Rational soul
| Latin | Anima rationalis; anima intellectiva |
|---|---|
| Treatise | Summa theologiae I, questions 75–76 |
| Controlling authority | Council of Vienne; Catechism 365–366; Lateran V |
| Doctrinal standing | The rational soul as form of the body, immortal and immediately created, is Catholic doctrine; virtual containment of lower grades is Thomistic |
| School | Thomism |
| Branch | Philosophical anthropology |
Rational soul is the Thomistic and conciliar name for the one intellective soul of man, which is of itself the substantial form of the human body and the principle of both spiritual and bodily operations.[1]
Intellective form of a body
Summa theologiae I, questions 75–76, argue that the principle by which man understands is the form of the human body. The soul is not the whole man. The soul is not a complete species using flesh as clothing. It is a subsistent form, incomplete as a person without the body, yet capable of existing after death because understanding is not the act of an organ.[2]
The Council of Vienne defined that this rational soul is of itself and essentially the form of the human body. The Catechism of the Catholic Church, 365, repeats the definition. Lateran V adds immortality and the multiplication of souls with bodies. Those are the dogmatic anchors. The technical vocabulary of subsistence and virtual containment is the school.[3][4]
One soul, lower grades virtually
Thomists deny a second substantial form in man. The rational soul gives the body its being as a human body, and therefore also its being as living and sensing. Vegetative and sensitive operations are present as grades in the one form, not as leftover animal souls beneath an intellect. That is the unicity thesis applied to anthropology.
The 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia article on the soul and the article on Thomism record this as the characteristic Thomist position against certain Franciscan and Oxford condemnations of the late thirteenth century. It is a school position under the Vienne definition, not a second Vienne.[5]
Creation and origin
The Catechism, 366, teaches that every spiritual soul is created immediately by God and not produced by the parents. Aquinas holds the same: the intellective soul cannot be educed from matter as a merely material form is. Infusion and creation coincide with the constitution of the human being. The exact moment of infusion is a question of philosophy and science under that doctrine, not a defined clock time.[6]
This origin-doctrine protects two truths. The child is not a parental artifact. The soul is not a piece of the divine substance. Immediate creation is the Catholic middle between traducianism and emanationism. Thomism supplies the reason: a spiritual form cannot come from seed.
Christology and last things
The Word assumed a rational soul and a body. If the soul were not the form of the body, the Incarnation would not reach the flesh. If the soul were not rational, the assumed nature would not be human. The same soul is judged, can be beatified, and awaits reunion with the body. The rational soul is therefore not a specialist topic of psychology. It is the subject of redemption.
Ordinary speech may say soul without the adjective rational. The meaning remains this soul: spiritual, created, form of this body, destined for resurrection. Any other meaning either paganizes the dead or materializes the living.
References
- Back to citation Fifth Lateran Council, Apostolici regiminis — Conciliar constitution teaching that the rational soul is immortal and multiplied according to the multitude of bodies, against mortalist and monopsychist errors.
- Back to citation Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae I, question 75 — Primary treatment of the soul in itself, its subsistence, and the incorruptibility of the human intellective soul.
- Back to citation Council of Vienne, Fidei catholicae — Conciliar definition that the rational soul is of itself and essentially the form of the human body, against any denial of that substantial unity.
- Back to citation Catechism of the Catholic Church, 355–368 — Authoritative anthropology of the human person as a unity of body and soul, the soul as form of the body, and the soul's immediate creation and immortality.
- Back to citation Catholic Encyclopedia (1913), Soul — Public-domain account of the soul, its faculties, and the Catholic doctrine of the human soul as substantial form.
- Back to citation Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae I, question 76 — Primary hylomorphic anthropology: the intellective soul as form of the body and the rejection of a plurality of substantial forms in man.