Dear Father Angelo,
I am writing to ask you about God’s creation of human souls at the moment of conception.
My question is this: is every single created soul unique and different from all others (expressing a particular aspect of God’s image), or is it a sort of priori, identical to all others, that acquires its individuality only by incarnating in a biological entity given by its parents?
Does what makes us different from one another derive only from our genes, or also from a soul that is unique and special even before being infused?
Thank you very much for your time, and I send you my warmest regards.
Marco
Priest’s answer
Dear Marco,
1. First of all, it is necessary for our visitors to remember what is meant by soul.
Soul is that which gives life.
The soul is the vital principle, that which gives rise to life.
2. Therefore, all living beings are animated.
The difference between a living tree and a dry or dead tree is precisely this. In the former, there is the vital principle, in the latter, not.
Likewise, the difference between a living animal and a dead animal is precisely this: that the former is animated, the latter is a corpse.
The same can also be said of man.
3. Vital principles, that is, souls, however, differ in essence: in some cases, the soul is merely vegetative, as in the reality we call plants.
In other cases, we are faced with an animal endowed with senses as well as vegetative life. Then we speak of a sensitive soul or vital principle.
In other cases, the vital principle is not merely vegetative or sensitive, but intellectual, rational. This is the case with human souls.
According to Aristotle’s language, also taken up by St. Thomas, this vital principle is also called the formal principle because it specifically qualifies a given reality.
This is why it is said that the soul is the form of the body: because it ensures that the body is alive.
4. Therefore, souls are distinguished by their essence: some are only vegetative, others are also sensitive, and others, finally, also rational.
We can therefore already draw a conclusion: human souls—with regard to their essence or nature—are all equal.
We now ask ourselves, and this is your question, whether, in addition to being of the same nature, they are also distinct from one another.
5. To resolve this question, it is necessary to keep in mind that the human soul is endowed with intellect, so the human soul is an intellectual principle.
If we were to affirm that all human souls are equal, we would have to deduce that the intellect is one and the same for all. This leads to the conclusion that the single intellect thinks differently depending on the subjects in which it is received.
This was the thesis attributed to the Arab philosopher Avicenna.
And with this, it is said that the soul of individuals would not be immortal because the one intellect, numerically identical for all, would be immortal.
6. When St. Thomas posed this question, he began by saying, “It is altogether impossible for there to be a single intellect for all men” (Summa Theologiae, I, 76, 2).
And he argues: “For it would follow that if there is just one intellect for Socrates and Plato, then Socrates and Plato are a single man and are distinct from one another only in what lies outside the essence of both. And in that case the distinction between Socrates and Plato will be no different from the distinction between a man wearing a tunic and the same man wearing a cape” (ibid.).
It is equally clear that if the intellect were single, we would have a single principal agent acting simultaneously in multiple instruments, much as the same human subject acts with one hand or the other.
7. Therefore, it must be said that the soul, since it is the vital principle of that specific body, is created by God singularly distinct from other souls because it is the substantial form of that specific body.
Every soul is a spiritual substance distinct from every other soul.
Proof of this is that through the intellect, each of us is aware of being a unique, unrepeatable being.
And this is not only due to DNA, whose chromosomal composition is unique in history, but primarily because of self-awareness, by virtue of which each of us not only perceives the thoughts that follow one another, but also feels that we are the subject of those thoughts.
In other words, we know we think differently from any other.
And since actions follow the nature of being, it follows that each soul is created as a thinking subject distinct from any other.
Therefore, each soul is a singular irradiation of God’s glory.
With the hope that we may always be so, even in our actions, I bless you and remember you in prayer.
Father Angelo
Questo articolo è disponibile anche in:
Italian
