SAINT THOMAS

AQUINAS:
The Human Person
as Embodied Spirit
Prepared by:
FR.RONNIE B. RODRIGUEZ, MS
University of La Salette
Triumph of St. Thomas
Aquinas, Detail of Figure
Below the Throne, from the
Spanish Chapel, c. 1365 by
Andrea di Bonaiuto
Life and Works:
 Born in 1224 at Roccasecca, the castle
of his father, Landulf of Aquino, who
was a member of the lesser nobility
 When he was five or six he went to
study at the neighboring monastery of
Monte Casino
 At 15, he enrolled in the newly founded
University of Naples
 He came into contact with a recently
established religious congregation, the
Dominicans, and after five years at Naples,
wanted to join the community
 His mother objected since she had nourished
other plans for him
 She had him captured by his brothers and
kept under house arrest at Roccasecca for a
year, after which she relented and let him go
 1245 – the Dominicans sent Aquinas
to Paris for his novitiate and further
studies
 1248 to 1252-he studied in Cologne
under the Dominican Albert the Great
 He returned to Paris to complete his
theological education, becoming a
Doctor of Theology in 1256
 During these years, he composed his
first major work, comparable in a way
to a doctoral thesis: a commentary on
the texts of the Fathers of the Church
compiled by Peter the Lombard
 He remained in Paris for three years as
professor of theology
 He lectured on the Bible and hold public
debates on theological topics
 1259 – Thomas returned to Italy as
professor of theology in Dominican houses
of study
 1265 – he opened a new house of study
for the Dominicans in Rome and taught
there for two years
 He rejected the usual textbook of theology
and began to write a new one, A Complete
Treatise on Theology (Summa Theologiae)
 After a further year as professor at the papal
court in Viterbo, Thomas returned to Paris for
three years (1269-72)
 In addition to lecturing on the Bible and
conducting public debates, he continued
writing the Summa Theologiae and also
began commentaries on many of Aristotle’s
works
 He returned to Italy in 1272 and continued
his work at the Dominican house of studies in
Naples
 December 6, 1273 – he had an unusual
experience, certainly at least in part
supernatural, and immediately ceased his
theological writing
 The next year he was asked to attend the
Ecumenical Council at Lyon, France, and on
the way he hurt his head in an accident and
died at the Cistercian monastery at
Fossanova
 He died on March 7, 1274
 Canonized - 1323
Main Ideas:
 St.Thomas understands man as a whole
 Man is substantially united body and soul
 Man is the point of convergence between
corporeal and spiritual substances
 Man “is one substance body and soul”
 He is insistent that man is a substantial
unity of body and soul
 “Man…is composed of spiritual and
corporeal substance”
 Man is an embodied soul, not a soul using a
body as Plato asserted
 Man is substantially body and soul
 Only the soul is a substance, while the body
is actual
 He asserts that any existing body is perfect
or any existing body is actual
 “…all things which are diversified by the diverse
participation of being, are more or less perfect”
 No “body” can exist apart from matter
 Any “body” should be necessarily be
material
 This means that any body is actual
because it exists as such completely as it
is
 The mere existence of a body makes a
body complete, perfect and actual
 Per se, the human body is perfect
 It has head, hands, feet, and all else that
a human body must have
 But it must be united to something
else that will enable it to perform its
intrinsic function as a human body
 The human body must be united with
something else which we call soul
 The human body has the potentiality
to be animated by the soul
 When animation happens, the two
become one
 When a human body is animated by the
soul specifically during conception, “the
soul includes the body in its
definition and in its act”
 The soul substantiates the body
which is actual then becomes
one with the body in act
 It is through animation that the
soul substantiates the actual
body
 The two become one substance
On the soul…
 The soul, the animator of the human
body, is a substance.
 It is a substance because it exists by
itself; it is incorporeal and spiritual.
 Soul is a substance because it acts, it
wills, it thinks, it knows, etc.
 The soul’s possession of will and intellect
is a priori and intrinsic in it.
 The soul is unified with the body for its
lower activity, i.e. sensation.
 Sensation can only be realized in the
context of a body.
 The soul in this context is limited that it
needs the correlative function of a
material element called body.
 Hence, the intellectual soul is understood
by St. Thomas as the form of the body
because the soul is the principle of life of
the body, the principle of nourishment and
the principle of movement.
 Body and soul are substantially united.
 Although the body and soul are
substantially united, each retains its own
substantial identity because the soul is not
the body in the same manner that the
body is not the soul.
 Soul is united to the body not only
because of perception, but also, because
“it is the form of the body.”
 By form, St. Thomas explains, is meant
that the soul is the body’s principle of
activity.
 A body, categorically speaking, can act
only through the soul, because the latter
is the principle of life of the former.
 The soul in man is not only an embodied
substance in itself-because it is immaterial
or spiritual-but it is also, at the same time,
the form of the body.
 Thus, the parts of a human body like
head, feet, ears, nose, eyes, skin, tongue,
and the rest, can only act according
through the soul.
 Through this, the soul’s animation by the
body (during conception) becomes
evident.
 In this animation, the two are one in a
form of substantial unity in man.
 However, it must be made lucid that “a
body is not necessary to the intellectual
operation consideration as such but
because of the sensitive power, which
requires an organ of equitable
temperament,” which actually refers to
the body.
What does St. Thomas mean by
substance?
 Substance is that whose essence
necessitates its own existence.
 In simple terms, a substance essentially
exists by itself.
 But why did St. Thomas call the soul in
man substance?
 When the soul animates the body, does it
make the body also a substance?
 Accordingly, the soul and the body
become substance only in terms of
participation.
 St. Thomas asserts that “everything that is
in any way it is, is from God.”
 For him, God is the only substance; God is
the only self-subsisting Being.
 But this does not imply that the human
body and the human soul are not
substances.
 These are substances only by
participation.
 The human body becomes a substance,
only when it is animated by the soul.
 This animation is actually intrinsic in the
human body, for as long as there is a
human body there is also a soul (except in
death which is only a temporary
separation of body and soul because in
the Last Judgment the two will be united
again); like the body, the soul is also a
substance.
 Each of them becomes a substance by
virtue of their participation with God, the
only substance.
 The human body and the human soul are
one substance in man and they are unified
together as an embodied soul.
 However, matter is subject to corruption.
 So, a human body “is subject to corruption
by necessity of its matter.”
 On the other hand, because the soul is
immaterial it is free from corruption.
 This logically makes the soul immortal.
 Because it is immortal, its higher
powers such as intellect and will “must
remain in the soul after the destruction
of the body.”
 And the substantial unity of the body
and soul, according to St. Thomas,
“ceases at the cessation of breath….”
To sum up…
 Man is substantially body and soul.
 The soul is united with the human body
because it is the substantial form of the
human body.
 Further, it is the principle of life of the
body.
 But the soul, however, requires the body
as the material medium for its operation
particularly perception.
 Nevertheless, it has operative functions
(higher powers) which do not need a
material medium; they are man’s intellect
and will.
 Thus, at death, the soul’s intellection and
will remain in the soul as it is immortal,
simple, and incorruptible.
 Body and soul before death are essentially
united because the two exist in a
correlative manner specifically in the
context of perception.