24. Beatitude, the Soul, and the Body's Role

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Lecture Notes

Main Topics #

• Two-fold Nature of Beatitude: Imperfect beatitude (operation of virtue in this life, depends on bodily images) vs. perfect beatitude (vision of God’s essence, does not depend on body)
• The Soul’s Subsistence: The human soul’s unique capacity to subsist in its own being after separation from the body
• Understanding and Bodily Dependency: Why the intellect’s operation transcends bodily organs, particularly in the beatific vision
• The Problem of Natural Desire: Augustine’s point that the separated soul retains a natural desire to administer the body
• Perfection of Being vs. Perfection of Nature: Distinction between constitutive perfection (essential to beatitude) and perfective perfection (pertaining to well-being)

Key Arguments #

Against Body’s Necessity for Perfect Beatitude #

• The Intellect’s Operation Transcends the Body: The understanding does not need the body except to receive images. Since the divine essence cannot be seen through images, the intellect can achieve beatitude without the body.
• The Soul’s Unique Subsistence: Unlike other parts of a whole, the human soul retains its own being after separation from the body. The being of the composite (form and matter) remains in the soul’s subsistence.
• Understanding Universals, Not Singulars: The intellect receives continuous things (like triangles) in a non-continuous way through definitions. This proves the intellect is not a bodily organ, since anything received in a body becomes singular and continuous.
• Authority from Scripture: 2 Corinthians 5:6-8—“as long as we are in the body, we wander from the Lord…we dare to be confident, and we have a good will to wander from the body and to be present to the Lord.” This shows separated souls are present to God in vision, not faith.

Objections Considered #

1. Perfection of Nature: The soul without the body lacks the perfection of nature; a part separated from its whole is imperfect.

   • Response: Beatitude is a perfection of the soul on the side of understanding insofar as it transcends bodily organs. The soul’s perfection in understanding God does not depend on forming the body.

2. The Part-Whole Argument: Every part is imperfect when separated from its whole.

   • Response: The human soul is unique—it has its own being and its own operation. It remains subsisting in its own being.

3. Impediment from Natural Desire: The soul naturally desires to administer the body, which retards its intention toward the beatific vision.

   • Response: This is an impediment by way of defect, not contrariety. Augustine explains this does not prevent the soul from truly seeing God and being blessed, though more perfectly when reunited with the body.

4. Happiness Requires Perfect Operation: Aristotle says the operation of happiness is unimpeded. The separated soul’s operation is impeded by desire for the body.

   • Response: The impediment is not to the vision itself but to the completeness of the soul’s nature and thus the perfection of its operation.

5. A Sufficient Good: Beatitude quiets all desire. The separated soul still desires the body.

   • Response: The soul is essentially blessed and has rest in God, but naturally desires the body’s reunion for more complete perfection.

6. Equality with Angels: In beatitude, man is equal to angels. The separated soul is not equal to angels.

   • Response: The soul achieves beatitude like the angels through the vision of God, though it may not achieve equal measure before resurrection.

Important Definitions #

• Beatitude (beatitudo): Perfect operation of the human intellect in seeing God’s essence face to face; consists in the vision and the rest of the will in the good obtained.
• Imperfect Beatitude: The operation of virtue in this life; depends on bodily images and imagination; achievable but can be lost through bodily corruption.
• Perfect Beatitude: The vision of God’s divine essence without images; does not depend on bodily organs; eternal and unchanging.
• Subsistence (subsistentia): The soul’s capacity to exist and operate in its own being, independent of the body, demonstrated through its operation of understanding (which is not in the body).
• Amor concupiscentiae vs. amor amicitiae: Love of wanting (desiring for oneself) vs. love of friendship/wishing well (desiring good for the beloved). Charity toward God is amor amicitiae—wishing God to know and love himself as much as he is knowable and lovable.
• Operation (operatio): In Thomas, this covers three kinds of activity: acting upon something, being acted upon, and immanent operations (understanding, willing) that do not go out of the agent.

Examples & Illustrations #

• The Light Bulb Example: Hitting a light bulb interferes with seeing, but not as the organ of sight (as hitting the eye does). Rather, it interferes with the object of sight. Similarly, damage to the brain interferes with thinking not by damaging the thinking organ, but by affecting the images on which the intellect depends. This distinguishes between instrumental impediment and essential impediment.

• The Triangle Example: When understanding what a triangle is, the intellect grasps it universally, not as the singular triangle one imagines. A triangle is continuous (divisible infinitely), but a definition (equilateral and right-angled quadrilateral) is non-continuous (the parts meet without division). Since the continuous thing is received in a non-continuous way in the intellect, the intellect itself cannot be a bodily organ receiving it continuously.

• The Seeing in Faith vs. Sight: In this life, we “walk through faith, not through sight” (2 Corinthians 5). Separated souls “walk through species” (through the sight of God’s essence), seeing the divine nature in which true beatitude consists.

• The Separated Soul’s Desire: Like visiting a grandchild and wishing one’s spouse were present to share the joy—the soul is truly blessed in the beatific vision but naturally desires the body to share in that beatitude.

• Names from Augustine: Benevolio (true friend) vs. Malvolio from Twelfth Night—illustrating amor amicitiae as benevolence, the will for good.

Notable Quotes #

“The soul has itself in a different way towards being than the other parts… But the human soul remains, and to the human soul remains the being of the composite after the destruction of the body… the soul always subsists in its own being.”

“The understanding does not need for its operation the body, except on account of the images in which it looks upon the understandable truth… But it is manifest, however, that the divine essence cannot be seen through images.”

“To love God by the love of charity, is I must wish to God that he would know himself as much as he’s knowable, and love himself as much as he’s lovable.”

“If I want to know God more than God wants me to know him, I would be imitating the sin of the devil… the devil sinned by wanting his beatitude from his own powers.”

Questions Addressed #

Can the Separated Soul Be Blessed Without the Body? #

The Question: Do six objections successfully prove that the body is necessary for beatitude?

The Resolution: No. The soul can achieve true and perfect beatitude—the vision of God—without the body. The body is not constitutively required for beatitude (not essential to what beatitude is), though it does pertain to the perfectiveness of beatitude (the well-being and complete perfection of the soul). When the body is resumed in the resurrection, the soul’s beatitude will be more perfect not in intensity of vision, but in completeness—the joy overflowing to the body as well.

How Does the Intellect Prove the Soul Transcends the Body? #

The Key Argument: Whatever is received in a body as a continuous thing becomes singular. But the intellect receives the universal (non-singular, non-continuous) form of things. Therefore, the intellect is not a bodily power. The operation of understanding does not require bodily organs for the vision of God, since God (who is immaterial) cannot be known through material images.