suzydoll
Cheneyville, LA
age: 62
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The Soul In Christian Thought Conclusion
Tertullian's treatise "De Anima" has been called the first Christian classic on psychology proper. The author aims to show the failure of all philosophies to elucidate the nature of the soul, and argues eloquently that Christ alone can teach mankind the truth on such subjects. His own doctrine, however, is simply the refined Materialism of the Stoics, supported by arguments from medicine and physiology and by ingenious interpretations of Scripture, in which the unavoidable materialism of language is made to establish a metaphysical Materialism. Tertullian is the founder of the theory of Traducianism, which derives the rational soul ex traduce, i.e. by procreation from the soul of the parent. For Tertullian this was a necessary consequence of Materialism. Later writers found in the doctrine a convenient explanation of the transmission of original sin. St. Jerome says that in his day it was the common theory in the West. Theologians have long abandoned it, however, in favour of Creationism, as it seems to compromise the spirituality of the soul. Origen taught the pre-existence of the soul. Terrestrial life is a punishment and a remedy for prenatal sin. "Soul" is properly degraded spirit: flesh is a condition of alienation and bondage (cf. Comment. ad Romans 1:18). Spirit, however, finite spirit, can exist only in a body, albeit of a glorious and ethereal nature.
Neo-Platonism, which through St. Augustine contributed so much to spiritual philosophy, belongs to this period. Like Gnosticism, it uses emanations. The primeval and eternal One begets by emanation nous (intelligence); and from nous in turn springs psyche (soul), which is the image of nous, but distinct from it. Matter is a still later emanation. Soul has relations to both ends of the scale of reality, and its perfection lies in turning towards the Divine Unity from which it came. In everything, the neo-Platonist recognized the absolute primacy of the soul with respect to the body. Thus, the mind is always active, even in sense -- perception -- it is only the body that is passively affected by external stimuli. Similarly Plotinus prefers to say that the body is in thesoul rather than vice versa: and he seems to have been the first to conceive the peculiar manner of the soul's location as an undivided and universal presence pervading the organism ( tota in toto et tota in singulis partibus). It is impossible to give more than a very brief notice of the psychology of St. Augustine. His contributions to every branch of the science were immense; the senses, the emotions, imagination, memory, the will, and the intellect -- he explored them all, and there is scarcely any subsequent development of importance that he did not forestall. He is the founder of the introspective method. Noverim Te, noverim me was an intellectual no less than a devotional aspiration with him. The following are perhaps the chief points for our present purpose:
* he opposes body and soul on the ground of the irreducible distinction of thought and extension (cf. DESCARTES). St. Augustine, however, lays more stress on the volitional activities than did the French Idealists.
* As against the Manichæans he always asserts the worth and dignity of the body. Like Aristotle he makes the soul the final cause of the body. As God is the Good or Summum Bonum of the soul, so is the soul the good of the body.
* The origin of the soul is perhaps beyond our ken. He never definitely decided between Traducianism and Creationism.
* As regards spirituality, he is everywhere most explicit, but it is interesting as an indication of the futile subtleties current at the time to find him warning a friend against the controversy on the corporeality of the soul, seeing that the term "corpus" was used in so many different senses. "Corpus, non caro" is his own description of the angelic body.
Medieval psychology prior to the Aristotelean revival was affected by neo-Platonism, Augustinianism, and mystical influences derived from the works of pseudo-Dionysius. This fusion produced sometimes, notably in Scotus Eriugena, a pantheistic theory of the soul. All individual existence is but the development of the Divine life, in which all things are destined to be resumed. The Arabian commentators, Averroes and Avicenna, had interpreted Aristotle's psychology in a pantheistic sense. St. Thomas, with the rest of the Schoolmen, amends this portion of the Aristotelean tradition, accepting the rest with no important modifications. St. Thomas's doctrine is briefly as follows:
* the rational soul, which is one with the sensitive and vegetative principle, is the form of the body. This was defined as of faith by the Council of Vienne of 1311;
* the soul is a substance, but an incomplete substance, i.e. it has a natural aptitude and exigency for existence in the body, in conjunction with which it makes up the substantial unity of human nature;
* though connaturally related to the body, it is itself absolutely simple, i.e. of an unextended and spiritual nature. It is not wholly immersed in matter, its higher operations being intrinsically independent of the organism;
* the rational soul is produced by special creation at the moment when the organism is sufficiently developed to receive it. In the first stage of embryonic development, the vital principle has merely vegetative powers; then a sensitivesoul comes into being, educed from the evolving potencies of the organism -- later yet, this is replaced by the perfect rational soul, which is essentially immaterial and so postulates a special creative act. Many modern theologians have abandoned this last point of St. Thomas's teaching, and maintain that a fully rational soul is infused into the embryo at the first moment of its existence.
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