308. The experience of the soul separated from the body
308. THE EXPERIENCE OF THE SOUL SEPARATED FROM THE BODY
After death and before the Resurrection of the Body, will we, as disembodied souls, be able to see or hear anything at all? If not, will it feel like total paralysis?
Whether the sensitive powers remain in the separated soul?
There are many opinions on this question. . . . Now it is evident that certain operations . . . do not belong to the soul properly speaking (in itself) but (only) to the soul as united to the body, because they are not performed except through the medium of the body, such as to see, to hear, and so forth. . . . Some operations, however, are performed by the soul without a bodily organ, for instance to understand, to consider, to will. Wherefore since these actions are proper to the soul (alone) . . . these powers which use no bodily organ for their actions must needs remain in the separated soul (but not the actions of the sensitive powers).
Others say that the sensitive and other like powers . . . remain in the separated soul . . . in a restricted sense . . . because there remains in the separated soul the ability to produce these powers if it should be reunited to the body. . . . This opinion appears to be the more reasonable (S70,1).
St. Thomas ascribes to the disembodied soul a sort of internal, virtual, and teleological sensory ability—we will be able to conjure up memory images of sensations we had on earth and anticipatory images of future sensations which the resurrection body will afford us—but he labels this only a theological opinion (the Greeks call it a theologoumenon). If the disembodied soul can have sensory anticipations, then surely it can also have sensory memories. In any case, we have something more than total paralysis and sensory deprivation to look forward to.
Whether the acts of the sensitive powers (as well as the powers) remain in the separated soul?
Objection 2. Augustine says that the body feels not, but the soul through the body. . . . Now that which benefits the body can be in the soul separated from the body. Therefore the soul will then be able to feel. . . .
Reply to Objection 2. The soul is said to feel through the body not as though the act of feeling belonged to the soul by itself, but as belonging to the whole composite by reason of the soul. . . . It may also be replied that Augustine is speaking according to the opinion of the Platonists who maintained this. . . (S70,2).
There is a real contradiction between St. Augustine’s Platonic, dualistic psychology and St. Thomas’ Aristotelian, hylomorphic one. The important issue is not whether St. Thomas was ignorant of this or too charitable to St. Augustine, but what is the truth of the matter; for we will all experience the truth, the reality, but we will not all experience the philosophy of St. Augustine or of Aristotle, after we die.
Objection 5. Further, according to the Philosopher, the irascible and concupiscible (desires and emotions) are in the sensitive part. But joy and sorrow, love and hatred, fear and hope, and similar emotions which according to our faith we hold to be in separated souls, are in the irascible and concupiscible (powers). Therefore separated souls will not be deprived of the acts of the sensitive powers.
Reply to Objection 5. Love, joy, sorrow, and the like, have a twofold signification. Sometimes they denote passions of the sensitive appetite, and thus they will not be in the separated soul. . . . In another way they denote acts of the will which is in the intellective part; and in this way they will be in the separated soul, even as delight will be there without bodily movement, as it is in God. . . (S70,2).
E.g., separated souls will feel joy in God, virtue, and beauty but not in sex, foods, or colors. This distinction between two kinds of post-mortem emotions also helps us to understand our emotions now.