I got (a) soul! But, uh, no rhythm.

 

    What a great question Stick Man Billy! However, the soul is something that is deemed "unlocatable". The soul is something that is spiritual, and if you read my previous post on God you would remember that the spiritual things, such as our soul, are immaterial, i.e., without physical form. So, many philosophers through out the ages have thought that the soul is located in various parts of the body, giving the soul a physicality where is does not belong. 

    Rene Descartes once thought that the soul is in the pineal gland of the brain, Aristotle thought it was the heart, and Shakespeare said that the soul, often referred to as the passions of the person in his time, was located in the spleen. Unfortunately, for those who have had a splenectomy, Shakespeare would call you passionless and without a soul. Those with a heart transplant, Aristotle would say that your body has a new soul, your previous one would have gone elsewhere. 

Well, what does Christianity say about the soul? Well first, it isn't located in a particular organ, so if you need treatment don't worry about loosing your soul. Second, Christianity says that the soul is immortal, made in the image and likeness of God, meaning it is without form and is rational and has a will.

First, let's talk about what is mean by a soul, this is to differentiate the many pagan theories held by the people of ancient Greco and Roman Empires, and of the far-east (Buddhism, Hinduism, Zoroastrianism, etc.).  The human soul is an important thing to specify, as it indicates the non-human souls, such as those found in plants and animals, and of course the angelic creatures (angels and demons). In the division of life as we can see we have the pant life, the animal life, and then human life. Plants have capacity of growth, and seeming sensation (shrinking from the cold and intense heat) however, that is predominantly due to biophysical and chemical reaction in the plant. Animals have capacity of growth and sensation, meaning what one can perceive with the senses of sight, taste, touch, smell, and hear. Finally, we have humanity with the capacity of growth, sensation, and reasoning; the process in which we analyze sense data and also have the capacity to not be occupied entirely by our senses.

"I think I can, I think I can ..." -

With our rational soul we are not restricted to material objects as animals are, but our soul lends us rationality and intelligence which we can act upon. With our usage of the senses, once referred to as the five gates to the fortress of the mind, we can gain knowledge of the world around us. We can learn what cold and hot weather is like, what a beautiful sunset looks like, the smell and taste of freshly baked bread and what the crust of it sounds like when we cut into it. However, there are things which we cannot learn from by our senses alone. We can ponder ideals of justice, wisdom, eternity, and truth, things that cannot be perceived by the senses alone. We can ponder on God and His angels, beings that are immaterial themselves, which speaks to the nature of the soul, that is immaterial. 

"... I just did, and I shouldn't have."

With the capacity to know and to reason on things immaterial we also form the capacity to make choices regarding things in this world, and make choices that impact our life in the next. We call this Free Will. We have the ability to perform actions over which we have mastery, meaning thing we choose to do. We can choose to do X or Y, and yet while free in choosing, we are not free from the consequences. When we do something right, more often than not there isn't a tangible reward, but when we do something wrong, not only is there a tangible punishment, but a immaterial guilt that is always associated with it. But if there are consequences, and we are trained to "do the right thing" then do we have free will? As St. Aquinas said on this matter some 730 years ago "If our wills are not free, then counsels, exhortations, precepts, prohibitions, rewards and punishments would be meaningless" (Summa Theologia, 1Q83a1). 

As such, we can choose to do good or evil. We can choose to follow the good that is found in God (see previous article), or we can choose to do the opposite of good, i.e. evil. How can we do this? How can we choose one side or the other? It is all in the exercise of our free will. 

"It's a muscle, use it or loose it"

You can look at free will as a muscle. When you lift heavy things (and then put them back down), you can get better at lifting heavy things. When it is used for good things, doing good comes more easily. When you do not lift heavy things, your muscles become weaker with disuse. When you use your free will to do bad things, doing good becomes much harder to do, and you become stuck in the mire of guilt and shame. Our soul having a rational and intellectual capacity can learn things to help us do good and avoid evil. A formed intellect, meaning you've been taught, is the means of how this happens. It isn't necessary, but it sure makes it a lot easier to know the good. And free will seeks the good, it seeks its end that is the reason it was made. Free will seeks God. As God is goodness perfected and the maker of the soul, it is in the nature of the soul to want to be with God again. (See the article on The Sacraments (pt. 1 & 2) to see how this happens most easily.)

"It's alive!!! (Now and forever)"

The soul is immortal, our choices made with our Free Will, in union with our intellect, can lead us to eternity with or without God (cf. The Four Last Things). And with the question of eternity, some will see our physical death as a death of the soul. Well with the understanding of the immateriality of the soul, and how it acts upon the body, and unfortunately the other way around when it comes to sin, but God has a way to fix that (see Reconciliation) we can deduce that the soul does not die with the body. In fact in the end when Christ comes again, we will be resurrected with a new body which will probably fit like a glove with our soul. we can rest easy in knowing that our souls will not die with our bodies, and I pray that our souls will be with God for all eternity. I pray that we can come to know God, in ways that cannot be known or easily understood here, and that ultimately people, freely choose Him over themselves.

In the next section of article we come to see how He makes Himself known through Revelation, the Prophets and the countless miracles through the ages.