.

The New Testament teaching on immortality is so explicit that not even the Rationalists venture to dispute it. Hence it will be sufficient for our purpose to cite the Saviour’s famous dictum: “Nolite timere eos, qui occidunt corpus, animam autem non possunt occidere, sed potius timete eum, qui potest et animam et corpus perdere in gehennam” — Fear ye not them that kill the body, and are not able to kill the soul; but rather fear him that can destroy both soul and body in hell.²⁵

b) Since the immortality of the soul is the very foundation stone of ethics and of the entire supernatural order of salvation, it goes without saying that this truth was unanimously taught, philosophically investigated, and scientifically developed by the Fathers.

The unknown author of the Epistle to Diognetus professes: “Immortalis anima habitat in corpore mortali” — The immortal soul dwells in a mortal body.²⁶ St. Irenaeus gives this philosophical reason for the immortality of the soul: “Incompositus est enim et simplex spiritus, qui resolvi non potest” — For the spirit [soul] is incomposite and simple, and [therefore] cannot be resolved.²⁷ Tertullian,²⁸ Gregory of Nyssa,²⁹ and Ambrose³⁰ express themselves in similar language. St. Augustine, as is well known, wrote a special treatise “On the Immortality of the Soul.”

Some ancient writers (e.g., the author of the third pseudo-Clementine homily),³¹ are suspected of having held that God annihilates the souls of the wicked. Their utterances must be read with caution. Some of them are undoubtedly susceptible of an orthodox interpretation. St. Justin Martyr, for instance, in writing: “Neque immortalis anima dicenda est; nam si immortalis, etiam profecto ingenita [increata] est,”³² plainly did not mean to deny that the soul is endowed with natural immortality,³³ but had in mind that essential immortality which belongs to God alone. Of course the creature is immortal in quite a different sense than the Creator.³⁴

Notes

Readings

B. Schäfer, Neue Untersuchungen über das Buch Kohelet, Freiburg 1870. L. Schütz, Vernunftbeweis für die Unsterblichkeit der Seele, Paderborn 1874. J. Knabenbauer, Das Zeugnis des Menschengeschlechtes für die Unsterblichkeit der Seele, Freiburg 1878. E. Melzer, Die Unsterblichkeit auf Grund der Schöpfungslehre, Neisse 1896. Fell-Villing, The Immortality of the Human Soul Philosophically Explained, London 1906. W. Schneider, Das andere Leben, 10th ed., Paderborn 1909. Ph. Kneib, Die Beweise für die Unsterblichkeit der Seele aus allgemeinen psychologischen Tatsachen, Freiburg 1903. F. C. Kempson, The Future Life and Modern Difficulties, London 1907. Piat, Destinée de l’Homme, Paris 1898. Elbe, Future Life in the Light of Ancient Wisdom and Modern Science, London 1907. M. Maher, S.J., Psychology, 6th ed., pp. 525 sqq., London and New York 1906. Idem, art. “Immortality” in the Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. VII. For a comparatively complete bibliography of the subject cfr. Alger, The Destiny of the Soul. A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life, 14th ed., New York 1889.

Note on this transcription: two Greek terms (ὕπνος ψυχῆς, the etymology of “Hypnopsychites,” and Θνητοψυχῖται, the sect condemning souls to die with the body) and one Hebrew term (שְׁאוֹל, “Sheol”) were reconstructed from garbled OCR with good confidence, matching the glosses given in the surrounding text. All 34 footnotes were fully recovered this time, including two (25 and 33–34) that spanned page breaks into the following pages.