Concept of soul according to Catholic Church
Concept of soul existed even before the Christian theological account of human body was developed by Thomas Aquinas.
The Greeks and early Christian thinkers looked down upon human body as inferior to the soul. Christian thinkers before Aquinas such as Clement of Alexandria, and Origen saw the soul as the image of God whereas the human body is the source of human imperfect actions. Thomas Aquinas disagreed with this view. He asserted that evil actions originate from free will and thus from the entire being. Notwithstanding these differences, Origen and Aquinas saw resurrection as of the entire being: body and soul.
Thomas Aquinas believed the human body as an essential aspect of the human person. You cannot say a human being “has” a body when it’s the nature of a human being to consist of both soul and body. To be clear, Aquinas saw soul as incorporeal and subsistent as an entity. Since human functions such as intellect are not of the body, Aquinas saw soul as separate from the body. However, Aquinas asserted, that soul should also constitute the essence of human form in order for the soul to experience via the senses. If a man were just a mind, essentially unrelated to the body, he would not directly experience things that happen to the body, as he clearly does when he senses. Therefore, the human soul is in essence the substantial form of a human body, and body and soul together make up one substance. Soul does not have an existence independent of the body.
The Greeks and early Christian thinkers looked down upon human body as inferior to the soul. Christian thinkers before Aquinas such as Clement of Alexandria, and Origen saw the soul as the image of God whereas the human body is the source of human imperfect actions. Thomas Aquinas disagreed with this view. He asserted that evil actions originate from free will and thus from the entire being. Notwithstanding these differences, Origen and Aquinas saw resurrection as of the entire being: body and soul.
Thomas Aquinas believed the human body as an essential aspect of the human person. You cannot say a human being “has” a body when it’s the nature of a human being to consist of both soul and body. To be clear, Aquinas saw soul as incorporeal and subsistent as an entity. Since human functions such as intellect are not of the body, Aquinas saw soul as separate from the body. However, Aquinas asserted, that soul should also constitute the essence of human form in order for the soul to experience via the senses. If a man were just a mind, essentially unrelated to the body, he would not directly experience things that happen to the body, as he clearly does when he senses. Therefore, the human soul is in essence the substantial form of a human body, and body and soul together make up one substance. Soul does not have an existence independent of the body.
When Jesus reappeared after death, he did have a tangible, physical body that ate and drank, with familiar wounds that were explored by the hands of followers. Jesus resurrected as a full being: body and soul. Christians believe that Jesus did not come to just save the soul but the human being - body and soul resurrected on the Judgment day.
According to the Catholic church, and its interpretation of the bible, human body is not something that the soul can trade in for another when it wears out. The body is integral to who humans are. Catholic church believes the immortality via resurrection of the soul and the body, not in the immortal soul separable from the body. One thing is evident in the catholic view of soul: soul is not something that can have an existence independent of human body. Soul and human body are not two natures united but form a single nature.
Thus, the word soul is not to be used as a translation of the Sanskrit word Atman.
According to the Catholic church, and its interpretation of the bible, human body is not something that the soul can trade in for another when it wears out. The body is integral to who humans are. Catholic church believes the immortality via resurrection of the soul and the body, not in the immortal soul separable from the body. One thing is evident in the catholic view of soul: soul is not something that can have an existence independent of human body. Soul and human body are not two natures united but form a single nature.
Thus, the word soul is not to be used as a translation of the Sanskrit word Atman.
Following extract is from the official catechism of the catholic church.
362 The human person, created in the image of God, is a being at once corporeal and spiritual. The biblical account expresses this reality in symbolic language when it affirms that "then the LORD God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being." Man, whole and entire, is therefore willed by God.
363 In Sacred Scripture the term "soul" often refers to human life or the entire human person. But "soul" also refers to the innermost aspect of man, that which is of greatest value in him, that by which he is most especially in God's image: "soul" signifies the spiritual principle in man.
364 The human body shares in the dignity of "the image of God": it is a human body precisely because it is animated by a spiritual soul, and it is the whole human person that is intended to become, in the body of Christ, a temple of the Spirit:
- Man, though made of body and soul, is a unity. Through his very bodily condition he sums up in himself the elements of the material world. Through him they are thus brought to their highest perfection and can raise their voice in praise freely given to the Creator. For this reason man may not despise his bodily life. Rather he is obliged to regard his body as good and to hold it in honor since God has created it and will raise it up on the last day.
365 The unity of soul and body is so profound that one has to consider the soul to be the "form" of the body:i.e., it is because of its spiritual soul that the body made of matter becomes a living, human body; spirit and matter, in man, are not two natures united, but rather their union forms a single nature.
366 The Church teaches that every spiritual soul is created immediately by God - it is not "produced" by the parents - and also that it is immortal: it does not perish when it separates from the body at death, and it will be reunited with the body at the final Resurrection.
367 Sometimes the soul is distinguished from the spirit: St. Paul for instance prays that God may sanctify his people "wholly", with "spirit and soul and body" kept sound and blameless at the Lord's coming. The Church teaches that this distinction does not introduce a duality into the soul. "Spirit" signifies that from creation man is ordered to a supernatural end and that his soul can gratuitously be raised beyond all it deserves to communion with God.
368 The spiritual tradition of the Church also emphasizes the heart, in the biblical sense of the depths of one's being, where the person decides for or against God.