De locis theologicis

IN WHICH A QUESTION IS CALLED INTO DOUBT THAT IS BOTH NATURAL AND PERTINENT TO FAITH

Since we have spoken about the kind of arguments that concern both explaining the principles of faith and confirming the conclusions of theology, we must next discuss those arguments that also pertain to proving natural things. Natural questions are of two distinct kinds. Some can be proved by arguments from nature alone; others are also confirmed by the authority of faith. In the reasoning of nature, there is no difference between these two kinds. For the arguments for both questions must be sought from exactly the same sources, namely, the human disciplines. All those arguments are contained in the final three loci. The difference is that the latter questions, since they concern faith, have a wider scope and can be confirmed from every locus. The question I wish to consider in this chapter belongs to this kind: whether the human soul is immortal, as Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato, Theophrastus, Themistius, Seneca, Cicero, and the better philosophers thought, or rather mortal, as Lucretius, Galen, Pliny, and Alexander seem to have held.

My critics should not blame me for undertaking a matter that many have debated most carefully. Among them is D. Thomas, whose abundance of arguments on both sides is such that nothing more seems possible to add. But since he brought forward scarcely any arguments from faith, while Enricus and Scotus say that the arguments from nature persuade probably but do not prove necessarily, I think I will not act rashly if I discuss the same question that so many great and distinguished minds have treated. I will not be repeating what has already been done; rather, unless I am mistaken, what I do will be plainly useful, if not necessary—especially since even our own Caietanus, very unlike himself, wrote that he believed the rational soul to be incorruptible but did not know it. In this he partly agrees with Enricus and Scotus, whom he himself once refuted in astonishing ways. I say partly, because he denied that others knew it, not that he himself knew it. Therefore, to set out this controversy as carefully as possible, I will first argue that the question has no bearing at all on faith, and then that it cannot be demonstrated by natural reason. (First argument.) Augustinus teaches—and not once but repeatedly (De Bapt. paruul. lib. 3, cap. 10; et primo Retract., cap. 1; et decimo Super Genes., cap. 1, 3 et 4)—that it is not a question of faith whether rational souls descend by propagation or whether each one is created individually from nothing. If the human soul were propagated through the power of seed, without doubt it would be generable and therefore also corruptible. (Second argument.) Next, the Sadducees thought the human soul was mortal, yet they were not considered heretics; indeed, the faithful people honored them as religious. (Third argument.) Moreover, there are four testimonies of Scripture by which the immortality of souls can especially be taught. One is (Eccle. 12): “Until the dust returns to the earth from which it came, and the spirit returns to God who gave it.” Another is (Sap. 2): “God created man incorruptible and made him in the image of his likeness.” A third is (Matth. 10): “Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul.” The fourth is the one the Lord uses in the Gospel (Matth. 22): “I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Iacob. He is not the God of the dead but of the living.” For what Augustinus (quaest. 33, in Numer.) says is more evident from the Law of Moyses than the rest does not even usually seem probable to me as a way of vindicating souls from destruction. Of the four testimonies commonly cited by theologians, the first can be evaded: Augustinus teaches (Lib. X Super Genes., capit. 9) that it is weak against those who believe souls are generated by propagation. It is therefore also weak against those who say souls perish with bodies. “Just as it is written,” he says, “‘until the spirit returns to God who gave it,’ so too we read, ‘the spirit goes and does not return.’” Someone may also refute the second by saying that it speaks not of the soul but of the human being, whom God made immortal from the beginning through grace. Hence it immediately adds: “But through the envy of the devil, death entered into the world.” The third can be interpreted as referring to the spiritual death of the soul, that is, eternal death; about this you have the saying: “The teeth of the lion are his teeth, killing the souls of men.” This interpretation is supported by what immediately follows: “Fear him who, after he has killed, has power to cast into Gehenna.” That is why D. Thomas did not want to use this testimony either in Prima Parte, or in Summa contra Gentes, or in the question De anima. For the fourth speaks of the Resurrection, not immortality. The Lord says: “As for the resurrection of the dead, have you not read,” and so on. Nothing, however, prevents the soul from perishing together with the body and later rising again with the body. Therefore, it is not a decree of faith that souls are immortal.

(Fourth argument.) That the soul’s immortality cannot be shown by natural argument is first conjectured from this: although Ambrose (De bono mort., cap. 9) and Augustine (2 Solil. et lib. De immort. anim.) strained every nerve to prove it, they accomplished nothing at all. Yet we do not surpass Ambrose and Augustine. (Fifth argument.) Besides, when Scotus (4, dist. 43, quaest. 2), Iandunus (3 De anim. quaest. 5 et 29), and Caietanus (In epistol. ad Rom., cap. 9)—men endowed with great talent and great learning in philosophy—examined St Thomas’s arguments, they finally declared that the matter had not been demonstrated but was believed. It is not likely that those arguments, if they were evident and clear, would bring no light of evidence to keen and sharp eyes. (Sixth argument.) Moreover, Aristotle did not always write the same thing on this matter, but at one time this and at another that. It is therefore not probable that amid such variety and inconsistency he held a certain and established belief in the soul’s immortality. For, to omit the other passages which both St Thomas (2 Aduer. Gentes c. 79) and Ferrariensis (in Commentariis) cite to show that he sometimes supported the incorruptibility of the rational soul, there is a plain and straightforward passage in 2 lib. De gen. anim., c. 3, where Aristotle openly teaches that the human mind is not in the power of the seed, like the other souls, but comes from outside. If, then, it is not drawn out of the potentiality of matter nor produced by the human begetter through the power of the seed, it certainly subsists and does not depend on matter. Caietanus argues in many ways (In 3 lib. De anima) that Aristotle sometimes departed from this view, and these arguments make it seem likely to me. First, if Aristotle retains his own principles, he cannot escape the infinity of souls unless he falls into the error of Averroes or the madness of Pythagoras. Second, in I. caeli he asserts that whatever is incorruptible has also always existed. Third, in eth. li. I he criticizes Solon for asserting that a man’s true happiness survives after death. Hence he also laments the brevity of human happiness and requires resources and riches as aids to happiness. You will find no word in him about the human soul after death. It is not credible that, if he thought the soul immortal, he would not even briefly touch on how he understood the separated soul or its happiness. Fourth, from the proemium of De anima, where he laid down this premise: if understanding is imagination, or cannot exist without imagination, the soul cannot be separated. In the third book, however, he posited the antecedent that understanding does not exist without imagination; hence the consequent, and so forth. Fifth, not only Gregory of Nyssa, whom St Thomas cites, but also Justin Martyr (in libr. Admonitorio gentium) and Theodoret (lib. 5 De curati. grae. affecti.) agree that Aristotle denied the immortality of souls. Who would believe that so many such men gave false testimony? Unless Alexander of Aphrodisias too, a Peripatetic eminent above the rest, falsely attributed this opinion to his own teacher. (Seventh argument.) Moreover, the immortality of souls is so joined and bound up with God’s providence toward human beings that whoever denies the former must also deny the latter; whoever admits the latter must necessarily admit the former, as we said above. Yet God’s providence toward human affairs cannot be made clear by human arguments, but is known with certainty only from divine oracles. The Prophet testifies to this when he says (Psal. 72): “I thought I could understand this, but it was a labor before me, until I entered the sanctuary of God and understood their end.” And again (Psal.

93): “The Lord knows the thoughts of men, that they are vain. Blessed is the man whom you instruct, O Lord, and teach from your law.” (Eighth argument.) Moreover, the most direct way to investigate the soul’s immortality is the one Aristotle followed, namely, through the soul’s proper operation. For a thing’s being is related to its operation in the same way as its nature is. By daily experience, however, he proved that our soul understands nothing without an image; therefore it depends on the body not only to receive intelligible species but also to use them and understand the things themselves. They reply that the soul’s proper action depends on the body not as on a subject but as on an object. But this answer is refuted. For if, as far as the light of reason and investigation by the senses teach us, none of our understanding occurs without the body, it makes no difference whether the dependence is in this way or that, since in either case one may most probably conclude that, if outside the body, the soul would lie torpid and idle like dormice, free of every activity. For we experience that intelligible species depend on images both in coming to be and in operating. Hence Aristotle wavered and accomplished nothing—or, if he did accomplish anything, he concluded only that souls perish with bodies, lest they remain vain and idle outside them. (Ninth argument.) This is confirmed especially by the fact that if the soul subsisted in itself and therefore were immortal, it would not need the body for being, as other forms do, but only for operation. For it must beg intelligible species from bodies through the body’s senses. Otherwise, an intellect subsisting in nature in itself, and therefore free from the body’s heaviness and the imperfection of matter, would not be joined to the body in any way if it had innate species of its own, by which it could understand without the body’s help. But we see that species received from the body also depend on the body in their operation. For this reason the one who understands must contemplate images. Therefore the soul, separated from the body, will not understand through those species. It has no other species superadded. Hence, separated from the body, it will lie torpid in sleep and idleness, which is absurd. (Tenth argument.) Moreover, the Sixth Synod teaches in actio II that the human soul is not immortal by nature, but by grace, which restrains it from death. And again, it says: “Souls do not properly have an immortal nature, but obtained this by grace.” Therefore no natural argument can show the soul’s immortality, since by its own nature it is mortal. (Eleventh argument.) Add the twenty-one arguments by which St Thomas (Quaest. de anima, art. 14) argued plausibly that the soul seemed corruptible. If I repeat them here, I shall be tiresome. For I do not see how I could add others, unless I wished to resemble Iandunus and authors of that sort, who, in order to bring forward arguments that might seem to prove the soul mortal, set out arguments meant to persuade us that it is not essentially the form and act of the body. Caietanus reported these arguments (In 3 lib. de anima), and perhaps would have acted much more wisely had he disregarded them. (Twelfth argument.) Add also that Scotus responds sharply to the arguments that prove the soul immortal (4, dist. 43, quaest. 2). Therefore, if the arguments discovered by earlier writers do not demonstrate this, and it is not within our power to devise new ones, let us admit that no certain argument from nature makes it evident that the soul lives immortally. I have briefly set out the arguments that those who seek to weaken the immortality of souls could use. Yet Catholic faith teaches it most firmly, as does certain reasoning from nature. The conclusions and arguments that follow will make this clear.

First conclusion: “That the human soul is mortal manifestly conflicts with the Catholic faith.” Genesis 37: “I will go down to my son, mourning, into hell.” Job 21: “They spend their days in prosperity, and in a moment they go down to hell.” Wisdom, likewise, in chapters 2, 3, 4, and 5, teaches most clearly that souls do not perish with bodies. Ecclesiastes 12: “And the spirit return to God who gave it.” 2 Machabees 12: “It is therefore a holy and wholesome thought,” etc. Matthew 10: “Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.” John 12: “He who hates his soul in this world keeps it for eternal life.” Philippians 1: “For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain” (...). “I am constrained by two desires, having a desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ…” In 1 Corinthians 15, the Apostle draws this as most absurd: “Then those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are more miserable than all men.” Later, repeating that foolish saying, “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we shall die,” he immediately adds, “Do not be deceived. Evil communications corrupt,” etc. 2 Corinthians 5: “While we are in the body, we are absent from the Lord; (…) but we are confident and have a good will to be absent from the body and present with God.” A little earlier: “We know that if our earthly house,” etc. We have cited quite enough of the scriptural testimonies which St Thomas said were countless. Yet I fear someone may rightly and deservedly criticize us for using unnecessary witnesses in a matter that is not in doubt, especially since those who deny the soul’s immortality believe neither Christ nor the Gospel and consider the faith of the Church and the saints worthless. It therefore seems superfluous to draw arguments from those passages that contain the authority of faith. Nor is this conclusion properly theological, such that it must be confirmed by theological arguments. Indeed, theology, insofar as it is practical and concerns action, has two primary foundations: that God is both the beginning and end of the human being, and therefore its providential guardian; and that souls have perpetual life, in which God rewards those who seek him. Unless the believer has these things deeply fixed and, as it were, engraved in his mind, I do not say he cannot attain the means and end of his happiness, but he cannot even approach God (Heb. 11) to seek from him the means and end. Since, then, the first principles of every discipline are assumed as most well known, there was no need to cite even those testimonies we recalled from Sacred Scripture. Unless there are some so curious that they even wish Paul had spoken more plainly about the incorruptibility of souls. This is just as if some philosopher were so exceptionally foolish as to wish that in the books of the philosophers, and especially Aristotle, the principle “Everything either is or is not” were often and clearly repeated. But we have said enough about this first proposition, since it is evident. Second proposition: “The soul is immortal by nature, not by a gratuitous gift.” There were some Arabs who said that the soul is mortal by nature but will be raised immortal with the body at the last day. Someone, led by a similar error, might say that the soul would immediately perish with the body if left to its own nature, but that by the force of divine power it is preserved forever either for rewards or for punishments. Someone asserting this could easily twist the Scriptures to his own sense. For they do not affirm that the soul is immortal by its own nature, but only say that it remains after death. In the same way, faith asserts that the body will have perpetual life after the resurrection, though this will be by divine power, not by the body’s nature. This view seems to be supported by the words of the Sixth ¹

Synod cited earlier. Moreover, Augustine (10 Super genes. ad lit. c. 23) leans more toward the opinion that souls are generated by their parents. If this opinion is true, the soul is not immortal by its own nature. I used to condemn this not as heretical but as erroneous; for I have always preferred to remain short of the line rather than cross it, and to be accused of foolish ignorance rather than rash arrogance. But if you consider the matter more carefully, you cannot doubt that this error should be branded as heresy when it is referred to the Apostolic See. First (Augustinus, XIII De Trinit., cap. 9), it is clear that some philosophers, guided by reason from nature, both sought out and discovered the immortality of souls. Therefore the perpetual life of souls is not supernatural or granted to them as a gift. “For who among men can know the counsel of God? Or who can think what God wills (…) unless you give wisdom and send your Holy Spirit from on high?” (Sap. 9). Next, the Lateran Council under Leo X, session 8, defines as heretical the claim that it follows from the principles of philosophy that the soul is mortal. Yet if the soul were naturally corruptible, some natural cause would bring about its corruption. “Since some have dared,” it says, “to say of the nature of the rational soul that it is mortal, and some rashly philosophizing assert at least that this is true according to philosophy, we condemn all who assert that the rational soul is mortal. For it is not only in itself and essentially the form of the human body, but also immortal.” Thus the Council. Moreover, not only theologians but all the faithful have received from our ancestors the immortality of souls, and we believe them incorruptible not by a miracle but by nature. This consensus of the Church must be for us the surest argument for Catholic doctrine. That theologians and all the faithful agree in this matter is clear from the fact that they immediately recoil from anyone who asserts that souls are mortal. For the same faith is inscribed in their minds: angels and the souls of human beings, being intellectual, are by nature immortal as well. Add that since Augustine’s age no believer has doubted that rational souls are created from nothing and infused individually into individual bodies, to use the wording of the Lateran Council. If rational souls are not generated by the power of nature nor drawn out of the potentiality of matter, but come from outside, then clearly they subsist in themselves; hence they do not perish with the body. Augustine himself does not resolve that testimony (Eccles. 12), “The spirit will return to God who gave it.” For if the spirit of a human comes from outside, it follows that it is propagated by no power of a natural agent. Therefore, if by nature it is ungenerated, by nature it is also incorruptible. For natural causes corrupt nothing except what those same causes can generate. As for Augustine’s interpretation that God first gave a spirit to the first man when he breathed into his face the breath of life, and gave a spirit to the others in the first man, who was the head of the rest—may it be said with due respect to so great a man, this in no way weakens the force of the argument. For since Moses at the beginning of Genesis expresses the proper power and nature of natural things, what is signified in the first man is understood also of the rest. Moreover, to show that other living things can be brought forth by the powers of nature, Scripture says: “Let the earth bring forth green plants,” etc. And again: “Let the waters bring forth creeping things having life,” etc. And again: “Let the earth bring forth … cattle and creeping things,” etc. For no one can doubt that the first individual whales, cattle, serpents, and lions were created and made by God without any secondary cause assisting. For this reason it was added, ²

“And God created the great whales and every living and moving creature that the waters had brought forth according to their kinds.” Likewise: “And God made the beasts of the earth according to their kinds,” etc. Scripture wished to signify that such living things were then brought forth by God in such a way that we should nevertheless think their generation to be located in the power of the elements and of bodies formed from the elements. But when it came to the human being, lest his condition be thought similar, Scripture says of his body, “God made man from the slime of the earth,” but of his soul, “He breathed into his face the breath of life.” This varied distinction of differing conditions, observed so carefully by Moses, clearly shows that the souls of other living creatures are in the potentiality of matter, but the human spirit, by which he was made a living soul, is not; rather, it is created and infused by God, who alone breathes it forth and creates it. Besides, whoever says, “Let the spirit return to God who gave it,” teaches plainly enough that the spirit does not perish but remains. For he explains what he had said a little earlier: “Man will go to the house of his eternity.” Otherwise, how does he go to God if he is dissolved like soft air and vanishes like a shadow and smoke? Just as Scripture expresses the nature of the body when it says, “Let the dust return to its earth, from which it came,” so it reveals the nature of the spirit when it says, “And let the spirit return to God,” etc. As for what Augustine says about the spirit going and not returning, that is on our side. For Scripture does not say, “the spirit coming and not returning,” but “the spirit going,” namely, away from the body, “and not returning,” etc. Moreover, those fools whose error is cited in Wisdom, chapter 2, thought the soul was mortal by nature. For they were not speaking of a miracle but of nature. Yet the Wise Man not only openly opposes them but also rebukes them as foolish and senseless. He therefore holds that souls are immortal by nature. Third proposition: “It is erroneous, not to call it heretical, to teach that the soul’s immortality cannot be demonstrated by natural reason.” For if it has an incorruptible nature, there will be some demonstrative reason for this, either a priori or a posteriori. No proposition is self-evident and necessary from the nature of the thing and the connection of its terms that cannot necessarily be shown from its effect, property, definition, or cause. But you say: “The squaring of the circle is demonstrable, though the demonstration has not yet appeared. So Scotus and Iandunus will hold that the soul’s immortality can indeed be shown, though it has not been shown.” Fourth proposition: “It is dangerous and rash—let me add no more—to assert that no argument discovered so far truly demonstrates the soul’s immortality.” For an argument drawn from a thing’s proper operation, or even from a power that necessarily and naturally follows its substance, truly shows what the nature and substance of that thing must be. Theologians, however, argue for the soul’s incorruptibility both from its proper operation and from its proper power, namely, understanding and intellect. Their syllogisms, therefore, are true demonstrations. Someone may perhaps say, “I do not deny that they are demonstrations, but I deny that they are demonstrations for us: those arguments are not certain and clear to us, although in themselves they are suitable to produce certainty and evidence.” O insolent rashness, to measure others by your own understanding and judge the eyes of others by your own! To assert that honey is sweet by its own nature, but that it has been sweet to no one because it has not been sweet to you! To claim that no one can see what you do not see, and that what is not clear to you is obscure to everyone!

St Thomas says that from the premises it can be clearly shown that the human soul does not perish with the body; he concludes in these words (2 Cont. Gent., cap. 79): “It is therefore clear that the human intellect is incorruptible, and hence so is the human soul, which is an intellectual substance.” Likewise (I pars, quaest. 75, art. 2 et 6): “It must be said that the intellectual soul is incorporeal, subsistent, and incorruptible.” Scotus, by contrast, says these are not evident and necessary arguments. Chrysostom asserts (Hom. 4 de provid.) that philosophers who doubt the soul’s immortality doubt whether it is day at noon. Shall we believe that men both most holy and most modest falsely claimed to have evidence they did not possess? Augustine also insists that certain philosophers discovered the soul’s immortality by natural reason, although, he says, few discovered it, and with difficulty. Moreover, God does not fail to provide what is necessary for living well and consistently according to the rule of nature. But a human being can scarcely live rightly and justly unless he both senses that God exists and that souls are immortal—scarcely, I say, or certainly not at all. For it is handed down in memory that those who lived without God, or thought the soul perished with the body, generally had the most depraved morals. The Wise Man expressed this very thing wisely (Sap. 2; Psal. 94; Iob 35). For as soon as the impious adopted the opinion that souls die, and consequently despaired of every good in the life to come and feared no evil after death, they gave themselves over to shamelessness, to the practice of every impurity, and to greed. “After this we shall be as though we had never been. Come, therefore, and let us enjoy the good things that exist,” etc. And Augustine says (Conf. lib. 6 c. postre.): “If I had not believed that after death a life of souls and a reckoning of merits remained, which Epicurus refused to believe, Epicurus would have won the palm in my mind.” As for atheists, when the Prophet had written, “There is no God,” he immediately added, “They are corrupt and have become abominable,” etc. Thus Justin, in Dialogo cum Thryphone, says: “It is not difficult to see where the opinion of those who deny that God cares for you and me is headed. For impunity and license to do and say whatever they wish follow all who neither fear punishment nor expect any benefit from God.” It was therefore part of God’s providential care that, for the necessary rule of conduct and life, he should make nature’s guides and teachers hold not conjectures and opinions, which could easily be drawn this way and that, but a certain and stable reason. For thus it is written (Psal. 93): “He who teaches man knowledge.” And again (Iob 35): “He teaches us more than the beasts of the earth and instructs us above the birds of heaven.” If nature has given other animals certain instincts and, as it were, innate cognitions—not uncertain and unstable but fixed and firm—so that they are rightly directed toward what accords with their nature and drawn away from what is harmful, why should we deny that certain and stable preconceptions are implanted in the minds at least of those whom the author of nature fitted to instruct others, without which they would not have been sufficiently equipped and formed for the truth of goodness? For the condition of beasts is not better than ours (I am not at all reluctant to repeat the same words often; see Lib. X, cap. 4). Hence even barbarian peoples agreed with the wise that the wicked suffer punishments and that souls are immortal. For God most providently always cares for what is necessary to each nature. Who, then, would assert that the common corruptions of the soul are uncertain? But at last you ask: “What are these necessary and evident arguments that seemed probable and obscure to Scotus and Caietanus?” I shall tell you, if I first recall what Aristotle said most prudently (I Ethic.): it is foolish to demand equal certainty and evidence in every subject. In the natural disciplines it is less

than in mathematics, and in moral matters it is less even than in the natural disciplines. Yet no one is so foolish as to refuse the name of knowledge to those fields despite their unequal certainty. Those syllogisms, then, produce knowledge and are true demonstrations, by which we reason about nature and morals, even though their arguments do not contain such great necessity or evidence. The first demonstrative argument, according to Chrysostom, is this (Homil. 4 de providentia vel fato): Whoever says that the soul is mortal must necessarily deny that God is the guardian and judge of human affairs. For if the just depart having suffered injustice, while the wicked enjoy abundance of all things, and there is after death neither reward nor punishment, then there is certainly no providence in heaven to care for such things, no justice to punish the wicked or grant rewards to the good. The rest I pursued at greater length in chapter four of this book. Scotus replies that this argument is much weaker than the others: “For it is not known by natural reason that there is one ruler of human beings who rewards and punishes according to the laws of justice.” This reply can be refuted in two ways. First, because when the Wise Man used this very argument, he called ignorance of this matter ignorance of God’s mysteries. If he considers both God’s providence and the immortality of souls among God’s mysteries, there is no reason for us to count them among evident things. His words run thus (Sap. 2): “They did not know the mysteries of God, nor hope for the reward of justice, nor judge the honor of holy souls.” Second, Justin Martyr and philosopher, in his book De Aristotelis reprehensione, teaches that the nations did not compose their discussions about God and created nature from knowledge that can demonstrate, but explained their view by probable reasoning. Later he says: “These things also sufficiently show that what we have said about the philosophers of the nations is true: they discussed natures not by demonstrative knowledge, but expressed their view by conjecture and probable reasoning.” Add that St Thomas omitted this argument everywhere in the world; he would not have omitted it if it were certain and necessary. Yet no arguments of this kind can move me to depart from the opinion that I see pleased Chrysostom. He held it to be a clear and settled matter that no one would deny God to be the ruler and judge of human beings unless he had said in his heart, “There is no God.” But since this matter has been demonstrated to us above (cap. 4, ad 7), as I said, by a manifest argument, and is to be demonstrated more carefully later, we now consider the point sufficiently established if we have shown that the argument proving the soul’s immortality leads finally to this: God’s providence and justice toward human beings cannot stand unless the soul is incorruptible. What Scotus thinks, that this reasoning can be evaded in another way, is quite ridiculous. “Even if we admit,” he says, “that God grants rewards to the good and punishments to the wicked according to their merits, the very shamefulness of guilt and the lash of conscience are no small punishment for the wicked. The very fruit of virtue, which good men greatly enjoy, is a sufficiently great reward and recompense.” In support of this view he cites Augustine’s saying, worn smooth by everyone’s speech: “You willed it, Lord, and so it is: every disordered soul is its own punishment.” He could also have cited the Apostle (Roman. 1): “Receiving in themselves the reward that was fitting for their error.” In saying this, he does not carefully consider what traps he falls into. First, he must explain that knot (1 Cor. 15): “If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are more miserable than all men.” Next, the Prophet did not think

this question could be resolved unless it was referred to the ends of the good and the wicked, that is, to the final destinies that await the good and wicked; present good and evil not only do not resolve it but entangle it further. “My feet were moved,” he says, “… because I was jealous of the wicked, seeing the peace of sinners,” etc. (Psal. 72). “I thought I could understand this, but it was a labor before me, until … I understood their end (…) How they have been made desolate,” etc. Neither Jeremiah (Hiere. 12) nor Habakkuk (Abac. 1.2.3) thought this question should be answered otherwise. I would gladly explain their meaning, were the discourse not hurrying on to other matters. Moreover, we make God very constrained if he counts as a reward for his servants only that in which they served with a tranquil mind—or rather, even with joy and willingness. What a singular reward, which “snatches away hope” of any future good, the only thing, as Cicero says, that consoles a human being in misery! Who can doubt that mortal souls are raised and sustained in difficult and adverse circumstances by hope for the future, but are broken and collapse if they struggle with despair of everything? Imagine for me a republic in which the worst citizens cast off all fear of punishment and future vengeance, while the best are driven away from hope of future grace and benefit. Since the law has neither spurs for the good nor reins for the wicked, that city, I do not say will be well ordered, but will not even be able to exist. You yourself would judge the man most foolish who established it without reward and punishment. How, then, can one attribute to God the care and administration of a republic that no wise man would allow to be assigned to himself? It has therefore been demonstrated that souls are immortal by an argument so evident and necessary that it cannot be refuted unless you make God either improvident and negligent about human affairs or the foolish founder of a city in which there is no fear of punishment and no expectation of reward. “But the Wise Man says that the incorruptibility of souls belongs to God’s mysteries.” First, I can rightly deny this. For he did not include this matter among the mysteries, but rather that the way of the impious prospers, that they leave traces of joy everywhere, oppress the poor man who is just, and do not spare the widow, etc., and that in all this God seems not merely silent but to treat the good harshly and bitterly, and the wicked gently and softly. These, of course, are God’s mysteries, which human reason understands either with great difficulty or certainly not at all. Further, some natural things are clearly set before everyone’s eyes, while others lie hidden, surrounded by the thickest darkness. These latter you may rightly call the mysteries of nature. I admit that the soul’s immortality is among these: few investigate it, and with difficulty, but it can nevertheless be investigated and discovered. Justin’s words are largely true, but to take away all demonstrations from philosophers is both absurd and contrary to Paul, as will become clear when we refute the seventh argument. For St Thomas is not accustomed to use arguments of this kind, even when they are clear and established. He is careful not to pass by argument from one genus to another, which Aristotle taught in the art of demonstration is a fallacy. It is clear that in this reasoning we leap from God’s providence and justice to the soul’s incorruptibility, which do not exist in the same genus. So much for the first demonstration. The second is such that the insolent can refute it, but well-formed men cannot. We placed it last in the proof of the fourth proposition. Cicero confirms it (Lib. de senect. et I Tuscul. quaest.) in this way: Just as it is sufficiently proved that God exists because no nation is so savage as not to know that God must be worshipped, so among all nations it has been established by common consent that the souls of the dead are released from destruction. This

very thing they wished to attest by funeral ceremonies. For they would not bestow such rites on bodies unless they had persuaded themselves that souls are sacred and divine. Hence, as Cicero says, they thought it wrong to set a price on funeral rites and burial, and they denied such honors to brute animals. The Wise Man, as I seem to see, touched on these two arguments: the first when he says, “Nor did they hope for the reward of justice”; the second when he adds, “Nor did they judge the honor of holy souls.” Indeed, whoever judges that the end of human beings and beasts is one and the same, since he treats his own soul with the greatest disgrace and dishonor, should be buried not with human rites and religion but with the burial of a donkey, as befits his opinion and judgment. So much for the second argument. Scripture indicates a third more than it explains when it immediately adds, “For God created man incorruptible, and made him to the image of his own likeness.” No one can doubt that man was made in God’s image because he has an intellectual nature. Therefore, incorruption belongs to man insofar as he has intellect. The soul, then, by which man understands and is like God, must be incorruptible. Since this argument is drawn from man’s own nature and form, and therefore from principles that are not foreign and external but proper and fitting, it must be illustrated and explained more carefully by us. St Thomas did this divinely, for he understood this to be a certain and straightforward path to the soul’s immortality. The first foundation of this demonstration, then, is that every intellectual form is subsistent, that is, its being does not depend on matter. St Thomas shows this proposition (2 Con. Gen. c. 51), because the intellect does not need a body to support it, since understanding is neither received in a body nor performed through a body. But you say: it does not need the body as a subject, but it does need it as an object. This is plainly refuted in two ways. First, an animal would not subsist in itself, because it needs external objects for its proper operation. Second, what belongs to something accidentally does not change the judgment about the nature of the thing. For example, a stone held in a higher place, etc. Since, then, by the nature of its proper operation the intellectual soul is not supported by the body, it follows that in itself it does not depend on the body. For an act cannot depend on the body in itself except as on matter and a subject in which it is received. See St Thomas in quaest. de anima q. 14 and 2, Contra Gen. c. 55 et 79. Certainly, if understanding were received in the body, the intellect would not perceive all things without distinction, nor would it know universals, but only particulars. If these arguments do not seem evident to you, remember that others are not to be judged by your own understanding, and that mathematical evidence is not required here. But now it is time to refute the objections raised. The first is refuted as follows. We can interpret a question of faith in two ways: in itself and with respect to us. A question is of faith in itself when it has been revealed by God to the Church, even if most people are unaware of it. For example, the Spirit himself revealed to the Apostles that the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son; likewise, that the souls of the saints see God as soon as they have left the body. In the past, it was permitted to hold differing views about these matters, affirming or denying them without prejudice to the faith, since neither had been plainly defined by the Church. Thus with respect to us, they were not always considered questions of faith, but some learned men held an opinion contrary to the truth while preserving the faith. Augustine asserted that it was not a question of faith whether the rational soul is derived by generation. But now, since in later times the consensus of all theologians and the faithful has established that the soul exists not by generation but by creation, there is no doubt that this question pertains to the faith. Nevertheless, if this was

once disputed, the case is not the same with the soul’s immortality, which Catholics have never called into doubt. So much for the first objection. There is nothing difficult in answering the second. For we see that not only under an unbelieving ruler, as the Romans then were, but also now under a Catholic emperor, many in Germany publicly profess manifest heresies. It makes all the difference to have rulers who are both faithful and willing and able to restrain the most insolent audacity of heretics. Besides, where there are factions, the most foul and wicked men are tolerated in the republic by party favor—what do I mean, “tolerated”?—they are sought out, fostered, and embraced. Since the Jewish republic was in this condition, it is surely no wonder that the carnal people tolerated the Sadducees, factious men who served the flesh so much that they denied that any spirit exists. Just as the nations wanted gods like themselves—adulterers, warriors, and plunderers—so the people, corrupt in their vices, want the guardians of religion to be unbound rather than bound, not servants of the spirit but slaves of the flesh. But we have spent more words than necessary refuting an argument that is very easy to refute. We shall refute the third very briefly. For we showed a little earlier that the first testimony most certainly proves the immortality of souls. We were just explaining how much force the second has. But the third cannot be evaded by any answer. For if people cannot kill the soul, though they can kill the body, it is certain that souls do not perish with bodies. Likewise, if God sends souls into hell, they do not therefore die with the body. Finally, Caietanus affirms that the fourth does prove the soul’s immortality simply; hence it would refute the Sadducees concerning the resurrection, since they denied that the dead rise because they believed the soul died with the body. By synecdoche, Scripture uses the names Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob for their souls. On this point Ambrosius Catharinus criticizes him, as often elsewhere, without cause. For he reproves Theophylact—and indeed Jerome, who was Caietanus’s authority for that opinion. “But St Thomas’s interpretation is more excellent.” I do not object. Not only St Thomas understood that passage literally, but Chrysostom, Theophylact, and Ambrose did as well. But you ask: “How was Abraham alive at that time?” Chrysostom answers (Hom. 71 in Matt. de fide resurrect.): just as Adam was dead after he had eaten from the forbidden tree, once the sentence had been pronounced, so Abraham was alive through the most certain promise of the resurrection. Otherwise, what does the Church mean when she says: “King, to whom all things live, and to whom our bodies do not perish”? So much for the third objection. The fourth was already settled earlier. For in the seventh book of this work we said that the holy Fathers of old cultivated divine letters more than human disciplines. This led them to be content with ordinary reasoning in very obscure matters of nature, without seeking better arguments. Therefore, demonstrations of natural conclusions should be sought from philosophers, especially from St Thomas, a perfect philosopher in my judgment. When grace perfected his admirable nature and talent, he seems to have achieved, as a miracle, all that human ingenuity could seek—here and elsewhere, but especially in the book Contra Gentes. But the arguments seemed probable to Scotus, Iandunus, and Caietanus, not necessary. Scotus and Iandunus (for I will speak of Caietanus later) seem to have sought mathematical demonstrations. For if they wished to know with moderation and carefully consider the nature of the matter under discussion, they would surely understand that the arguments proving the soul’s incorruptibility

do not merely persuade but compel—even if they do not compel the insolent and recalcitrant, at least the teachable person properly formed by the rules of the discipline.