Aquinas on the Immortality of the Soul: Some Reflections

Aquinas's thoughts about the human soul present us with a puzzle. On the one hand, Thomas has been applauded within the analytic tradition as an anti-dualistic thinker, who emphasises the animal nature of human beings and denies that there could be disembodied human persons. Yet on the other ha...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Heythrop journal
Main Author: Hewitt, Simon Thomas (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Wiley-Blackwell 2023
In: Heythrop journal
IxTheo Classification:KAE Church history 900-1300; high Middle Ages
NBE Anthropology
NBQ Eschatology
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Summary:Aquinas's thoughts about the human soul present us with a puzzle. On the one hand, Thomas has been applauded within the analytic tradition as an anti-dualistic thinker, who emphasises the animal nature of human beings and denies that there could be disembodied human persons. Yet on the other hand he holds, as a faithful Catholic theologian, that the human soul survives death, and maintains that the post-mortem soul, prior to its reunification with the body is the subject of characteristically personal intellectual activities. This paper reviews the state of the debate regarding whether these commitments of Aquinas's can be reconciled, and concludes that they cannot in his own terms. However, a recognisably thomist approach to the post-mortem survival of the soul is available, proceeding on the basis that to be rationally ensouled is to have a life-story.
ISSN:1468-2265
Contains:Enthalten in: Heythrop journal
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1111/heyj.14160