ARTICLE I

The Question Is about the Passions of the Soul, and in the First Article We Ask: How DOES THE SOUL SUFFER WHEN SEPARATED FROM

THE BODY?

Difficulties:

It seems that it does not suffer from a corporeal fire, for

1. Augustine says: "An agent is superior to its corresponding patient." But the soul is superior to any body whatsoever. Therefore the soul cannot suffer from corporeal fire.

2. It was said in answer that fire acts upon the soul as an instrument of divine vindictive justice.--On the contrary, an instrument accomplishes its instrumental action only by exercising its natural action, as the water of baptism sanctifies the soul by washing the body, and a saw makes a bench by cutting wood. But fire cannot have any natural action upon the soul. It therefore cannot act upon the soul as the instrument of divine justice.

3. The answer was given that the natural action of fire is to burn up, and so it naturally acts upon the soul in so far as the soul has a complement of combustibles.--On the contrary, the combustibles which are said to form the complement of the soul are sins, to which corporeal fire is not contrary. Since all natural action is by reason of contrariety, it therefore seems that the soul cannot suffer from corporeal fire as having a complement of combustibles.

4. Augustine says: "The things by which souls freed of their bodies are affected either for good or for ill are not corporeal but similar to corporeal things." Then the fire by which the separated soul is punished is not corporeal.

5. Damascene says: "The devil and his demons and his man, the Antichrist, and the wicked and sinners will be given over to eternal fire--not a material one such as is familiar to us but one such as God surely knows." Now all corporeal fire is material. Then the fire from which the separated soul suffers is not corporeal.

6. The answer was offered that such a corporeal fire afflicts the soul inasmuch as it is seen by it, as Gregory says: "The soul suffers from fire by the very fact of seeing it" and so what immediately afflicts the soul is not something corporeal but the apprehended likeness of something corporeal.--On the contrary, the thing seen, by being seen, is the perfection of the seer. Consequently by being seen it does not give pain to the one seeing but rather pleasure. If, then, something that is seen causes pain, this will be because it is harmful in some other way. But fire cannot afflict the soul by acting upon it in some other way, as has been proved. Then neither does the soul suffer from fire simply by seeing it.

7. Between an agent and its patient there is some proportion. But there is no proportion between an incorporeal and a corporeal being. The soul, therefore, being incorporeal, cannot suffer from corporeal fire.

8. If corporeal fire acts upon the soul in a way that is not natural, this action must be due to some superadded power. Now that power is either corporeal or spiritual. But it cannot be spiritual, because a corporeal being is not susceptible of a spiritual power. If, on the other hand, it is corporeal, fire will still not be able to act upon the soul by this power, since the soul is superior to every corporeal power. The soul therefore cannot suffer either naturally or supernaturally.

9. It was advanced in answer that by sin the soul is made less noble than a corporeal creature.--On the contrary, Augustine says that a living substance is nobler than any non-living substance. But a rational soul, even after sinning, still remains living by its natural life. It therefore does not become less noble than corporeal fire, which is a nonliving substance.

10. If corporeal fire afflicts the soul, it does so only inasmuch as it is apprehended or sensed as harmful. But a thing does harm to another by taking something away from it. Thus Augustine says that evil does harm because it takes good away. Now a corporeal fire cannot take anything away from the soul. Thus it cannot afflict it.

11. It was said that it takes away the glory of the vision of God.--On the contrary, children who are damned for original sin alone are deprived of the vision of God. If, then, corporeal fire does not take away from the damned anything more, the pains of those who are being punished in hell for actual sins will be no greater than those of children who are being punished in limbo. But this is against Augustine's doctrine.

12. Whatever acts upon another impresses upon it a likeness of the form through which the agent acts. But fire acts through heat. Now since the soul cannot be heated, it therefore seems that it cannot be acted upon by fire.

13. God is more ready to show mercy than to punish. But one who deliberately resists, especially an adult, is not helped through the instruments of divine mercy, the sacraments. Then through the instrument of divine justice, corporeal fire, the soul will not undergo punishment against its will. Obviously it does not undergo it voluntarily. Hence the soul is in no way punished through corporeal fire.

14. Whatever suffers anything from another being is in some way moved by it. But under no species of motion can the soul be moved by corporeal fire, as is clear by induction. Consequently the soul cannot suffer anything from corporeal fire.

15. Whatever is made to suffer by another has matter in common with it, as is seen from Boethius. But the soul does not have matter in common with corporeal fire. It therefore cannot suffer from corporeal fire.

To the Contrary:

1'. The rich man buried in hell as to his soul only, says: "I am tormented in this flame." (Luke 16:24.)

2'. Commenting on the words of Job (20:26): "A fire that is not kindled shall devour him," Gregory says: "Though the fire of hell is corporeal and corporeally burns the reprobates cast into it, it is not kindled by any human effort or fed with wood; but once created, it continues inextinguishable without needing kindling or losing its heat."

3'. Cassiodorus says that the soul separated from the body "hears and sees with its senses more keenly" than when it is in the body. But while it is in the body it suffers from something corporeal by sensing it. All the more then does it do so when it is separated from the body.

4'. Like the soul, demons are incorporeal. But demons suffer from corporeal fire, as is clear from Matthew (25:41): "Depart from me, you cursed, . . ." So too, then, does the separated soul.

5'. For the soul to be justified is something greater than for it to be punished. But certain corporeal beings act upon the soul for its justification in so far as they are instruments of divine mercy, as is evident in the case of the sacraments of the Church. Some corporeal beings, then, can likewise act upon the soul for its punishment in so far as they are instruments of divine justice.

6'. What is less noble can suffer from what is more noble. But corporeal fire is nobler than the soul of a damned person. Therefore the souls of the damned can suffer from corporeal fire.--Proof of the minor: Any being at all is nobler than non-being. But non-existence is nobler than the existence of the souls of the damned, as is clear from Matthew (26:24): "It were better for him, if that man had not been born." Then any being at all, and therefore corporeal fire, is nobler than a damned soul.

REPLY:

To clear up this issue and those of the following articles we must understand what passion or suffering is in its proper sense. It must therefore be borne in mind that the term passion is taken in two senses: one general and the other proper.

In its general sense passion is the reception of something in any way at all. This usage conforms to the root meaning of the word itself, for passion is derived from the Greek patin, meaning "to receive."

In its proper sense passion is used of motion, since action and passion consist in motion, inasmuch as it is by way of motion that reception in a patient takes place. And because all motion is between contraries, that which the patient receives must be contrary to something given up by the patient. Now conformably with what is received the patient is made like the agent; and hence it is that by passion in the proper meaning of the term the agent is opposed to the patient as its contrary, and every passion removes something from the substance of the patient. Passion in this sense, however, is found only in the motion of alteration. For in local motion nothing is received in the mobile, but the mobile itself is received in a place. But in the motion of increase and decrease what is received or given up is not a form but something substantial, like nourishment, on whose addition or subtraction the greatness or smallness of quantity depends. In generation and corruption there is no motion or contrariety except by reason of a previous alteration. Consequently passion is properly found only in alteration, in which one contrary form is received and the other is driven out.

Because passion in its proper sense involves a certain loss, inasmuch as the patient is changed from its former quality to a contrary one, the term passion is broadened in usage, so that whatever is in anyway kept from what belongs to it is said to suffer (pati). Thus we should say that something heavy suffers when prevented from moving downward, or that a man suffers if prevented from doing his own will.

Taken in the first sense, then, passion is found in the soul and in every creature, because every creature has some potentiality in its composition, and by reason of this every subsistent creature is capable of receiving something. Taken in the second sense, however, passion is found only where there is motion and contrariety. Now motion is found only in bodies, and the contrariety of forms or qualities only in beings subject to generation and corruption. Hence only such beings can properly suffer in this sense. Consequently the soul, being incorporeal, cannot suffer in this sense; for even though it receives something, this does not happen by an exchange of contraries but simply by a communication from the agent, as air is lighted by the sun. But in the third sense, in which the term passion is taken figuratively, the soul can suffer in the sense that its operation can be hampered.

Some, aware that passion in a proper sense cannot be in the soul, have asserted that everything said in the Scriptures about the bodily pains of the damned is to be understood metaphorically. Thus by the bodily pains with which we are familiar there would be indicated the spiritual afflictions by which damned spirits are punished; just as on the other hand, by the bodily delights promised in Scripture we understand the spiritual delights of the blessed. Origen and Algazel seem to have been of this opinion. But because, believing in the resurrection, we believe that there will be suffering not only for spirits but also for bodies, and because bodies cannot be punished except by bodily suffering, and because the same suffering is due both to men after the resurrection and to spirits, as is clear from Matthew (25:41): "Depart from me, you cursed, into everlasting fire . . . ," it is therefore necessary to say, as Augustine proves, that even spirits are affected in some way by bodily pains. Nor is there a parallel between the glory of the blessed and the pains of the damned, because the blessed are raised up to a state that surpasses their nature and thus are given beatitude through the enjoyment of the divinity, whereas the damned are pushed down to a state that is below them and thus are punished even with bodily torments.

Others have accordingly said that the separated soul will be affected by certain pains, to be sure, which, though not bodily, are nevertheless like bodily pains, something like the pains with which people asleep are afflicted. Augustine seems to have thought this, and also Avicenna. But this also cannot be true. For such likenesses of bodies cannot be intellectual, because intellectual likenesses are universal and attention to them would not cause affliction of the soul but rather pleasure in the contemplation of truth. This expression must therefore be understood of imaginational likenesses, which can exist only in a bodily organ, as is proved by the philosophers. But there is no such organ, of course, in the separated soul and in the spirits of the demons.

Others accordingly say that the separated soul suffers from bodies themselves. How this can be is explained by some in one way and by others in another.

Some say that the separated soul uses its senses, and therefore, by sensing a corporeal fire, is punished by fire. This is what Gregory seems to say when he says: "The soul suffers from fire by the very fact of seeing it." But that does not seem to be true; first of all because the acts of the sensitive powers cannot be had except by means of bodily organs, for otherwise the sentient souls of the brutes would be incorruptible, as being capable of having their operations by themselves; and in the second place because, granted that the separated souls would sense, they could still not be afflicted by sensible things; for the sensible object is the perfection of the sentient being as such, just as the intelligible object is the perfection of the intelligent being.

It is therefore not as sensed or understood that something sensible or intelligible causes pain or sadness, but inasmuch as it is harmful or is so apprehended. Thus it is necessary to find a way in which fire can be harmful to the separated soul.

Nor can it be true, as some say, that, although corporeal fire cannot be harmful to a spirit, yet it can be apprehended as harmful. This seems to agree with what Gregory says: "Because the soul sees itself being burned, it is burned." For it is improbable that demons, who enjoy sharpness of perception, do not know their own nature and that of corporeal fire much better than we do, so that they could falsely believe it possible for a corporeal fire to harm them.

It must therefore be said that really, and not only apparently, souls are afflicted by corporeal fire. This is what Gregory says: "We can gather from the statements of the gospels that the soul suffers burning not only by seeing but also by experiencing it."

To assign the way in which this happens some say that as the instrument of divine justice corporeal fire can act upon the soul, even though it cannot do so according to its own nature. For there are many things that are not sufficient of their own nature to accomplish something which they are nonetheless able to accomplish as the instruments of another agent. Thus the element fire is not sufficient for the generation of flesh except as the instrument of the nutritive power. But this solution does not seem to be adequate, for an instrument does not perform an action which surpasses its own nature except by exercising some action natural to it, as was said in the difficulties.

It is therefore necessary to find some other way in which the soul somehow suffers naturally from corporeal fire. This can be understood as follows. An incorporeal substance may be united to a body in two ways: (1) as a form, inasmuch as it vivifies the body; and (2) as a mover is united to the thing moved or as a thing placed is united to its place, namely, by some operation or some relationship. But because there is one act of existing for the form and that of which it is the form, the union of a spiritual substance to a corporeal one after the manner of a form is a union in the act of existing. Now the existence of no being lies within its own power; and consequently it is not within the power of a spiritual substance to be united to a body or to be separated from it after the manner of a form, but this is accomplished either by a law of nature or by the divine power. But because the operation of a thing which operates voluntarily is within its own power, it is within the power of a spiritual nature, conformably to the order of nature, to be united to a body or to be separated from it after the manner of a mover or of a thing placed; but that a spiritual substance thus united to a body should be confined and hampered and, as it were, fettered by it, that is above nature. The corporeal fire in question, then, acting as the instrument of divine justice, accomplishes something above the power of nature, that is, to confine or fetter the soul; but the union itself in the manner mentioned is natural.

The soul accordingly suffers from corporeal fire in the third way proposed above, namely, in the sense in which we say that anything suffers which is obstructed in its proper activity or kept from something which belongs to it. Augustine affirms this sort of passion when he says: "Why should we not say that even incorporeal spirits can be afflicted by the punishment of corporeal fire in true though wonderful ways if the spirits of men, which are also unquestionably incorporeal, both could now be enclosed in bodily members and will in the future be able to be indissolubly bound by the chains of their own bodies? The incorporeal spirits of the demons . . . will therefore cling to corporeal fires to be tormented, not in such a way that the fires themselves to which they cling will be animated by union with them and become living beings, . . . but by clinging in marvelous and inexpressible ways they will receive pain from the fires yet not give life to them."

Gregory also proposes this sort of passion, saying: "As long as Truth presents the rich sinner as damned in fire, what man of any wisdom will deny that the souls of the reprobate are held by fires?"

Answers to Difficulties:

1. The agent does not have to be superior to the patient in every respect, but merely as agent. And so, inasmuch as fire acts upon the soul as the instrument of divine justice, it is superior to the soul, though not in every respect.

2. There is something natural in that passion and action, as has been said.*

3. That difficulty is speaking about a passion as used in the second sense, which is had through the contrariety of forms; and this is impossible in the case at hand.

4. On this matter Augustine does not expressly decide anything in the place cited, but he is speaking there by way of inquiry as if proposing a difficulty. Hence he does not say absolutely that the things by which the separated souls are affected are not corporeal but similar to corporeal things, but he is speaking hypothetically: if the things were of this kind, they could still affect the souls with joy or sorrow. In the same way, when he says that the soul is not borne to corporeal places except in company with another body, he says this as part of a disjunction, adding: "or else not locally," that is, by commensuration to a place.

5. In the pain of a separated soul there are two principles to be taken into account: the first afflicting principle, and the proximate one. The first afflicting principle is corporeal fire itself which confines the soul as explained above.* But this would not arouse sadness in the soul unless it were apprehended by the soul. The proximate afflicting principle is therefore the confining fire as apprehended; and this fire is not material but spiritual. In this sense Damascene's statement can be verified.--Or it can be said in answer that he says it is not material because it does not punish the soul by acting materially, as it punishes bodies.

6. That fire is apprehended as harmful inasmuch as it is confining and fettering. In this sense the sight of it can be the source of affliction.

7. There is no proportion of the spiritual to the corporeal if proportion is taken in its proper sense, according to a definite relationship of quantity to quantity, either of dimensive quantity to dimensive quantity or of virtual quantity to virtual quantity, as two bodies are proportioned to each other in dimension and power; for the power of a spiritual substance is not of the same genus as corporeal power. If, however, proportion is taken broadly as meaning any relationship, then there is some proportion of the spiritual to the corporeal through which the spiritual can naturally act upon the corporeal, though not conversely except by divine power.

8. An instrument performs its instrumental activity inasmuch as it is moved by the principal agent and through this motion shares in some way in the power of the principal agent, but not so that that power has its complete existence in the instrument, because motion is an incomplete act. The difficulty argues as if a complete power were required in the instrument for the performance of the instrumental action.

9. The soul, even when sinful, is simply nobler than any corporeal power as regards its nature; but as regards guilt it is made less noble than corporeal fire, not simply but inasmuch as it is the instrument of divine justice.

10. That fire harms the soul, not in such a way that it takes away from it some form inhering in it absolutely, but in so far as it prevents its free action, confining it, as has been said.*

11. In children because of the lack of grace there is only the privation of the vision of God without anything contrary actively hampering them. But the damned in hell are not only deprived of the vision of God because of the lack of grace, but are also hampered as by something contrary because they are overwhelmed with bodily pains.

12. The soul does not suffer from fire as if it were altered by it but in the manner explained above.*

13. Voluntariness is essential to justice but not to punishment; rather it is contrary to it. Hence the instruments of divine mercy, which are intended to justify, do not act upon a soul which resists; but the instruments of divine justice for punishing do act upon a soul which resists.

14. That difficulty argues on the supposition of a passion properly so called, which consists in motion. But we are not speaking of that now.

15. To have a passion in the proper sense of the term a thing must have matter subject to contrariety, as has been said.* And for two things to have a reciprocal passion, they must have a common matter. Yet a thing can suffer from another with which it does not have any matter in common, as an inferior body suffers from the sun. And a thing which does not have any matter at all can suffer in some way, as is evident from what was said above.*

Answers to Contrary Difficulties:

Because these in some way come to true conclusions, but not by a true process, they must be answered in order.

1'. Augustine shows that that proof is invalid: "I should indeed say that spirits without any body are going to burn, just as that rich man was burning in hell when he said, 'I am tormented in this flame,' if I did not see that it would fittingly be answered that that flame was of the same kind as the eyes which he raised to see Lazarus, as the tongue upon which he craved a little water to be poured, as the finger of Lazarus by which he asked that it be done, while they were nevertheless souls without bodies. Thus that flame by which he was burning can be understood to have been incorporeal as well." From this it is clear that that passage cited in authority is not effective as a proof of the point at issue unless something else is added to it.

2'. The fire of hell burns incorporeal substances corporeally from the point of view of the agent, not from that of the patient. But the bodies of the damned it will burn corporeally from the latter point of view as well.

3'. The statement of Cassiodorus does not seem to be true if he is speaking of the external senses. For it to be true it must be understood of internal spiritual senses.

4'. An answer to that passage of the gospel could be that the fire is spiritual, except for the fact that the bodies of the damned could not be punished by it. That argument, then, does not sufficiently prove the point at issue.

5'. The same is to be said of this difficulty, which argues from a parallel.

6'. In so far as a damned soul is a real being it is better than nonbeing. But the words of our Lord that it would be better for it not to be, mean: in so far as it is subject to misery and guilt.