Chap. 10: Human Nature
CHAP. 10: HUMAN NATURE
Introduction
Aquinas held to a hierarchy of beings: God is the highest, then angels, followed by human beings (see Appendix 3), then animals, lower forms of life, and matter. He wrote: "The higher a nature the more intimate what comes from it, for its inwardness of activity corresponds to its rank in being. Inanimate bodies hold the lowest place of all; from them nothing emanate save by the action of one thing on another"1
God is Pure Actuality; angels are completed actualities, and humans are progressively actualized. God has no potency; angels are completely fulfilled potency, and humans are uncompleted potentiality. God is an eternal Being; angels are aeveternal. God is non-temporal; humans are temporal, but angels are neither; they are aeveteranl. Angels are like God in that by nature they are not in time, but they can be related to time. They have no before and after in their being, but can be related to it. By contrast, humans are temporal beings.2 God is Pure Existence, God has no Form; angels are pure Forms, and humans are a composition of form and matter.
As a hylomorphic unity of form and matter, humans are unique. Plato held that humans are a soul that merely have a body. Not so for Aquinas who held that humans are a soul-body unity; that is their essence. As such, humans can change both substantially (in what we are) and accidentally (in what we have). Substantial change would be something going out of existence. An accidental change would be the loss of a limb. Angels have no accidents (what is not of a substance but inheres in a substance). So, angels cannot change accidentally, as humans can. They undergo a substantial change when they are created, and could undergo a substantial change, if they were annihilated.
The Origin of Human Beings
Humans are created beings. They came into existence, and they could go out of existence, if God willed them to do so. The first human being created by God was Adam and the second was his wife Eve.3 They were created in the image of God which consists of human’s intellectual likeness to God. Aquinas wrote, "the image of God, in its principal signification, namely the intellectual nature, is found both in man and in woman."4 Again, "Our being bears the image of God so far as it is proper to us, and excels that of other animals; and such being belongs to us in so far as we are endowed with a mind."5 Of course, the image of God includes our moral capacity to love God and be like Him."Thus likeness may be distinguished from image in two ways, as prior to it, and as existing in more things. . . . But likeness may be considered in another way, as signifying the expression and perfection of the image."6
Aquinas believed in a literal, historical Adam and Eve who lived in a literal Paradise called Eden,7 fell into sin by disobedience to God, transmitted sin to their posterity,8 and consequently eventually died physically (Rom. 5:12).
When a new human being comes into existence, for example, Adam’s children, grandchildren, and so on, God creates a new soul and puts it into their body, which body was generated through their parents. Aquinas rejected the Augustinian traducian view which affirmed that both soul and body of human beings are generated through their parents. He believed that this view was wrong because only God can create, and all creative acts are direct and immediate.9
Due to the adoption of an Aristotelian view of the nature of a soul and its relation to its body, Aquinas held the curious view that “the embryo has first of all a soul which is merely sensitive, and when this is removed, it is supplanted by a more perfect soul which is both sensitive and intellectual . . ."10 The intellectual soul is created by God. . . . "11 The male embryo first receive a vegetative soul, then it received a rational (i.e., human) soul which comes some forty days after conception. Females did not receive their human souls until eighty days after conception. Since Roman Catholicism has pronounced that all human life begins at conception, Aquinas’s view has been rejected by them. However, some Catholic scholars have argued that it is "Thomistic" to hold that an individual human life begins at conception because the question of when human life begins has been updated by science and has replaced the outmoded science of Aristotle and adopted by Aquinas.12
The Nature of Human Beings
There are several important characteristics of a human being. The most important ones include the following.
HUMAN BEING ARE CREATED
Most fundamentally, human beings are creatures. They came into being by an act of God’s will. They do not flow from God necessarily, but freely. There was a time when they were not, and when they began it was a creation ex nihilo (out of nothing). Unlike pantheists who believe humans came into existence ex material (out of pre-existing matter), Aquinas held that humans came from God (by creation), but they were not made ex Deo (out of God). So, humans were not made out of something nor out of God; they were made out of nothing. That is, they were not made of something, either "God-stuff" or any other kind of "stuff."
HUMAN BEINGS ARE CONTINGENT
According to Aquinas, only God is a necessary Being, that is, a Being that cannot not be.13 That is, if God exists, then He must exist by His very nature. On the other hand, creatures by their very nature are contingent beings, that is, beings that can not be. So, they are "may be" kinds of beings, while God is a "must be" kind of Being.
So, there is no intrinsic immorality in human beings. God wills them to live on forever, but this is God-willed immortality, not intrinsic immortality (as Plato held). For God could, if He wished, will any and all human beings out of existence. In biblical terms, "He upholds all thing by the word of his power" (Heb. 1:3). And as the angels chanted in the Apocalypse, "you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created" (Rev. 4:11).
It is because human beings (and all other finite beings) are contingent that Aquinas is able to formulate his famous "third way" to demonstrate the existence of God, namely, the argument from contingency. He states it as follows, "Therefore, not all beings are merely possible, but there must exist something the existence of which is necessary. Therefore we cannot but admit the existence of some being having of itself its own necessity, and not receiving it from another, but rather causing in others their necessity."14
HUMAN BEINGS ARE COMPOSED ACT AND POTENCY
As creatures, including human beings, are composed of actuality and potentiality (act and potency). Only God is uncomposed Pure Actuality. As composed beings, humans have actuality, since they do exist. But they also have potency, since their non-existence is possible. So, they are composed in their very being by act and potency.
HUMAN BEINGS ARE COMPOSED OF SUBSTANCE AND ACCIDENTS
Humans are also composed of substance and accidents. Substance is what something is in itself—the essence of a thing. Accidents did not exist in and of themselves but only as they inhere in a substance. For example, tallness is an accident which inheres in some human beings. It is not part of their humanness since one can be short and still be human. Likewise, smartness is accidental to humanness for some are not smart. Size, color, shape, and weight are all accidents.
In addition to substance and accidents, humans have properties. They are not of the essence of a human, as rationality is, but they flow from our essence. Risibility (the ability to laugh) is not of our essence, but it does flow from it. For only rational beings, which can have a sense of incongruity, can laugh (with all due respect to the hyena).
HUMANS ARE CORPOREAL (BODILY)
The body is composed of matter. Matter is extended in space and time. It is three-dimensional, multiple and divisible. Inanimate matter is the lowest on the scale of being. Aquinas wrote: "Living things we term animate, things lacking life inanimate."15 Matter, however, is good and not evil. The human body was declared good by God (Gen. 1:31). "Our body’s substance is not from an evil principle, as the Manichees imagine, but from God. And therefore by the friendship of charity [love], by which we love God, should we cherish the body."16 Furthermore, "To be united to body is not to the detriment of soul, but for its enrichment. There is the substantial benefit of completing human nature, and the accidental benefit of achieving knowledge that can only be acquired through the senses."17
HUMANS HAVE A SOUL
"Soul is the first principle of life within living things about us: living things we term animate, things lacking life inanimate."18 "The soul, therefore, is not a body, but the actuality of a body, by analogy with heat whereby the principle of warmth, which is not itself a body, is a kind of actuality of body."19 "The intellective soul ranks lowest in the scale of intellectual substances in that it lacks the natural inborn knowledge of truth with which pure spirits are endowed, but must piece together fragments of truth perceived though the sense."20
HUMANS HAVE INDIVIDUAL SOULS
Each human being has his own distinct soul. For "That a unique mind should be shared by all men is quite out of the question."21 Indeed, Aquinas affirmed that "Of all errors the most indecent attack our heritage of mind. One such has sprung for the words of Averroes, who announced that there is a universal mind for all men."22 Aquinas wrote, "Now that we shall be at pains to show that it is contrary to the Christian faith, or this is sufficiently apparent to all. Since mind is the only deathless part of the soul, were the diversity of minds be fused, the upshot would be that the unique mind alone remained after death, and so there would be no prospect of rewards and punishments."23 He added, "This thesis [of one universal soul for all men] is also impossible on Aristotle’s doctrine that the mind is a part or power of the soul, which soul is man’s substantial form. For there cannot be a unique form of several things numerically diverse, as it is impossible for them to possess one being."24
THE SOUL ANIMATES THE BODY
Thomas held that "Because united to body as form, the soul is in each part of the body and throughout the whole organism. It is not an accidental form of the body, but the substantial form, which is the form and actuality, not merely of the whole, but also of each part."25 "The soul is entire in each part of the body according to its wholeness of perfection and being, not of power. . . . "26
DEATH IS WHEN THE SOUL LEAVES THE BODY
When the soul leaves the body death occurs. "Therefore when the soul has departed, just as we do not speak of what remains as an animal. . . . So it is with the hand, the eye, the flesh, the bones."27 For the human body is naturally corruptible unless it is animated by a soul.
THE SOUL SURVIVES THE DEATH OF THE BODY
But when the body corrupts the soul it must survive as a separate entity if the soul is immortal, as in fact it is."28 So, "The human soul keeps its existence when the body breaks up."29 The soul is the form of the body and fitted to it to make one essence, a human being. Yet because it is a rational and spiritual form, the functions of the rational soul are not dependent on the body and, hence, can and do survive the dissolution of the body. For example, just as the meaning of a sentence (the form) can survive when the paper on which it was written is destroyed (the body), even so, a soul can survive when the body dies. Of course, the soul is incomplete without its body and awaits its reunion at the resurrection (see below).
THE HYLOMORPHIC UNITY OF BODY AND SOUL
Aquinas held a hylomorphic (Hyle=matter; morphe=form) view of the unity of soul and body. He wrote: "It follows that man is not just a soul, but a compound of body and soul."30 The soul is to the body what form is to matter. Humans are a hylomorphic unity of soul and body. The soul is to body as form is to matter. In this Aquinas followed Aristotle (de Anima). In contrast to Plato, who believed that man is a soul and merely has a body, Aquinas held that humans are a souled-body unity. They have only one nature—a human nature. For Plato the soul is to the body what a rider is to a horse. Or, to use a different illustration, the soul is to the body what meaning is to words. A sentence, for example, has meaning (form) and words (matter). They are united in that there is no meaning in the words as isolated parts. But when words are formed by a mind they convey meaning. Meaning penetrates the whole sentence and unifies it into a linguistic whole which expresses the meaning. So, the human body is composed of physical parts. It is the unity of these parts which is called "body." The same parts without a soul to unify and animate these parts would be merely dust.
As for the hylomorphic unity between soul and body, Aquinas announced that
In the first place the union obviously cannot come about in the manner of a mixture nor by touching properly so called, for contact is between bodies. Neither by merging nor by being fastened together can one perfectly single thing be constitute from intellectual and from bodily substance. There is, nevertheless, a mode of contact by which spirit can be joined to body, not by mutual joining of quantities, but by the touching implied in the action of one thing on another. This is the touch of power, not of quantity; it is feasible between spirits and bodies: intellectual substance can act on bodies and set them in motion. Yet though spirit and body are united as regard action and reaction, they do not thereby make up one thing simply so called.31
Aquinas added, "Now a natural unity cannot be constituted from two permanent realities unless they be related as substantial form and matter."32 "If we hold that the soul is united to the body as its substantial form, then the co-existence of several essential different souls in the same body cannot be entertained."33
Aquinas added elsewhere,
Plato and his followers laid down that the intellectual soul is united to the body as mover to the thing moved; the soul is to the body as the sailor in the ship; the union of soul with body is by contact of power. But this is not without embarrassment, for man, made up from such a union of soul and body, would not be one thing simply speaking, or a substantial whole, but an accidental whole. To avoid this consequence, Plato held that man was not a thing composed of soul and body, but that he was a soul using a body. But this is impossible, for animals and men are natural and sensible things, which would not be the case were bodies and bodily organ not part of their essence, in other words, were they "wholly soul." Further, if true, then "It [animal souls] would not cease with the body, and the souls of animals would be immortal." Furthermore, "after the departure of the soul, the body and its parts would remain specifically the same. Nor would the very being of the human body be quickened by the soul. Moreover, death, which consists in the separation of soul and body, would not be the dissolution of the animal.34
Again, he wrote: "We should assert that the mind, the principle of intellectual activity, is the form of the human body. The body’s first and animating principle is the soul."35 And "If anyone wishes to deny this, let him explain how otherwise he can attribute the activity of understanding to the individual man. Everyone experiences in himself that it is veritably himself who understand."36 For "The soul’s power is non-material though it be the cause of matter, spiritual though the cause of bodies, and dimensionless though the cause of quantities."37
Just how do body and soul unite? Are they not opposites, and how can opposites unite? This is an irresolvable problem only if one defines them after Descartes in an incompatible way. Namely, if mind is non-material thinker, and body is a non-thinking matter, then one does end up with a "ghost in a machine" problem. However, if it be remembered that both soul and matter have being in common, then the contradiction vanishes. For both a material thing which has being and a mind that has being have a common contact points. They are different but not completely opposite. While this does not resolve the mystery of just how they relate, it does resolve the contradiction.
Precisely how soul and body are united into an essential unity has been a matter of speculation. But Eric LaRock has suggested that the whole question is a category mistake since there is no intermediary between soul and body. As Aquinas said in his commentary on Aristotle’s De Anima, "There is no more reasons to ask whether soul and body together make one thing than to ask the same about wax and its impression sealed on it. . . . "38 As La Rock put it, "the two metaphysical parts of the human composite, soul and body, hold a direct or immediate relationship to each other, such that the compositional unity of soul and body constitute and integrated, living unit."39
The Special Powers of a Human Being
In addition to being a body-soul unity in essence, human beings have special powers. A power is an ability humans have, but not something they are. For example, humans have the power to think, but humans are not thought itself. Human’s have the power to will, but they are not will itself. That is, these powers are abilities human beings posses, but not things we are by our very nature. They are not of our essence.
HUMANS HAVE THE POWERS OF SENSATION
Among the powers humans have are the powers of sensation and the powers of thought. We can sense things via our five senses. We can see, hear, feel, taste, and touch.40 These we share in common with the higher animal species. However, there are powers unique to humans, namely, the rational powers of abstraction. For Aquinas, all knowledge begins in the senses. There is nothing in the mind that was not first in the senses, except the mind itself.
HUMANS HAVE INTELLECTUAL POWERS
Human beings also have the power to abstract universals from particulars. That is, by studying a human (or humans), we can abstract the universal called "humanness." Apart from the debate as to whether we have to look at many examples of a thing before we can abstract its essence or form (which Aristotle held) or at only one (which Aquinas held), these universals do not exist in and of themselves (in some eternal world of Platonic Forms), nonetheless, contrary to nominalist (like William Ockham), they are not pure abstractions. For Aquinas, the universal forms, like humanness, are rooted in the reality of the individual (or individuals) from which they were abstracted. That is, universals are real.
Despite the fact that Aquinas was an empiricist, holding that all knowledge begins in the senses, he was also a realist, insisting that there is more in the senses than sense knowledge. For the mind knows reality through the senses; it does not merely know sense images. The senses are like windows of the soul. We are seeing the real world through the senses. We are not merely seeing the window; rather, we are seeing reality through the senses ("windows") by the powers of the mind.
According to Aquinas, the mind has the power by its agent (active) intellect, with the aid of the divine Light, to abstract the intelligible species (abstract form) when the sense data and to thereby know objects in the real world. In an excellent work by Max Herrera,41 he demonstrates how Aquinas was able to modify his hylomorphic view of human beings to make it possible to know the real world through the intelligible species. That is, he showed that they are that through which one knows, not that which one knows.
The intellect has the power of apprehension (the first act of the intellect) and the power of predication or judgment which is the second act of the intellect. It is in the second act that predications can be made about reality, such as, "John is a rational being." And it is here where truth comes into play, that is, in whether the affirmation corresponds with the real world. There is also a third act of the intellect called reasoning by which we can draw conclusions from two or more judgments, such as, (1) John is a rational being; (2) All rational beings can draw conclusions from premises; (3) Therefore, John can draw conclusions from premises.
HUMAN’S HAVE VOLITIONAL POWERS
Not only can humans think, but they can also chose. They have a will, as well as a mind. However, the mind does not coerce the will for the will is the ability to choose contrary to what the mind judges to be the best part. Of course, the will always chooses something for the good it sees in it. However, not all apparent good is the real good. Hence, evil is possible.
Free will and evil. God created only good things (Gen. 1:31), and one of these good things (powers) is called will. It is good to be free, but this good freedom carries with it the power to do evil. As Aquinas put it, "For were some evil caused by an evil, since evil does not act save by virtue of as good. . . ., it follows that good itself is the primary cause of evil." For "that which is not, is not the cause of anything. Hence, if evil be caused by something, this must be a good."42 Thus, God made evil possible by making man free (which is a good thing), but this good thing called freedom makes evil actual. In short, God made evil possible by making man free, but man evil actual by the free choice he makes.
The relation between the Divine and human wills. The relation between the divine will and the human will is that of primary causality and secondary causality. The power by which the human will operates is given by God since He is the Cause of all things. All things pre-exist in God as their ultimate and efficient cause. But the exercise of this power is in accordance with the human will.
Human beings are the efficient, albeit secondary, cause of their own free actions. Thus Aquinas adds, "And for this reason we maintain that the action [power] pertaining to the sin is from God, but the sin is not from God."43 Even though God (as Primary Cause) gives us both the power to choose and is involved in the very action of choosing,44 nonetheless. "The will [secondary cause] contributes something when it is moved by God. And therefore although the movement of the will is from outside as from a first principle, nevertheless it is not coerced."45 For God moves creatures in accordance with their nature, and man is by nature a free being. "Therefore, if God moves man’s will, this is evidently not opposed to freedom of choice, just as God’s activity in natural things is not contrary to their nature."46
Even though God (as Primary Cause) gives us both the power to choose and is involved in the very action of choosing,47 nonetheless, "The will [secondary cause] contributes something when it is moved by God. And therefore although the movement of the will is from outside as from a first principle, nevertheless it is not coerced."48 For God moves creatures in accordance with their nature, and man is by nature a free being. "Therefore, if God moves man’s will, this is evidently not opposed to freedom of choice, just as God’s activity in natural things is not contrary to their nature."49
The nature of free will. Human free choices are not coerced. Free acts are not forced. If it is forced, it is not free, and if it is free then it is not forced.
Free choice is voluntary. According to Aquinas, free will involves a voluntary act. For "there must needs be something voluntary in human acts."50 This is so “since man especially knows the end of his work, and moves himself, in his acts especially is the voluntary to be found."51
Human free will has the power of alternate choice. Further, the will has the power of choice "because its power is not limited to one effect; indeed the will has the power to produce this or that effect, and consequently is undetermined to either."52
A free choice is a self-determined action. In response to the question "Whether the will moves itself." Aquinas answers that "It belongs to the will to move the other powers, by reason of the end which is the will’s object." So, "the will, through its volition of the end, moves itself to will the means."53 Thus, free choice is not determined by another, or undetermined, but it is a self-determined action. If it were caused by another, then they would be responsible for it. And it is irrational to assume actions are uncaused. For actions and events do not occur without a cause. Therefore, every free choice must be self-caused, that is, caused by the self (person).
So, a free act is a self-determined act. It is not determined (caused) by another for then it would not be free. Nor is it undetermined since every act has a cause. Hence, it must be self-determined. That is to say, it is caused by one’s self. What causes the action? Technically, it is not the free will that causes it; rather, it is the person (with the power of free will) who causes the free action. For I (the free person) am not my will; I have a will, but I am not a will. Likewise, I have a mind, but I am not mind. Mind and will are not the essence of human beings. Rather, they are the powers which rational and volitional beings use to think and to chose. So, what causes my free actions? I do, and I do it by the power of free choice which God gave to me. Thus, it is not a "what" but a "who" that causes human free actions. And this "who" or person that causes the free actions does so by means of the power of free choice which he has, but not by what he is.
Free will and the four causes. Aquinas held "That good is the material cause of evil has already appeared. As regards the formal cause, evil had none; instead it is rather the privation of form. Similarly, it had no final cause, but is rather the privation of due order to the proper end. . . . Evil has an efficient cause; this, however, is indirect, not direct."54 As we will see (below) the direct and immediate cause of evil is free will. For Aquinas concluded that "the action pertaining to the sin is from God, but the sin is not from God."55
Free choice is not of necessity. Thomas states clearly that "Man does not choose of necessity." He states that "the reason for this is found in the very power of reason. For the will can tend to do whatever the reason apprehends as good. Now the reason can apprehend as good not only this, viz, to will or to act, but also this, viz., not to will and not to act." Also, "the reason can consider the nature of some good, and the lack of some good, which has the nature of an evil." Hence, "since choice is not of the end, but of the means . . . , it is not of the perfect good, which is happiness, but of other and particular goods. Therefore, man chooses, not of necessity, but freely."56
Free choice cannot be coerced. Another characteristic of free choice is that it cannot be forced. Violence is contrary to free choice. Thus, irresistible grace or persuasion is also a contradiction in terms. It is just a euphemistic way of saying "forced freedom" which is contradictory. C. S. Lewis agreed, saying, "But you now see that the Irresistable and the Indisputable are the two weapons which the nature of His scheme forbids Him to use. Merely to over-ride a human will . . . would be for Him useless. He cannot ravish. He can only woo."57 Or as he stated elsewhere, "When one says, ‘All will be saved,’ my reason retorts, ‘Without their will, or with it?’ If I say, ‘Without their will,’ I at once perceive a contradiction; how can the supreme voluntary act of self-surrender be involuntary? If I say, ‘With their will,’ my reason replies, ‘How, if they will not give in?’"58 Aquinas noted that "some philosophers maintain that man’s will is necessarily moved to choose a thing . . . , But that opinion is heretical, for it destroys the reason for merit and demerit in human acts: for it does not seem to be meritorious or demeritorious for someone of necessity to do what he cannot avoid."59 He adds, unless "it is within our power" to choose and not of necessity, "then praise and blame…are nullified."60 In this way, a person (a free agent), by his power of free will, is the cause of evil. This free will, even after the Fall of Adam, is voluntary, not of necessity, and free from compulsion. Indeed, even though our wills are moved by God (the Primary Cause), nonetheless, we are not coerced to do anything contrary to our wills.
Free will and the depravity of man. Of course, as a Christian, Aquinas believes in the Fall of mankind and inherited sin called "original sin" While Aquinas spoke of the inevitability to sin in general in this life, nonetheless, he believed that by God’s grace each sin in particular could be resisted. He wrote: "but I the state of corrupted nature man needs grace to heal his nature in order that he may entirely abstain from sin."61 And the question is whether human beings are free since the Fall. Aquinas made it clear how far sin affects human beings when he said, "The capital of human nature diminished by sin is the natural inclination to virtue instinctive in man as a rational being. . . . Now sin cannot destroy man’s rationality altogether, for then he would no longer be capable of sin."62 He adds, "But sin does not strike at the root, sine it does not diminish nature itself; what it does is to block the ability63 from reaching its end; the disability consists in the interposition of a barrier. Thus, there can be an infinite lessening of virtue, for always another layer can be added, as when man piles sin on sin. Yet the instinct for right action always remains radically intact."64 In brief, sin cannot be so great on human nature so that it destroys the human ability to sin. Sin cannot erase the image of God; it can only efface it.
As for Augustine’s statement that "the man who misuses free will destroys both himself and it",65 Aquinas replies, "the sinner has lost free will so far as concerns freedom from fault and misery, but not so far as concerns freedom from compulsion."66
Evil is not co-eternal with good. As Thomas put it, "Evil cannot exist but in good; sheer evil is impossible."67 He added, "There is no justification for holding that there are two [eternal] kingdoms, one of good, the other of evil."68 For "Quite untenable is the position that the visible things of this world are created by an evil principle, not by God."69 He insisted that "There is not one first principle of evil as there is of good." He offers several reasons. "In the first place, the original principle of things is essentially good. Nothing can be essentially bad. Every being as being is good; evil does not exist except in a good subject."70 "In the second place, the first principle of good things is supreme and perfect good containing all goodness in itself. Now there cannot be a supreme evil, for though evil lessens good, it can never totally destroy good. . . . " For this reason Aristotle observes that a wholly evil thing would be self-destructive."71 "In the third place, the very notion of evil is irreconcilable with the notion of a first principle, because evil is caused by good; also because evil can be a cause only incidentally, and therefore cannot be the first cause, since the accidental is subsequent to the essential."72 Further, "There cannot be an evil entirely apart from good, for it has been proved that evil resides in some good. Therefore, nothing is supremely evil."73 At this point Aquinas would agree with Augustine that good is basic to evil since if we take all the evil away from something, then it is something better. But if we take all the good away from evil, there is nothing left.74
The Destiny of Human Beings
All things come from God; all things are for God; and all things will return to God. Some will return for His eternal blessing (called heaven); others will return for His judgment (called hell). In either event, God is glorified, either in His goodness (heaven) or in his justice (hell).
Humans will be resurrected in their same physical bodies. Not until the resurrection of the body will these parts come back together and re-form the human body which will be reanimated by the human soul. The resurrection will be into the same body, even though it will not necessarily have all the same particles. Yet there will be a numerical identity between the physical resurrection body and the pre-resurrection body. Of course, the resurrection body, unlike the pre-resurrection body, will be immortal and imperishable. Nonetheless, the change will not be a change of bodies but a change in the body—from a mortal to an immortal body. As the apostle Paul declared, "For this perishable body must put on the imperishable . . . and the mortal puts on immortality" (1 Cor. 15:53). "In the renewal of things at the end of the world it is certain according to Catholic doctrine that all bodily creation will be improved."75 According to Aquinas, the nature of the resurrection of the body involves several important things:
First, resurrecting the body will be a miraculous event.—Thomas declared that "Since all the senses and all the members of man corrupt in death, a dead man cannot be brought back to life except by divine action."76. Resurrection from the dead is a miracle.
Second, it will be in an imperishable body.—Aquinas wrote: "Although men will rise as the same individuals, they will not have the same kind of life as before. Now their life is corruptible; then it will be incorruptible."77
Third, man is not complete without a body.—The human soul is fitted for embodiment (see hylomorphic unity above). So, "to be united to body is not to the detriment of soul, but for its enrichment. There is the substantial benefit of completing human nature, and the accidental benefit of achieving knowledge that can only be acquired through the senses."78 A naked soul is lacking until it clothed again in its resurrection body (2 Cor. 5:2-3).
Fourth, it will be numerically the same body that died.—"Since the rational soul that survives remains numerically the same, at the resurrection it must be reunited to numerically the same body."79 Of course, this does not mean that it will have all the same particles it had before the resurrection. For “not all the matter that was ever contained in those parts during man’s natural life will again be taken up, but only so much as will be enough to constitute the species of the parts in integrity."80 Likewise, whatever was eaten by cannibals81 or is otherwise lacking "He will supply whatever is wanting to the proper amount of matter."82
Fifth, it will be in a perfect body.—For "it is fitting that all natural defects should be corrected in the risen body. . . . For such defects as are found in men naturally begotten, will have no place in men restored by the resurrection."83 Heaven is a place of perfection in which there is no place for an imperfect body.
Sixth, it will not need to eat food.—Aquinas declared that "after mortality is done away within those who have risen, the means of serving the conditions of moral life must cease also. . . . Consequently there will be no consumption of food or drink after the resurrection."84 And "cessation of the use of good necessarily entails cessation of the exercise of the reproductive functions."85. Also, "the reproductive functions for mere pleasure, can have no place."86 While all bodily organs will be resurrected with the body, "all the members of the body will have their place in the risen [body], for the preservation of nature in its entirety rather than for the exercise of their normal function."87 Just what this will be is not specified.
Aquinas also believed that "men will receive punishment or reward in the future state for the acts they perform now. This being the case, it is no more than right that men should keep the organs with which they serve the reign of sin or of justice during the present life, so that they may be punished or rewarded in the members they employed for sin or for merit."88
The final destiny of the lost (hell). According to Aquinas, hell is a real place of conscious everlasting suffering of the lost in physical bodies that will not corrupt and physical flames that will not die out. He wrote, "Their will must remain forever obstinate in evil, and at the same time they will grieve most agonizingly for the sins they have committed and the glory they have lost."89 "Therefore the bodies of the damned will be complete in their kind, although they will not have the qualities that go with the glory of the blessed."90 And "Although the bodies of the damned will be capable of suffering, they will not be subject to corruption." And "Consequently the bodies of the damned will suffer forever, but will not undergo dissolution."91 So, "lost souls will also undergo corporal punishment." Therefore, "text that portend the corporeal punishment of the souls of the damned, specifying that they will be tormented by the fires of hell, are to be understood literally."92 "So even though it is “corporeal fire" the spiritual soul experiences real pain. "This does not mean that the fire acts on the spiritual substance as it acts on bodies, by heating, parching, and consuming; its action is restrictive, as we said."93
Aquinas hastens to add that "The suffering of eternal punishment is in no way opposed to divine justice. Even in the laws men make, punishment need not correspond to the offense in point of time. For the crime of adultery or murder, either of which may be committed in a brief span of time, human laws may prescribe life-long exile or death. . . . In the same way it is not unjust for God to inflict eternal punishment for a sin committed in a moment of time." Accordingly, "since God is infinitely great, an offense committed against Him is in a certain respect infinite; and so a punishment that is in a certain respect infinite is duly attached to it. Such a punishment cannot be infinite in intensity, for nothing created can be infinite in this way. Consequently a punishment that is infinite in duration is rightly inflicted for mortal sin. . . ." But "if a sinner is incorrigible, so that he is obstinately fixed in sin, as we said above is the case with the damned, his punishment ought never to come to an end."94
However, the saved will be resurrected in the same physical body in which they lived which will be imperishable, eternal, and glorious. What is more, they will experience the blessed vision of seeing God face-to-face.
The beatific vision for the saved. Aquinas wrote of the day the saved meet God face-to face (1 Cor. 13:12): "to so sublime a vision the created intellect needs to be raised by some kind of outpouring of divine goodness."95 He added, "Man’s consummation consists in the attainment of his last end, which is perfect beatitude or happiness, and this consists in the vision of God. . . . ."96 This blessed vision is forever. For "it follows from what has been said that those who obtain ultimate happiness from the divine vision will never fall away from it…. Therefore no one, having once become a partaker thereof, can lose it."97 But "the will cannot be perfectly at rest until the soul is again joined to the body. When this takes place, man rises from the dead."98
Conclusion
So, in the resurrection of the body, Paradise Lost will become Paradise Regained. What was lost in death will be regained in the resurrection. The same bodies corrupted by death will become incorruptible in their resurrection. In short, Satan lost, and God won! Man—the whole man body and soul—will be restored in the resurrection. Satan’s attempt to destroy man is defeated, and God’s plan to deliver him—body and soul—is victorious. All men—both just and unjust—will be resurrected in bodies that will never die. Of course, for Aquinas, some will be resurrected to everlasting life and others to everlasting fire, according to their free choices which God ordained and they exercised (Jn. 5:25-29).