35. Why is it important that we have only one soul, not many?
35. WHY IS IT IMPORTANT THAT WE HAVE ONLY ONE SOUL, NOT MANY?
Why is the human body sacred? Why is even an embryo sacred?
Nor do we say that there are two souls in one man . . . one, animal, by which the body is animated and which is mingled with the blood; the other, spiritual, which obeys the reason; but we say that it is one and the same soul in man that both gives life to the body by being united to it and orders itself by its own reasoning. . . .
If man were living by one form, the vegetative soul, and animal by another form, the sensitive soul, and man by another form, the intellectual soul, it would follow that man is not absolutely one. Thus Aristotle argues . . . against those who hold that there are several souls in the body, he asks, What contains them?—that is, what makes them one? It cannot be said that they are united by the one body, because rather does the soul contain the body and make it one, than the reverse (I,76,3) . . . a proof of which is that on the withdrawal of the soul, no part of the body retains its proper action (I,76,8).
The same soul that keeps our cells alive also thinks. When we die, our soul leaves our body, and we can neither keep the cells alive nor think. It’s one and the same soul that does both. We are not angels added onto animals.
That is why the body is sacred: because we do not have two souls but one; because the same soul that is going to Heaven to see God and be united to Him forever is the soul that is now giving physical life to our physical body. The soul that makes our eternal dwelling in Heaven sacred also makes our temporal dwelling of the earthly body sacred. If a great prince who is destined to rule in a great palace is now living in a humble hut, that hut is made kingly by the one who lives in it.
St. Thomas’ technical philosophical points almost always have practical payoffs like this one. Because there can be only one essential form in the single substance that is a man, our bodies are holy. This is also why even a one-celled zygote is holy. The soul is already in it, giving it human life, dividing and replicating rapidly in amazing order, forming itself into a human brain and nervous system. Only a human soul can do that.
What does St. Thomas mean by saying that the body does not contain the soul but the soul contains the body?
Descartes tried to find the soul in the pineal gland at the base of the brain. Many today say mind is brain. St. Thomas was much more sophisticated than that. Descartes did not know that the soul cannot be contained in the body because it contains the body. It is the body’s form or unity or meaning, as the message of a book is the meaning of its physical words. Spiritual souls contain bodies. They contain them spiritually, not physically, for only physical bodies contain other physical bodies physically and materially: organs, tissues, cells, atoms, molecules. You will never find the soul in any one bodily organ, any more than you will find the meaning or theme of a play in any one act or character alone; the meaning is what holds everything together. The play is not contained in the physical setting; the physical setting is contained in the play, is part of the play, is one dimension of the play.
That is what exalts the setting: that it is the setting of this great play. The stones that make up the castle walls in Hamlet are given greatness and dignity by the greatness of the play they are in. Other stones lack that greatness. The setting of the play shares in the play and its greatness. So our bodies share in our souls’ greatness.
No other bodies in the universe have that greatness. In fact the whole universe lacks that greatness. One human zygote is greater than the whole physical universe. It will live forever, for it is you at a very early stage (you were once a zygote). It (you) will see God; the galaxies will not.