Questions and Answers – Part 3: Man.

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Taken from the book Világnézeti Válaszok (Answers Regarding Worldviews) by P. Béla Bangha S.J.

It is said that only man has a soul; but animals and even plants have souls.

It is true, and therefore more correct to say: only man has a rational or spiritual soul. But the animal or vegetative soul is rather called the vegetative or animal life principle.

The animal also has a rational soul, a mind, and we have seen this a hundred times.

The animal has no mind, no rational soul. Some people are misled by the fact that in animals one can sometimes observe wonderfully purposeful ways of acting. But all this can be explained by the accuracy of sensory perception, and especially by instinct, and yet all the evidence points to the fact that the animal has no independent reason. The animal cannot help itself even when it needs only a very small inference and inventiveness, which is not given by instinct and the faculty of sensory cognition. If animals had reason, they would not fall into the same traps, for example, for thousands of years.

Animal and human reason differ only in degree.

Not in degree, but essentially. The animal can never go beyond the limits imposed on it by its limited sensual cognition and instinct. Namely, it never forms abstract concepts, never deduces, never cultivates science and art: not even in the slightest degree. This is not a difference of degree, but of essence.

Man also acts by instinct, so is he then an animal?

Man acts instinctively in many things, and in this respect he is in the same class as the animal, with which he has much in common in his physical constitution. But man does not merely and exclusively act according to his instinct, but in many cases according to his reason, and for this reason he is called a rational being.

What is the essential difference between a rational and an irrational being?

It is that the rational being is engaged in intellectual pursuits which are not bounded by the limitations of matter and therefore cannot be explained by simple sensual cognition. Thus, man thinks in the strict sense of the word, that is to say: he conceives concepts, even abstract and universal concepts, he makes judgments, draws conclusions, analyses and summarizes, pursues science and cultivates art, invents, calculates, creates masterpieces, recognizes the difference between moral good and evil. In addition, man is free to choose, to decide, to exert his will, to love unselfishly and in a self-sacrificing manner. All this cannot be explained by mere material forms and feelings, but requires in man a life principle whose activity transcends the activity that is strictly spatial and limited by matter. But where there is a supramaterial activity, there must also be a supramaterial principle of life, and this supramaterial principle of life is called the spiritual soul. One would look in vain for the above-mentioned activities in an animal.

According to many psychologists of today, the soul is not a permanent, separate principle of life, but simply a set of so-called spiritual facts (Wundt and others).

In this, however, these psychologists are decidedly mistaken. For self-consciousness asserts that there are not only spiritual facts in me (thinking, determination, love, anger, etc.), but that there is a certain and constant bearer of these spiritual facts: the self, which remains the same among the changing spiritual facts from childhood to death. I was the one who at the age of 7 thought this or that, at 15 I did this or that sinful or virtuous act, and today I think about this or that question. Spiritual facts come and go, the self and its conscious bearer: the soul remains.

The soul is nothing more than a certain subtler state of the body organism.

It follows precisely from the above that the soul is a more noble thing than matter and a spiritual thing, and therefore cannot be identical with any material substance, however subtle. Indeed, self-consciousness testifies that our “self” always remains the same. According to modern natural science, the cellular make-up of our body is renews every few years, taking in completely different substances; yet we feel very well that “we” are the same as we were 10-20-50 years ago; we feel all the deeds, merits or sins of our childhood and youth as our own, whereas if our soul were only a substance, nothing would remain constant in us for 10-20-50 years.

Man is given existence by his parents, so the soul is also created by procreation.

The soul comes into being at procreation, but not by procreation. Material processes cannot produce a spiritual product, that is, a product that is essentially superior to matter. The soul is always created directly by God, but at the moment when the material component capable of being animated, the fertilized ovum, is created by procreation.

Is it not strange that God makes the creation of the soul dependent on the process of procreation?

There is nothing strange in this, if He has so willed and ordained. The soul takes possession of the body when the body is fit for that. And this becoming fit is by God’s appointment through the process of procreation.

Why is the human soul immortal, while the animal and plant soul is not?

Because man has a spiritual soul, that is to say, a soul which is above matter and internally independent of it. So there is no reason why it should be destroyed by separation from the body, as is the case with animals and plants.

What happens to the soul at the moment of death?

When it ceases to be united with the body, it takes up an independent existence; it continues to think and will, to rejoice or suffer, but now it is independent of the body, of the senses, of earthly feelings.

Is this possible?

There is nothing impossible about it. Even at the time of its union with the body, the soul was the actual factor of the life of thought and will, and therefore the more important and superior part of our being human; so there is nothing impossible in the fact that this soul, even after separation from the body, cannot continue its spiritual activity, its separate life.

So would there be an afterlife for the soul even if there were never a bodily resurrection?

Of course. We know of bodily resurrection only by revelation, whereas the soul’s survival after death can be attested independently of revelation. And indeed, on this basis the pagans believed in the survival and life of the soul beyond the grave. It is well known that all somewhat cultured peoples have a belief in the afterlife. […]

If God wants our salvation in the afterlife, why does he give us so many temptations? Why then is faith and a pure life so difficult?

Because God does not want to just drop salvation into our laps as a gift to a beggar, but wants us to work hard for it through His grace. He who considers what it means to gain eternal and infinite happiness in the next life, cannot consider any moral struggle, sacrifice, or care in life too high a price to pay.

But this way, many are damned. How can God be good if He can cast His children into eternal fire?

The punishment of eternal fire is indeed the most shocking, the most serious doctrine of all religion, and can only be understood if we bear in mind the following:

1. God is not only infinitely merciful, but also infinitely holy and just, so He must hate sin infinitely and punish it if it is committed.

2. God does not compel any man to be damned, but gives to every man sufficient power of grace to overcome temptations, to make atonement for sins which he may have committed through contrition, to obtain his grace again, and so to be saved. God does not force anyone to sin, as Calvin taught, but wants to lead everyone to the knowledge of the truth and to salvation. (1 Tim. 2,4) Therefore, whosoever is be damned, shall be damned through his own fault.

There are the hundreds of millions of pagans who do not even know the true faith. Are they all damned?

No way! Only those of the pagans will go to hell who have remained outside the true faith due to their own fault, and who have sinned grievously against the natural moral law and have never repented of it properly.

It is natural that this happens much more easily among pagans than among Christians, and we must do our utmost to bring all pagans to the fold of Christ as soon as possible. God desires the salvation of all (1 Tim. 2,4). […] 

Why did God at least not create those whom he foreknew would be damned?

Because in his determination of creation he could not be led by those who knowingly became his enemies; he could not reward the wicked by not creating them out of unmerited mercy. He created men, and left it to men whether they want to be saved or not. Let him who then chooses damnation look on himself and not on God.

The afterlife is a beautiful dream, but is it true?

Why should it be a dream and why not a reality? Can only only this narrow little world, in which move around in this life, exist? It is a strange idea that only what is within our tiny earthly horizons can be true.

The afterlife is real, for it is impossible for a wise and just God to create spiritual beings, such as man is due to his soul, and then destroy them by the death of the body without any cause or need. Then why did He create him? Why did He shine up in front of them the hope of everlasting, eternal and true happiness? Why then does He allow injustice to prevail and honour to suffer on earth? And what kind of God would create His children only to destroy them when they have gone through all the trials of life, without any need? If there is a true God, a wise God, a good God – and there is – then the afterlife, the survival of the human soul after death, is as certain as there is a God in heaven.

But what we rightly infer from the attributes of God is placed into a hundredfold new light by the revelations of Christ. Christ has taught eternal life, and he cannot fail to burn into men’s souls the doctrine, “What shall it profit a man, if he gain the whole world (on this earth), but lose his soul?” He amply describes the last judgment at which He, as the Judge of the world, will decide the eternal destiny of every man: the righteous he will bring to “everlasting life” and the unrepentant sinners he will cast into “everlasting fire”.

He who does not consider Christ a liar must believe in the world to come and in eternal life.

How do priests know what is in the afterlife? Have they been there? Have they seen it?

No, they themselves have not been there. You’ve never been to New Zealand, yet you believe it exists. The priests didn’t see the afterlife directly. Nor do they speak from their own knowledge or experience when they talk about the afterlife. But from the statements of someone who has “been there”, who knows very well what lies there.

The afterlife was spoken of by Christ Himself, so clearly and emphatically that anyone who believes in Him, that is, anyone who is a serious Christian, must accept the Catholic Church’s teaching on the afterlife, which is in perfect agreement with Christ’s teaching.

I believe in the transmigration of souls.

Then you believe in something for which there is not the slightest evidence, for which you find not the slightest basis in reason or revelation. Only certain primitive pagan peoples believe in the transmigration of souls, those who believe that man comes into the world first as a monkey, a cat, a horse, a donkey, and then as this or that man, and then as another man. It is all logical nonsense. An intelligent being cannot come into the world as an animal, and this or that person cannot exist as another person: for then he or she would no longer be that person.

Besides, this naïve myth is in open contradiction with revelation, because according to the word of God, man receives in the life to come his eternal reward or punishment on the basis of this life, and therefore does not live another life on earth afterwards!

Creative Commons Zero

This text is in released under the Creative Commons Zero License. The original author died in 1939, therefore the original Hungarian text is in the public domain.