To repeat from Identifying the Soul, Part 2: There is clearly a difference between voluntary and involuntary volition. So we cannot say at the present point in this discussion that the soul did or did not animate the newborn of any species. Catholics, who believe human life is endowed at conception with a soul would say it does animate the newborn. The antithetic argument is that human volition begins with the first syllogism.
These antithetic arguments will be the basis for making the identification of the entity we call the soul. But it must be stated at the beginning that there is a school of thought that says what is self-evidential to the senses as the thing called the soul is no more than the physiological workings of the brain and body. This thinking does not deny that something is self-evidential to the senses; instead, it denies the metaphysical importance of that which is self-evidential, and uses language other than the word soul to identify what it admits is self-evidential.
As was stated in the first part of this discussion, ontology is a branch of metaphysics. "Zygote," "embryo," "fetus," "chimp," "bonobo", "consciousness" and "soul" are all metaphysical classifications, made by identifying characteristics, differences between them and similar entities, differences based on scientific descriptions where science has made them, but identities and differentiations of ontology represent metaphysical values. Why? Because ontology itself would not exist without metaphysics, and is a branch of it.
The Religious Identity of "Soul"
"The term 'mind' usually denotes this principle [called 'soul', by which we think, feel, and will, and by which our bodies are animated,] as the subject of our conscious states, while 'soul' denotes the source of our vegetative activities as well." Catholic Encyclopedia (CE)
Thereby volition--will--is either 1) a quality of the conscious mind; and/or 2) an entity not of the conscious mind. Objectively this is correct, because the body does have the ability to remain alive even while the mind is comatose.
By this definition, a person in a vegetative state of coma has a soul. Practically speaking, this "source of our vegetative activies" makes our stomachs digest food, causes our lungs to breathe, and our noses to sneeze. Should we call this "source" by the name soul?
One of the difficulties of nailing down a classification, either of genus or of species, is where to draw the line. What line of demarcation, either scientifically or metaphysically, is there between the volition of the conscious will, and the volition of the body apart from the conscious mind?
As an object of ontological identity, the CE says "our vital activities proceed from a principle capable of subsisting in itself, [and] is the thesis of the substantiality of the soul: that this principle is not itself composite, extended, corporeal, or essentially and intrinsically dependent on the body, [and] is the doctrine of spirituality. If there be a life after death, clearly the agent or subject of our vital activities must be capable of an existence separate from the body. The belief in an animating principle in some sense distinct from the body is an almost inevitable inference from the observed facts of life."
Ok, what does all that mean? It begins--and ends--with the "thesis of substantiality." The CE does not list "substantiality" as an entry, but of the thesis of "substance" it says this: "A genus supremum, cannot strictly be defined by an analysis into genus and specific difference; yet a survey of the universe at large will enable us to form without difficulty an accurate idea of substance."
So it gets back to taxonomy, i.e., genus and specie. Calling it a "genus supremum", followed by the explicit lack of specie and the anti-definition given means the soul is not definable in human terms, i.e., "genus and specific difference."
There is a reason for this. Onlologically the Catholic Church cannot allow itself to be pinned down on a definition, because it believes the soul to be "genus supremum," ergo, supernatural.
Oddly (or not, as you prefer,) the CE does not have a definition for supernatural. The only two "supernatural" entities in its pages are these:
"Supernatural Gift - Something conferred on nature that is above all the powers (vires) of created nature
"Supernatural Order - The ensemble of effects exceeding the powers of the created universe and gratuitously produced by God for the purpose of raising the rational creature above its native sphere to a God-like life and destiny"
This can only lead us to conclude that the most powerful and ancient Christian Church cannot define "genus supremum." As a matter of fact, that definition is another entry missing from its pages. The Church obviously prefers not to ontologically identify the entity soul, while at the same time describing its qualites as those which "animate" the human being. No wonder it defines the soul as a "principle."
Qualities described will necessarily lead one to an ontological ID of the entity that possess those qualities, unless the qualities are themselves not concretely identified. The definition given by the CE of soul is not concrete.
Tomorrow: The Secular Identity of the Entity Called "Soul"
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© 2008 by Curtis Edward Clark and Naturalist Academy Publishing ®
The Free Assemblage of Metaphysical Naturalists is the SM of
The Free Assemblage of Metaphysical Naturalists LLC.
The Academy of Metaphysical Naturalism TM,
The Academy of Metaphysical Naturalism Blogger TM, and
Academy of Metaphysical Naturalism Blogger Extra TM are the educational arms of the LLC and are:
© 2008 by Curtis Edward Clark and Naturalist Academy Publishing ®
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