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Question

Rev. Father Angelo,

I have just read some information on your site, and noticed how clear the explanations are about the two natures of the Lord. I have read carefully the question of the two wills; but I still have  a doubt, which now, despite what I have learned in theology courses, I do not know how to silence: since the wills are faculties, therefore an emanation of the soul (which, it seems to me  is the principle of the faculty itself), does this imply that Christ has two souls (the human and the divine)? Certainly Christ has a human soul but must His alleged divine soul be identified with the Holy Spirit(third person of the Holy Trinity)? (gave up his spirit Mt 27-50).

I sincerely thank you for the clarifications you will kindly aim to provide me, and I wish you Happy Holy Corpus Domini,

Ugo M.

Answer

Dear Ugo,

1  “Soul” means what gives life.

For this reason, in Summa theologica of St. Thomas we read that the soul is the form of the body, that is what gives life to the body.

But God hasn’t got a body.

Therefore God has not even got a soul.

Nor the Angels have souls, since they haven’t got  bodies. They are intellectual, spiritual substances.

2       God hasn’t got a principle that communicates life to Him.

God is life.

Just as God hasn’t got a will l, but He is the  Will.

The will is identified with its very essence.

3       The Holy Spirit is the personal love of God.

And since God’s Will not only loves but is Love, it follows that God’s love, God’s will and the Holy Spirit are the same thing.

4       Therefore in Christ there is only one soul, the human one.

As God, He hasn’t got a soul that communicates life, but He is life.

5       Only by analogy can we speak of the soul of God, as indeed  only by analogy can we talk about  the hands of God, the eye of God or the finger of God.

Sacred Scripture – recalls St. Thomas – presents spiritual and divine things to us under corporeal images (Summa Theologica I,3, ad 1).

6       The Latin translation of the Vulgate (Heb 10,38) speaks of the soul of God, but according to St. Thomas it speaks of it by analogy (Ib., Ad 2), in the sense that the soul here indicates what is pleasing to God.

This is why the translation of the CEI does not speak of soul, but of “love”.

I wish you all the best on this beautiful feast of St. John the Baptist and I entrust you to the Lord.

Father Angelo