Why isn’t the soul (ψυχή) considered to be a “person” (ὑπόστασις)?

score:2

Accepted answer

Humans are living souls. Soul (psyche) means the breathing existence. The body (soma) is the outward appearance and the physique of the human. It all means the same human being. Soul more in the sense of living and ability to feel. Body more in the sense of physical existence.

The spirit, pneuma, is what moves the person, what his thoughts are and his emotions.

It all is the human as one whole living being.

The difference is regarding what of a person one is looking at. It is about aspects to the human, not about entities or compound parts.

In certain instances the soul is considered the person, but in a more impersonal way to say. (Name, onoma, would be the more personal expression.)

Person (prosopon) is used for the human encounter, the facial and bodily appearance towards one another.

Upvote:-2

The idea of dualism between body and soul is natural to the Greek world, and to the Mediterranean cultures steeped in hellenism. But such dualism does not exist in the Hebrew thought. Hence, the Corinthians seems to have balked at Paul's idea of bodily resurrection (1 Cor. 15:35-58). In the Bible, only God is Immortal (I Tim. 1:17). There is no soul that is immortal because God said, man will "surely" die (Gen. 2:17). He didn't said, "you will not surely die but go separate from your bodies and wing your way to heaven, a separate entity." Rather, we expressly find in Ezekiel 18:4,20: "the soul the sinneth, it shall die."

Upvote:0

In his Summa Theologica, in an article article concerning “The Definition of a Person” (De Definitione Personæ),1 Thomas Aquinas noted the following objection,2

Further, the separate soul is an individual substance of a rational nature, but it is not a person. Therefore, “person” is not properly defined thus.

Praeterea, anima separata est rationalis naturae individua substantia. Non autem est persona. Inconvenienter ergo persona sic definitur.

to which he responded,3

Concerning the fifth objection, it must be said that the soul is a part of the human species, and so, although it exists separate, yet since it ever retains the nature of unibility, it cannot be called an individual substance, which is the hypostasis or first substance, as neither can the hand nor any other part of man. And so, neither the definition nor the name of person belongs to it.

Ad quintum dicendum quod anima est pars humanae speciei, et ideo, licet sit separata, quia tamen retinet naturam unibilitatis, non potest dici substantia individua quae est hypostasis vel substantia prima; sicut nec manus, nec quaecumque alia partium hominis. Et sic non competit ei neque definitio personae, neque nomen.

Because the soul exists as part of man, just like the hand—both having “the nature of unibility”—Thomas Aquinas reasons that it is not a person, an individual substance of a rational nature. For the record, I disagree with him. I do not see comparing the soul to a hand as a fitting analogy, for, unlike the hand, the soul can exist separate (separata) from the body. Nevertheless, he addressed the question of whether the soul is a person.

References

Aquinas, Thomas. The Summa Theologica of St. Thomas Aquinas. Trans. Fathers of the English Dominican Province. New York: Benziger, 1911–1912. (28)

Aquinas, Thomas. Summa Theologica. Vol. 1. Paris: Bloud, 1880. (244)

Footnotes

1 ST I, Q 29, A 1
2 ibid., arg. 5
3 ibid., co. 5

Upvote:2

The answer to this question can be summed up in one sentence from the Catechism:

The human person, created in the image of God, is a being at once corporeal and spiritual. (CCC §362)

Persona humana, ad imaginem Dei creata, simul est ens corporale et spirituale (Latin text)

That is to say, yes, perhaps the human soul fulfils all the "requirements" for being a persona. But that isn't what God chose to make. God chose to make human beings as both body and soul. What makes a person isn't adherence to a set of criteria, but God's sovereign and creative will. From the same section of the Catechism: "Man, whole and entire, is therefore willed by God."

From later in the same paragraph:

spirit and matter, in man, are not two natures united, but rather their union forms a single nature (CCC §365)

A human person is inherently both soul and body: they are ultimately inseparable. A soul cannot be considered without the body. They are a unity: as Gaudium et Spes (quoted in the Catechism) puts it:

Though made of body and soul, man is one (Gaudium et Spes 14 § 1)

More post

Search Posts

Related post