Part II, Chapter II, Section 1, Article 4: The Origin of the Soul

Pohle, God the Author of Nature and the Supernatural, Part II, Chapter II, §1, Article 4 (pp. 161–178)

Unlike their progenitor, the children of Adam do not owe their existence to a creative act of God in the strict sense of the term. The race propagates itself by sexual generation in accordance with the divine command “Increase and multiply.” The question arises: How does the individual human soul come into being? This problem is of interest alike to the philosopher and the theologian. Three different attempts have been made to solve it. The theory of Pre-existence holds that all souls exist prior to the creation of their respective bodies, in which they are enclosed as in a prison. Generationism (which in its crude form is called Traducianism) asserts that the souls of children, like their bodies, are produced by the parents. Creationism teaches that each human soul is created by God and immediately united with the material product of parental generation.

Thesis I: The theory of Pre-existence, which asserts that the individual soul exists prior to its union with the body, is heretical.

This proposition obviously embodies an article of faith.

Proof. The soul may be conceived as pre-existing either in a state of sin, for the atonement of which it is incarcerated in the body;¹ or as merely slumbering in a state of innocence or indifference.² Both assumptions, more especially the first, are opposed to the express teaching of Revelation.

a) A spirit incarcerated in a material body would be in a state of violent and unnatural compulsion. Hence the first of the aforesaid theories implicitly denies the substantial unity of human nature,³ in fact it degrades it by representing the union of body and soul as accidental, after the manner of demoniacal possession. Holy Scripture expressly teaches that man as he proceeded from the hand of God, like all other products of the creative act, was “good,” and that he became bad through sin.⁴ Hence it must be received as a revealed truth that the soul of Adam at the moment when his body was formed, was perfectly pure and sinless, and that it was breathed into the material body simultaneously with its creation. Consequently the soul cannot have been affected by some previous catastrophe. The same is true of Adam’s progeny. St. Paul, in speaking of Esau and Jacob, says: “Cum nondum nati fuissent aut aliquid boni egissent aut mali, … non ex operibus, sed ex vocante dictum est ei: quia maior serviet minori” — When the children were not yet born, nor had done any good or evil, … not of works, but of him that calleth, it was said to her [Rebecca]: The elder shall serve the younger.⁵ The Origenistic doctrine of Pre-existence was condemned by the Church at a very early date as incompatible with Revelation. A Council held in Constantinople, A.D. 543,⁶ pronounced anathema against those who “assert the fabulous pre-existence of souls, and the doctrine of the Apocatastasis, which logically flows therefrom.”⁷ Against the Priscillianists, who shared the error of Origen, the Council of Braga, A.D. 561, defined: “Si quis animas humanas dicit prius in coelesti habitatione peccasse et pro hoc in corpora humana in terram deiectas, sicut Priscillianus dicit, anathema sit” — If any one shall say, as doth Priscillian, that the souls of men sinned in their celestial habitations, and in punishment therefor were cast into human bodies on earth, let him be anathema.

b) The milder form of this heresy, which asserts that the souls of men pre-existed in a state of moral innocence, is likewise repugnant to Catholic dogma. Nemesius⁸ supported it by the threadbare argument that God rested after the sixth day, and now no longer creates souls out of nothing. But, as St. Augustine pointed out, “these opinions, which attribute to the human soul a meritorious life and condition previous to its union with the flesh, have already been condemned by the Catholic Church, not only in the case of some ancient heretics, … but also more recently in the instance of the Priscillianists.”⁹

Pope Leo the Great, in his dogmatic Epistle to Turribius, Bishop of Astorga, branded the pre-existence theory in all its forms as heretical. “Decimo autem capitulo referuntur [Priscillianistae] asserere, animas quae humanis corporibus inseruntur, fuisse sine corpore et in coelesti habitatione peccasse. … Quam impietatis fabulam ex multorum sibi erroribus contexuerunt; sed omnes eos catholica fides a corpore suae unitatis abscidit, constanter praedicans atque veraciter, quod animae humanae, priusquam suis inspirarentur corporibus, non fuere” — In the tenth chapter the Priscillianists are reported as asserting, that the souls which are planted in human bodies were without a body and sinned in their celestial habitation. … This impious fable they have made up from the errors of many; but all of these the Catholic faith has cut off from the body of its unity, constantly and truthfully proclaiming that the human souls had no existence prior to the time when they were breathed into their respective bodies.

This condemnation manifestly includes the modern form of Pre-existentism taught by Kant and Schelling. It is scarcely necessary to add that Metempsychosis, so-called, or the theory of the transmigration of souls, which may be classified as an offshoot of the theory of Pre-existence,¹⁰ is equally repugnant to right reason and Revelation. The same may be said of the so-called Involution theory, according to which the souls of all men were implicitly contained in the soul of Adam, which is successively split up, as it were, and divided among his descendants.¹¹

Thesis II: Generationism, both in its crude and in its refined form, must be unconditionally rejected.

This proposition is theologically certain.

Proof. a) Generationism in its crude form is called Traducianism (from tradux, cutting, slip). Traducianism holds that the soul is produced immediately from the male sperm (semen corporale), and that children are as it were “cuttings” or “slips” detached from the souls of their parents. This opinion was defended in the East by Apollinaris, and in the West, apparently, by Tertullian.¹²

Tertullian appears to teach that the germ of a new soul disengages itself from the souls of the begetting parents, as a “slip from the stem of Adam.”¹³ But as an incorporeal soul cannot possibly proceed from a corporeal principle, this theory degrades man to the level of the beast. The brute soul, being entirely merged in matter, can be produced by generation out of the potency of matter; but the soul of man, which is a simple spiritual substance, does not produce material germs from which a new spiritual soul could sprout. Tertullian tries to improve his case by distinguishing between humor and color seminis, deriving the soul from the former and the body from the latter. But the very suggestion that flesh might possibly beget spirit is essentially materialistic. No wonder Tertullian has been frequently reckoned among the Materialists.¹⁴ Lactantius’s refutation of Traducianism still retains its full force: “Illud quoque venire in quaestionem potest, utrumne anima ex patre, an potius ex matre, an vero ex utroque generetur. Sed ego in eo iure ab ancipiti vindico: … corpus enim ex corporibus nasci potest, quoniam confertur aliquid ex utroque; de animis animus non potest, quia ex re tenui et incomprehensibili [i.e. spirituali] nihil potest descendere. Atque serendarum animarum ratio uni ac soli Deo subiacet, … ex quo apparet, non a parentibus dari animas, sed ab uno eodemque omnium Deo Patre” — The question may also arise, Is the soul engendered by the father, or by the mother, or by both? I think that it is engendered by neither. … A body may be produced from a body, since something is contributed from both; but a soul cannot be produced from souls, because nothing can depart from a thin and intangible [i.e., spiritual] substance. Therefore the manner of the production of souls belongs to God alone. … From this it is evident that souls are not given by parents, but by one and the same God, the Father of all.¹⁵

The attitude of the Church is sufficiently indicated by a decision of Pope Benedict XII in the matter of reunion (A.D. 1342). When the Armenians were asked to condemn the proposition that “the human soul is propagated from father to son, as body is propagated by body, or one angel by another,”¹⁶ their bishops assured the Pope that “this error, that the soul of man is propagated from the soul of the father, as body is propagated from body, … was always proscribed in the Armenian Church, and shall be accursed.”¹⁷

b) Generationism in its refined form is far less repugnant to Catholic teaching than the crude Traducianism of which we have been speaking, though the two systems do not seem to differ much in principle. The chief distinction is that refined Generationism recognizes the spirituality of the soul by postulating a kind of spiritual semen (semen spirituale), which, however, from the purely philosophical point of view, is an impossible chimera. The unequivocal bias of some Patristic writers¹⁸ in favor of Generationism has done much to weaken the ecclesiastical tradition and to retard the complete triumph of Creationism, which is after all the only tenable system.

For eight full centuries (from the time of St. Augustine to Peter Lombard) the question of the origin of the human soul was treated with much hesitation and uncertainty. It remained for St. Thomas Aquinas to pave the way for a general adoption of Creationism. Generationism had obtained currency by the high authority of St. Augustine, whose sole reason for hesitating to place himself squarely on Creationist ground was that this system had been ostentatiously espoused by the Pelagians in attacking the doctrine of original sin. The Pelagians argued as follows: Nothing unclean can come from the hand of God; therefore the souls of children, created by Him directly out of nothing, cannot be tainted with original sin. Unable to solve this subtle objection, Augustine inclined to the theory that the souls of children are not immediately created by God, but engendered by their parents. He believed in the possibility of a semen incorporeum, from which, he says, the soul in a manner incomprehensible to us, originates in the act of parental generation, which accounts for the transmission of original sin.¹⁹

But Augustine was no decided adherent of the Generationist theory. Indeed he never quite overcame his doubts as to its correctness. On more than one occasion he humbly confessed his ignorance of the true solution of the problem.²⁰ In his epistolary correspondence with St. Jerome, who was a determined Creationist, he frankly declares that he would like to espouse Creationism, if he could only make sure that it was compatible with the dogma of original sin.²¹

It follows that St. Augustine cannot be quoted as a traditional witness either for or against Creationism.

c) The authority of this great Doctor was sufficient to keep his doubts and misgivings alive for many centuries.²² The Venerable Moneta²³ and St. Thomas Aquinas finally broke the spell. St. Thomas did not hesitate to condemn Generationism as “heretical.”²⁴ His immediate predecessors (e.g., Peter Lombard²⁵ and Albert the Great²⁶), though decided champions of Creationism, had not dared to express themselves quite so vigorously. It was no doubt premature on the part of St. Thomas to brand Generationism as a heresy; yet no one can fail to perceive that even in its mildest form this theory is incompatible with the dogma of the simplicity and spirituality of the soul.²⁷

d) Creationism held full sway in the theological schools of the Middle Ages, but in modern times timorous attempts have been made to revive the apparently defunct system of Generationism. Hermes, Klee, and Oischinger endeavored to restore it at least to the rank of a probable opinion. But can a proposition that involves a contradiction in terms be defended as probable? Frohschammer, who remodeled the ancient theory by raising the act of parental generation to the dignity of a secondary creation, barely managed to escape one contradiction only to fall into another, namely, that God’s creative power is communicable to creatures.²⁸ Rosmini²⁹ held that the Creator transforms the sensitive soul, which the child receives by generation from his parents, into an intellective soul by permitting it to catch a glimpse of the “idea of being.” This is an utterly fantastic theory. If it were true, all brute souls could by means of this simple expedient be transformed into human souls. Generationism can no longer be upheld; its fate is sealed for good.

Thesis III: The origin of the human soul can be explained only by an immediate act of creation.

This proposition is “theologically certain.”

Proof. a) It is difficult to draw a cogent proof for Creationism from Sacred Scripture, because Sacred Scripture does not tell us whether the creation of the soul is an immediate (creatio ex nihilo) or only a mediate act (concursus) of God. There are, however, certain Biblical texts which seem to favor the Creationist view. Thus St. Jerome comments on Eccles. XII, 7 as follows: “Ex quo satis ridendi sunt, qui putant, animas cum corporibus seri et non a Deo, sed a corporum parentibus generari. Cum enim caro revertatur in terram et spiritus redeat ad Deum, qui dedit illum, manifestum est, Deum patrem esse animarum, non homines” — Hence those are surely to be laughed at who believe that the souls of men are begotten with their bodies, and are generated not by God but by the parents of their bodies. For since the flesh reverts to dust and the spirit returns to God, who has given it, manifestly the Father of souls is God, not men. According to 2 Mach. VII, 22 sq. the mother of the seven brethren said to them: “Neque enim ego spiritum et animam donavi vobis, et vitam et singulorum membra non ego ipsa compegi, sed enim mundi Creator” — I neither gave you breath, nor soul, nor life, neither did I frame the limbs of every one of you, but the Creator of the world. St. Paul calls attention to the sharp antithesis between the “Father of spirits” and “the fathers of the flesh.” “Patres quidem carnis nostrae,” he says (Heb. XII, 9), “eruditiores habuimus et reverebamur eos; non multo magis obtemperabimus Patri spirituum et vivemus?” — We have had fathers of our flesh for instructors, and we reverenced them: shall we not much more obey the Father of spirits, and live? To judge from this text, the Apostle favored the opinion that the souls of men are created immediately by God.³⁰

b) After what has been said above the reader will not be astonished to learn that the argument from Tradition is fraught with peculiar difficulties. Not as if Creationism had at any time in the Church’s history lacked numerous and determined defenders. St. Jerome’s statement: “The majority of western Christians hold that soul is born from soul in the same manner as body is born from body,”³¹ is no doubt exaggerated, for we know that Generationism in its pronounced form really had but one, or at most two champions in the West, viz.: Tertullian, and later, perhaps, Rufinus. Nor were conditions much different in the East.³² But the fact that this important and all but self-evident truth was for eight centuries obscured by doubt and contradiction, is sufficient to show that Creationism cannot be regarded as a dogma in the strict sense of the word.

c) In view of these facts Cardinal Norisius insisted against Bellarmine,³³ that the lack of a true ecclesiastical Tradition in support of the Creationist system leaves modern theologians free to adopt the doubting attitude of St. Augustine. “Evanescit,” he says, “ecclesiastica traditio, ex qua creatio animarum deducitur.”³⁴ What are we to think of this assertion? A careful study of the facts shows that Creationism was always implicitly contained in the Church’s belief, and immediately upon its revival assumed all the characteristics of a real and true Tradition, which it had in fact already possessed before the time of St. Augustine. From A.D. 400 to A.D. 1200 Creationism had as many determined champions throughout the world as Generationism had staunch opponents. These critical centuries were not a period of positive, much less of dogmatic affirmation, but of hesitancy and problematic assumption. If we enquire into the deeper causes of the prevailing doubts, we find that they were based not upon the lack of an Apostolic Tradition, but on the apparent impossibility of reconciling the transmission of original sin with the absolute purity of the divine act of Creation. As soon as this difficulty had been cleared away by the Schoolmen, and theologians began to realize the far-reaching implications of the dogma of the spirituality of the soul, the traditional consensus revived with all the marks of a true ecclesiastical Tradition.

d) We may point to certain ecclesiastical decisions as so many landmarks in the history of Creationism.

In his dogmatic Epistle Pope Leo the Great (†461) speaks of the breathing of souls into their bodies: “Animae humanae, priusquam suis inspirarentur corporibus, non fuerunt.”³⁵ Considering that the Mosaic narrative likewise describes the infusion of Adam’s soul into his body as “inspirare spiraculum vitae,”³⁶ we cannot escape the conclusion that Leo the Great employed spirare not as synonymous with generare, but in the sense of a creatio ex nihilo. Strangely enough, the famous dogmatic Epistle of Pope Anastasius II to the Bishops of Gaul, discovered about forty years ago by Fr. Maassen in a seventh-century codex, now preserved at Darmstadt, has hitherto almost entirely escaped the notice of Catholic theologians. Anastasius (496–498) upholds Creationism and condemns Generationism (in its crude form) as a “nova haeresis.”³⁷ Basing his judgment on reports received from the Bishop of Arles regarding the propaganda carried on by certain champions of Generationism, who seem to have shared Tertullian’s views on the origin of the human soul, the Pope sharply inveighs “contra haeresim, … quod humano generi parentes, ut ex materiali faece tradunt corpora, ita etiam vitalis animae spiritum tribuant.” He exhorts the mistaken champions of this theory to accept the “sound doctrine” of Creationism: “Sanae igitur doctrinae acquiescant, quod ille indat animas, qui vocat ea, quae non sunt, tamquam sint.” In the course of his instruction Anastasius solemnly declares: “Ego absens corpore, spiritu vero praesens, vobiscum ita redargui volo, qui in novam haeresim prorupisse dicuntur, ut a parentibus animas tradi generi humano adserant, quemadmodum ex faece materiali corpus infunditur.” The only thing the parents transmit, besides the body, is original sin: “Quod ab illis [scil. parentibus] nihil aliud potest tradi quam … culpa poenaque peccati, quam per traducem secuta progenies evidenter ostendit, ut pravi homines distortique nascantur.” Recalling Is. LVII, 16: “Nonne omnem flatum ego feci?” the Pope asks with a show of astonishment: “Quomodo isti novi haeretici a parentibus dicunt factum et non a Deo, sicut ipse testatur? Aut sibi volunt potius credi quam Deo omnipotenti?” He proceeds to point out other Scriptural texts,³⁸ which the Bishops would find effective against the new heresy, and closes his letter with an ardent appeal for the purity of Catholic doctrine: “Nos vero inter multas diversasque occupationes haec interim per indicem titulum significasse sufficiat, ut vos velut conministri mei vocem sequentes meam in hoc pugnare debeatis, ne quid catholicae ecclesiae … foeditas ulla nascatur.”

The solemn tenor of this epistle might lead one to regard it as an infallible ex cathedra pronouncement. But the concluding phrase plainly indicates that the Pontiff merely wished to give instruction, not to decide the controversy. The fact that the letter soon fell into desuetude is sufficient evidence that Creationism was not generally received as an article of faith at the close of the fifth century. It was not even so regarded in the fourteenth century, when Pope Benedict XII (A.D. 1342) required the Armenians to abjure Generationism.³⁹

Creationism is also taught, at least by implication, in Leo X’s dogmatic Bull “Apostolici regiminis,” issued on the occasion of the Fifth Lateran Council, A.D. 1512. This Pope says among other things: “Anima intellectiva … immortalis et pro corporum, quibus infunditur, multitudine singulariter multiplicabilis et multiplicata et multiplicanda.” This can only mean that each rational soul is “infused” into, i.e., created in, its own body. For the soul is either “infused” by God or by the parents: if by God, “infusion” is equivalent to creation; if by the parents, “infusion” either means creation out of nothing, or generation. It cannot mean creation out of nothing, because God alone has power to create. Nor can it mean generation, because the Pope does not say: anima infunditur illis, but: infunditur corporibus, a phrase which indicates that the act of infusion is not performed by the parents, and therefore differs from the act of sexual generation. It should be noted that in the Bull under consideration Leo X employs the theological terminology of his time. It was quite usual at that period to say: “Animae hominum infundendo creantur et creando infunduntur.”⁴⁰

Lastly, the definition of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary rests squarely upon Creationism. Both the Apostolic Constitution of Alexander VII known as “Sollicitudo” and Pius IX’s dogmatic Bull “Ineffabilem” expressly declare that “The soul of the Blessed Virgin Mary was from the first moment of its creation and infusion into the body … free from all taint of original sin.”

Creationism, therefore, is not merely the doctrine of some particular school, but a theologically certain truth, which no Catholic can deny without temerity.⁴¹

There remains the subordinate question: When is the soul created or infused into the body? The medieval theologians generally followed the physiological teaching of Aristotle, who held that the human embryo during the early history of its existence passes through a series of transitional stages in which it is successively informed by the vegetative, the sentient, and, finally, by the rational soul.⁴² To-day the opinion prevails that the rational soul is created and infused at the moment of conception.⁴³

Notes

Readings

Oswald, Schöpfungslehre, 2nd ed., §§ 12–13, Paderborn 1893. O. Zehetbauer, Animae Humanae Infundendo Creantur et Creando Infunduntur, Sopronii 1893. Galassi, Sull’ Origine dell’ Anima Umana, Bologna 1888. Scheeben, Dogmatik, Vol. II, 151, Freiburg 1878. C. Gutberlet, Der Kampf um die Seele, 2nd ed., 2 vols., Mainz 1903. M. Maher, S.J., Psychology, 6th ed., pp. 572 sqq., London and New York 1905. J. T. Driscoll, Christian Philosophy, The Soul, New York 1898. St. George Mivart, Origin of Human Reason, London 1889. D. Mercier, La Psychologie, Vol. II, Ch. 2, Louvain 1905.

Note on this transcription: this article’s three theses (against Pre-existence, against Generationism, for Creationism) cover an unusually dense run of papal and conciliar Latin — including the rediscovered Anastasius II letter — reconstructed from a text that was clean apart from the usual page-break splits. One Greek term (ἀποκατάστασις, “apocatastasis,” the doctrine of universal restoration Origen was also condemned for) was reconstructed with confidence from the gloss already given in the English.