This article will deal with St Thomas Aquinas's understanding of the unique nature of the human soul, in comparison with the souls of other living things, and how its possession of an immaterial power entails its incorruptibility. I will also consider how the human soul's normal reliance on the body for its proper and immaterial operation does not undermine the persistence of this soul after death. Finally, I will touch on the question of whether Aquinas's views about the human soul are compatible with the survival of the person after death.
In physically extended beings (bodies), Aquinas holds that there is a principle of potency called matter and a principle of act called form. No concrete being can be purely potential because 'to be' is to be in some way actual. The way that a physical body exists is its form, which stands as a principle of determination to the otherwise undetermined material principle of the thing. This material principle of the thing is called prime matter, which is the most basic and fundamental principle of potency in a thing because it is a principle of potency to the very substantial form of the thing itself. Although prime matter, being a purely potential principle, cannot exist of itself, it is a real principle of physical things because, in generation and corruption, where one substantial form is replaced by another, the substratum of change which the corrupted thing and the generated thing share is this basic material principle. Aquinas says that it is not insofar as a living thing is a body that it is alive because, in that case, every body would be alive (ST Ia. Q.75 a.1: manifestum est enim quod esse principium vitae, vel vivens, non convenit corpori ex hoc quod est corpus, alioquin omne corpus esset vivens, aut principium vitae). For a physical body to exist in must be actual to some extent. It must, for example, be hot or cold, moist or dry, rare or dense, heavy or light. For Aquinas, these are the basic dispositions of matter (SCG II C.68: invenimus enim aliquas infimas formas quae in nullam operationem possunt nisi ad quam se extendunt qualitates quae sunt dispositiones materiae, ut calidum, frigidum, humidum et siccum, rarum, densum, grave et leve, et his similia). Such bodies are omnino materiales et totaliter immersae materiae (ibid), not in the sense that they are purely potential prime matter, but that they merely have one of each of the contrary dispositions which an existing material body must necessarily have. However, Aquinas says that although form and matter when united always form one being, nevertheless the matter does not always equal the being of the form (ibid: quamvis autem sit unum esse formae et materiae, non tamen oportet quod materia semper adaequet esse formae). Indeed, the more noble a form is, the more it surpasses matter in being (immo, quanto forma est nobilior, tanto in suo esse superexcedit materiam). For Aquinas, above the forms of elemental bodies are the forms of mixed bodies, above which are the forms of things like plants, above which are the souls of brute animals, above which are the forms of humans. The form of any living thing is called a soul, defined by Aquinas as the primum principium vitae (ST Ia. Q.75 a.1), for 'to live' is 'to be' for living things (SCG II C.57: vivere enim est esse viventis).
Aquinas thinks that the souls of brute animals are not 'subsistent' (capable of existing by themselves) because, although the powers that such a soul has surpass the basic and necessary dispositions of matter, these powers are not powers of the soul alone, but of the soul and the body (ST Ia. Q.75 a.3). Every operation of the brute animal is, according to Aquinas, an operation which a corporeal organ plays an essential part in. The same is not the case for the operations of intellect and will in a human being. For, although Aquinas thinks that ordinarily the operation of the intellect presupposes phantasms from which to abstract, which in turn presuppose sense perception, he does not think that the human body or any of its corporeal organs plays an intrinsic or essential role in the very operation of the intellect in itself (ST Ia Q.75 a.2, ad 3: corpus requiritur ad actionem intellectus, non sicut organum quo talis actio exerceatur, sed ratione obiecti).
Although Aristotle makes an analogy between the relationship of intellect and phantasms and of the power of sight and colour, Aquinas does not interpret this to mean that it informs the 'possible intellect' but that an 'intelligible species' derived from the phantasm does, in the same way that the colour actually in a stone does not inform the power of sight but that a 'visible species' does. It is through these respective 'species', which become in some way the forma of the intellectus possibilis and of the potentia visiva, that the intellect is in contact with the phantasm and the power of sight is in contact with the colour in the stone (SCG II C.59). The intellect is immaterial, and it does not 'receive forms' in the same way that a material thing does. A material thing receives a form in such a way that it becomes that thing physically (or else it carries it in a virtual sort of way like air does with sound), but the intellect's reception of form is a form being received by a form. The potency of the intellect is not a material potency to become that thing physically but is a potency to understand (intellegere) something in an immaterial way. Intrinsically and of itself, the operation of the intellect is not an operation of any corporeal organ, but of the soul without any corporeal organ.
As has been said, though, for humans, this bodiless operation ordinarily presupposes bodily operations. Aquinas explains that humans are the lowest of intellectual creatures (ST Ia Q.76 a.5: anima autem intellectiva...infimum gradum in substantiis intellectualibus tenet), and do not have knowledge immediately natural to them like Angels, but obtain knowledge ex rebus divisibilibus per viam sensus (ibid). Aquinas uses the axiom that nature of anything is not wanting in necessities (natura autem nulli deest in necessariis) to explain why the nature of man requires that his soul not only have the power of intelligence, but also of sensation, and therefore be united to a body with the necessary corporeal instruments (ibid). However, since the intellectual power of the soul is itself immaterial, the human soul is subsistent even apart from matter. Since it has an operation that is not material, it has an existence that is not material. Generation and corruption are only of material things, and so the human soul is incorruptible. Since all the powers and corresponding operations of a brute animal are powers and operations not of the soul alone but of body and soul, when the body is destroyed, all those powers are destroyed. Aquinas seems to think that if all the powers of a soul are destroyed, then that soul is destroyed. This seems to be because, even though he thinks that powers of a soul are not identical with the essence of that soul (ST Ia Q.77 a.1), the powers of that soul are proper accidents, like risibility is of man or having angles add up to 1800 is to triangles. However, since the very intellectual power of man is completely immaterial and a power of the soul alone, it would still continue to exist apart from the body, even if it never operated. This is because, even if the separated soul never actually carried out its intellectual operation, it would still have the latent power to carry out that operation. On the other hand, without their bodies, all the powers of brute animals are destroyed. However, as Aquinas points out, if an animal happens to actually lack the exterior sensibles necessary for actual sensation, the animal still continues to exist, so long as it has its body. With the body gone, the intellect does not lose its subsistence, just as an animal does not cease to be something subsistent when it lacks the exterior sensible things necessary for sensation (ST Ia Q.75 a.2, ad 3: sic autem indigere corpore non removet intellectum esse subsistentem, alioquin animal non esset aliquid subsistens, cum indigeat exterioribus sensibilibus ad sentiendum).
Would the intellect continue to exist in a sort of sleeping state with no possibility of knowledge whatsoever, in this case? This would only follow if knowing things in the properly human way (via phantasms) was the only way that humans could know things. This need not be the case, if a human's separated intellect was externally assisted by a higher power, such as an Angel, or God himself. The separated human intellect would always have at least the potential to be so enlightened by a higher power.
Many have found it strange that Aquinas seems to deny that the very person continues to exist after death but only a part of that person. However, this is, to a large extent, just a linguistic problem. Aquinas says that there are two ways to speak of a 'this something' (hoc aliquid). It can be taken as anything subsistent (pro quocumque subsistente) or as something subistent that is complete in its own nature (pro subsistente completo in natura alicuius speciei). The first way is applicable to the human soul, but the second way is not (ST Ia Q.75 a.2 ad 1). However, Aquinas defines a 'person' as the second sort of hoc aliquid (ibid a.4 ad 2: non quaelibet substantia particularis est hypostasis vel persona, sed quae habet completam naturam speciei). Because, in his explanation of the individuation of distinct human souls after death, Aquinas thinks that the soul continues to have a certain habitudo or commensuratio or intrinsic ordo to a numerically individual body (SCG II C.75; C.8; cf. In I Sent. D.8 Q.5, a.2 ad 6), the second way of defining hoc aliquid may be in some way applicable to humans after separation of soul and body. However, it is undeniable that the separated human soul is actually lacking something proper to its nature. If, therefore, on the other hand, we were to grant that this fact means that the human persona does not continue to exist after death, all this means is that the separated soul lacks the body which it is proper to its nature to inform. In fact, if this is the case, I think that the word persona would be being used in an unfitting way. The very reason why Aquinas thinks that the body is not something external to the human being's substance, which is merely used by a human soul, is that it is the man himself who feels or senses in the relevant bodily operations. If this is so, then it makes equal sense to say that, when a human intellect separated from the body thinks, it is the man himself who thinks. Otherwise, who do we attribute the act of thinking to? Therefore, I think that Thomistic principles about the soul make it right to say that the very human person survives after death. This does not mean the soul becomes entirely identical to the human person in ratio, even if it is the only thing left of him, because the soul, as stated, still has a habitudo or commensuratio to an individual body, and as Eleanore Stump points out, the soul being all that is left of the person does not entail that it is entirely identical to the person: "Because constitution is not identity for Aquinas, however, a particular can exist with less than the normal, natural complement of constituents. It can, for example, exist when it is constituted only by one of its main metaphysical parts, namely, the soul. And so although a person is not identical to his soul, the existence of the soul is sufficient for the existence of a person."[1] That the soul's continued existence is not sufficient for the existence of the person would only be the case if 'person' were defined in such a way as being only a human who actually has a body. But, as I have said, I do not think that that would be a good way of defining 'person.'
Therefore, Aquinas can consistently account for the existence of the human soul after death, as opposed to the souls of brute animals, and, furthermore, I think that Thomistic principles about the soul make it fitting to say that the human person survives the separation of soul and body.
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