From Soul to Self to Annihilation of Self.7

(Cont'd)

It is usual for people with religious beliefs to talk about "souls".Jesus once asked rhetorically: "What doth it profit a man to gain the whole world and suffer the loss of his soul?". It is obvious that our "soul" is regarded as the most valuable and most precious part of our "possession" , the protection and advancement of which is the duty or ideal of the the faithful to attain through various kinds of religious worship, rites, rituals and practices etc. Not only the Jews and later Christians and  even later Muslims, many people in various primitive societies have got their own concept of some kind of "spirits" (e.g the spirit of their ancestors, the spirit of wild animals, the spirit of plants or even spirit of various natural forces or spectacular natural phenomena like mountains, seas, lakes, clouds, rains, stars etc ) which are supposed to somehow survive their death or destruction or exist "supernaturally"  and have some kind of "perennial" or even "eternal" existence. What exactly is a  "soul"? What kind of characteristics is it supposed to have? Do animals and plants have "souls"? If they have, are their "souls" the same as or different from human "souls" and if different, in what way are they different? How do we come to have such concepts?

According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, "A soul--in certain spiritual, philosophic and psychological traditions--is the incorporeal essence of a person, living thing or object...Soul can function as a synonym for spirit, mind or self, scientific works in particular often consider soul as a synonym for mind. I also looked up "From Soul to Self" (1999) ed. M James C Crabbe. which contains many articles on the subject. In addition, I consulted the Wikipedia, according to which, the word soul is derived from the Old English "sáwol/sáwel" first apearing in the 8th century poem Beowulf (v 2820) and in the Vespasian Psalter (77: 50) and is similar to other Germanic and Baltic words for the same idea including the Gothic "saiwala", old High German "sêula/sêla", old Low Franconian "sêla/sála" and the Lithuanian "siela". Another suggestion is that it is connected to the German root word for "binding" or "sailian" or Old English words "selian" or Old High  German "seilen" meaning being "bound in death" and the ritual practice of binding or restraining the corpse of the deceased in the grave from returning as a "ghost". It is probably an adaptation by early missionaries and a translation of the original Greek word "psyche" or "life, spirit, consciousness". The Greek word "psyche" is itself derived from a verb meaning "to cool, to blow", referring to the vital breath or the animating principle in human and animals, as opposed to "soma" or "body" which could refer to either a ghost or spirit of the dead (as in Homer) and since Pindar, to the more philosophic notion of an "immortal and immaterial essence" left over at death and since Terence, the word "anima" has been used as translation of the original "psyche"in the English translation of the Greek and Latin "anima" in Matthew 10: 28 "And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear Him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.". In the Septuagint LXX the Greek word for "psyche" is translated from the Hebrew word "nephesh" which means "life, vital breath" and is later translated into English as "soul, self, life, creature, person, appeitite, mind, living being, desire, emotion, passion." e.g. in Genesis 1: 20 : "And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth." And St. Paul distinguished between the Jewish notion of 'nephesh" (vital breath) and "ruah" (spirit) in Septuagint LXX e.g. Genesis 1:2 "the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. "

According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, the term "soul" in the Sacred Scripture refers to human life or the entire human person. and it also means  "the innermost aspect of man, that which is of greatest value in him, that by which he is most especially in God's image or ...the spiritual principle in man" and that our body becomes "human precisely because it is animated by a spiritual soul, and it is the whole human person that is intended to become, in the body of Christ, a temple of the Spirit" and that, "though made of body and soul, is a unity." and such unity "is so profound that one has to consider the soul to be the "form" of the body i.e., it is because of its spiritual soul that the body made of matter becomes a living, human body; spirit and matter, in man, are not two natures united, but rather their union forms a single nature." and that "it is immortal: it does not perish when it separates from the body at death, and it will be reunited with the body at the final Resurrection." although "sometimes the soul is distinguished from the spirit" but that "this distinction does not introduce a duality into the soul" because "Spirit" signifies that from creation man is ordered to a supernatural end and that his soul can gratuitously be raised beyond all it deserves to communion with God."

What were/are the Christian view on the human soul? According to Kallistos Ware in "The Soul in Greek Christianity", to Clement of Alexandria (c150-c215), the greatest of all lessons is to know yourself because " if someone knows himself, he will know God; and if he knows God, he will become like God" (Pedagogue3.1.1 )(cf. 1 John3:2). Cyril of Jerusalem (c.315-87) said" I have a soul and yet I cannot describe its characteristics." (Catechesis 6.6) whilst John Chrysostrom (c 347-407) said, " The essence of our own soul is not known to us fully or rather it is not known to us at all” ( in On the Incomprehensiblity of God ed. Malingrey 259-60). They they all echo C G. Jung's view that the psyche is a foreign, almost unexplored country (Modern Man in Search of a Soul 1984 p 86).Gregory of Nyssa's (c.330-395) view is the standard Christian view that man is made in the image and likeness of God, as affirmed by the Scripture (Gen.1:26-27) i.e. that each of us is a created icon of the uncreated God but “an image” is only truly such in so far as it expresses all the attributes of its archetype. If one of the attributes of the divine nature is to be beyond our understanding, does that mean that we must resemble the archetype in that respect? ( On the Creation of Man 11 in Petrologia Graeca 44 156AB) ("PG").

However much they differ in other respects, Greek Christian thinkers from New Testament times to the end of Byzantine era (i e. 1st to 14thC) are in agreement on one point viz. to understand ourselves, theory alone  (i.e. philosophical speculations, abstract doctrinal definition etc.) is never itself sufficient and to have any self-knowledge, practice or ascesis (fasting, crouching, prostrating, making the sign of the cross,repeating invocation of the Holy Spirit, incantation of the Jesus Prayer "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on us" and linking the words with the rhythm of breathing, gazing at the navel, simultaneously practicing an inner exploration, striving to make their intellect descend into their heart) is also required. Thus self knowledge can only be gained through silence,  prayer and worship and through sharing in the sacraments.

Since to the early Greek Christians, human nature is beyond our comprehension, they have no agreed definition of the soul. Nemeisius of Emersa (late 4th Century) says of non-Christian philosophers: "the subject of the soul is differently handled by almost every ancient author."  Some of the Greek Fathers offer a basically Platonic definition of the soul. e.g. Gregory of Nyssa : “a living and intellectual essence…non material and bodiless” ( On the Soul and Resurrection PG 46.29AB). To Athanasius of Alexandria (c.296-373), the soul is “an intellectual essence that is bodiless, passionless and immortal” (Questions to Antiochus 16 PG 28.608A ) although according to Crabbe, that may be a wrong attribution. Macarius the Egyptian however equate the soul with the inner man (ho eso anthropos) and in his Spiritual Homilies (late 4thC) Collection II ("SH ") 7.8, he expresses the view that there is a certain "diversity in unity" : “Just as the members of the body, though many, are said to be a single human being, so also the members of a soul are many—intellect (nous), conscience, will, thoughts--but the soul is one”. Thus it although it may comprise of a rational mind, freewill, conscience and just ordinary thoughts, they are all different aspects of the human soul and  body and soul are seen as two complementary entities that constitute an undivided unity: neither can properly exist apart from the other and their separation at death is no more than temporary. Crabbe notes that  while it is taken for granted that we are made in the divine image, there are no authoritative source [neither the Bible nor in the Nicene-Constantinople Creed (381) nor in the doctrinal decrees of the 7 Ecumenical Councils (325-787)] do we find any clear statement specifying the precise nature of this indwelling image. As said by Epiphanius of Salamis (c 315-403) “It cannot be denied that all humans are in the image of God but we do not inquire too curiously how they are in the image”

Can the soul exist without a body? Most Greek Christians link the divine image with the soul and exclude the body from participation in it and think that upon death, the soul will leave the human body but a small but  a significant minority associate the divine image with the total human body, soul and spirit eg. Irenaeus of Lyons (c130-c200) ( Against the Heresies 5.6.1). However it is certain that the image of the divine in man is regularly associated with his possession "self-awareness" and of "reason", of "freedom in moral choice" and of "dominion over the animals" (Gen. 1:28).

But because the human soul is made in the image of God, to the Greek Christians, it cannot be understood on its own as a self-contained and autonomous reality but must always be be and can only be understood in its relationship to God. The divine is the determining element in our humanness. Crabbe thinks that God is at the innermost core of our being; apart from God, were are unintelligible. This relationship with God is what makes the human soul distinctive and unique and because of this special relationship with God, our freedom cannot be exercised arbitrarily but only in conformity with the will of God ie. only when our acts of free choice authentically  reflects God's divine love and compassion. Our freedom can only be properly exercised in love and compassion. This starting point is thus very different from Eric Fromm's view, which does not presuppose any such relationship with the divine.

Whatever the true nature or limitation of what is understood by the term "soul" and the exercise of "free will" may be, there are two clear authoritative statements on the unity and inseparability of of the soul with the human body:
1. the 5th Ecumenical Council at Constantinople in 553, condemning Origen’s idea of the pre-existence of the soul because the soul and body come into existence at the same time
2. The Nicene-Constantinople Creed (381) concludes: “I believe in the resurrection of the body” because the severance of the soul from the body at death is not final and irrevocable for upon Christ’s Second Coming on the last day, the two will be united again because Christ was resurrected from the dead on the third day and thereafter, they will coexist eternally in the age to come. Thus Christianity not only believes in the immortality of the soul, it also believes in the ultimate re-integration of the body with the soul on the day of Last Judgement.. This is not based on any philosophic argument but merely based on an article of their faith. As Paul argues, our conviction that eventually, we shall be raised from the dead depends in the final analysis upon our belief that Jesus Christ truly rose from the dead. As Paul argues in 1 Cor 15: 20-24, Christ had marked out the path that we shall follow: he is the first fruits and we are the harvest

Is the body in which Christ was raised from the dead the same or a different body? As far as his disciples are concerned, it is the same body, wounds he sustained on the cross included. According to the Bible, his disciples recognized Jesus by seeing the wounds of the Cross on his hands and feet and in his side (.John 20: 20-28). What about the body of us mortals upon the day of Last Judgment? Will it be the same body? If so, our body at what age? Will it be composed of the same atoms and molecules and arranged in exactly the same way as we may be just at our hour of death or will it be composed of all our atoms and molecules but at the height of our youth and beauty or will it be an improved version of our body but without any plastic surgery? The Bible appears to be silent. All we have according to St. Paul is that we shall rise in a body "glorified" and perhaps transfigured: a “spiritual” body as Paul puts it in 1 Cor. 15:44 . But what do we mean by "spiritual"? Is that just a metaphor? It it is material, then in what way will it remain material? Or will it be "non-material"? We simply do not have any answers! According to Macarius, in his Spiritual Homilies: “all the members of the body are raised, not a hair perishes” (SH 15:10 cf. Lk. 21:18 ). Gregory of Nyssa thinks that the constituent elements making up our physical body are constantly changing but the soul imposes upon such elements a "particular form" (eidos) and by virtue of the uninterrupted preservation of this "form", it may legitimately be asserted that we continue throughout our life to have the same body and at resurrection, the soul will reassemble the particles of matters from which the body was formed during the present life and impress upon them the same “form” as before (On the Creation of Man 27 (PG 44.225C-228) ( cf. On Soul and the Resurrection PG46.73A-80A; On the Dead PG 46.532B-536B ed. Jaeger/Heil 62-66). It  seems that what is important is not the individual particles of our "spiritual" body or "glorified" body but the continuity of the "form" supplied by the soul, whatever "form" there means. Is that "form" the kind of form talked about by Plato or does it mean something else? Thomas Aquinas, a great Catholic theologian, thinks that we are not merely our Platonic form or our soul. He says, "The soul is not the whole man, and my soul is not me" (in I Cor. c 15 lect. 2 ed. Cai #924) If the body and soul come into existence simultaneously and will be reunited at the resurrection, then it follows they together constitute an integral whole, an undivided unity but the soul is not the whole man and “my soul is not me” and “me” is the combination and coincidence of the two together.In this respect see the work attributed to Justin Martyr (c 100-c 165) (On the Resurrection 8 PG 6. 158B ) who is supposed to have said that what he called "me" is not his soul without his body nor his body without his soul but the combination and coinherence of the two together. We may legitimately ask: "Is there any "sense" in talking about it like that i.e. is it "nonsense"" ? But In this regard, another Christian apologist, C.S. Lewis appeals to the example of a waterfall: the drops in the waterfall are continually changing but the curve assumed by the waterfall remains constant; since the water preserves the same form, it is indeed the same waterfall (Miracles: A Preliminary Study 1947 180 ) Gregory of Nyssa uses the analogies of a stream and the flame of a candle ( PG 46.141AB). If so, what is the basis of their respective claims?

Ware thinks that the Greek Patristic texts probably derived their ideas of what the human "soul" consists of or in from the classical Greek philosophy. They thus distinguish various subdivision within this all embracing unity of the human "soul". Some of them presuppose a simple bipartite division of body and soul eg Council of Chalcedon (451) states that the Incarnate Christ is “complete in Godhead and complete in humanity, truly God and truly man formed from a rational soul and body”, whatever that means except in a metaphorical sense. Others prefer a tripartite division, distinguishing the soul , the intellect (nous) or spirit (pneuma) eg. Origen insists  that the human being is comprised of “the soul, body and spirit” but his the "human spirit" is distinct from the Holy Spirit of God (in Irenaeus the distinction is less clear and Gregory of Nyssa is also a trichotomist in his On the Creation of Man( 8 PG 44.145D) and claims that throughout the Scripture, there is a distinction between soul and spirit (see Commentary on John 32 18 ed. Preuschen 455.17-18). Some alternate between the one scheme and the other, considering that there is no basic discrepancy between the two e. g. Apollinaris of Laodicea (c310-c390) (See R. A. Norris Manhood and Christ. A Study in the Christology of Theodore of Mopsuestia 1963 81-122). If we may rely on Origen, it may be doubted whether the trichotomist or the dichotomist scheme has a clear basis in Scripture: The Hebraic concept of personhood, as found in the Old Testament, is "embodied" and "physical": scarcely is there a soul-body contrast of the Platonic type and the person is seen as a single unity of “flesh-animated-by soul”. In the New Testament,  nowhere does Paul make a direct contrast between body and soul although he often distinguishes between flesh (sarx) and spirit (pneuma). Only on one occasion did he use the triad “spirit, soul and body” (1 Thess 5:23) but it may be doubted if he intended to provide there a systematic enumeration of the parts of the human person

As regards the soul, Greek Christian authors employ a variety of classifications, sometimes twofold and sometimes threefold e.g.Clement of Alexandria: distinguishes between knowledge (gnosis) and impulse (horme), between the cognitive and the affective/volitional parts of the soul  (Stromateis 6.8 ed.Stahlin 466.13-14). Basil of Caesarea (c300-c379) employs the Aristotelian distinction between the “active” and “passive” “receptive aspects of the soul (Homily 3.7 PG 31.213C ed. Rudberg 35.6-7). More frequently, the Greek Fathers adopt the tripartite subdivision of the soul, developed by Plato: logistikon  (the rational or intellectual aspect); thymikon  (the spirited or incensive aspect) and epithymetikon (the appetitive or desiring aspect) (see Clement of Alexandria, The Pedagogue 3.1.2 Gregory of Nazianzus Poems PG 371381A-1384A; Evagrius  Practicus 89 ed. Guillaumont 680-2 ) But Origen expresses reservation about this classification, noting its lack of support from the Scripture (On First Principles 3.4.1)

Per Ware, a second tripartite scheme popular among the Greek Fathers, again with little explicit support from Scripture, is the subdivision found in Aristotle
the vegetative soul (nutritive); the animal soul (sensitive)and  the human soul (rational/intellectual). In this threefold scheme used by e. g. Gregory of Nyssa, it is evident that the term "psyche" is being used with a connotation far wider than that normally ascribed today to the word “soul”: it signifies not just "self consciousness" also in a broader sense, "vital energy" or "life-force" but Gregory of Nyssa adds that in the strict sense, psyche can only be applied to the rational human soul and that the animal soul and still less the vegetative soul is not a soul in the strict sense (On the Creation of Man 15 PG 44.176B-177A). Thus in his view, animals and plants do not have souls.

The Greek Fathers affirm with varying degrees of emphasis that the soul is not only one with itself but also with the body and to indicate this all embracing wholeness of the human person, many of them employ the integrating symbol the notion of the heart (kardia) (the best discussion is still that of Antoine Guillaumont “Les sens des noms du Coeur dans l’antiquite Le Coeur” Etudes Carmelitaines 29: Paris, 1950 pp 41-81). Today, the heart is contrasted with the head and the head is regarded as the seat of reason whilst the heart is considered to be the seat of the affections and emotions but in the Bible, the heart designates not simply the affections and emotions, which are located primarily in the guts or belly but rather the spiritual center of the human person but there is no head-heart contrast in the Old Testaments: the heart is the seat of memory, conscience, thought, wisdom and intelligence, the place where we make moral decisions and where we experience divine grace: God dwells in the heart and so also does Satan (see e.g. Matt.6:21; 15:19 ; Lk 2:19; Rom. 1:24; 8:27; Gal. 4:6 and Eph. 3:16-17). In some Greek Patristic texts eg. those ascribed to Dionysius the Areopagite (c 500), there are very few references to the heart but no special significance is attached to the term but other sources, such as the Macarius, ascribe to the heart the centrality and the richness of meaning it possesses in the Bible: “the heart directs and governs the whole bodily organism; and when grace possesses the pasturages of the heart, it rules over all the members and the thoughts. For there, in the heart, is the intellect (nous) and all the thoughts of the soul and its expectation and in this way grace penetrates throughout all parts of the body” (Macarius SH 15:20 cf. 22-23; 43.7). The heart is not only the physical organ in our chest, it is also symbolically the point of convergence between the body and the soul and the meeting place between the human being and God and corresponds in some measure to the modern concept of the unconscious “within the heart is the unfathomable depth” (SH 15.32 cf. Ps 63 [64]: 7 LXX: “the heart is deep”) . The heart is thus the unifying
center of our personhood, open on one side to the abyss of our
unconscious, open on the other to the abyss of divine grace and the nous
or intellect is a faculty far higher than the reasoning brain—a
visionary power, creative and self-transcending, that reaches out beyond
time into eternity, beyond words into silence.

The Greek Patristic tradition concerning the heart is lucidly summed up towards the end of the Byzantine era by Gregory Palamas (1296-1359): some Fathers locate the mind(dianoia) or the intellect (nous) in the head and others in the heart but this does not greatly disturb him for he considers that there are no dogmas in the realm of physiology but in any case, since the mind is non-material, it cannot be precisely located in space: citing John Climacus (c 570-c649), he says the mind is “both in us and not in us” “our intelligence (logistikon) is neither within us as in a container—for it is incorporeal—nor yet outside us, for it is united to us” and expresses a definite preference for the approach found in the Macarian SH whereby the mind or intellect is associated with the heart rather than the head, describing the heart as “the shrine of the intelligence and the chief intellectual organ of the body…the ruling organ…the throne of grace, where the intellect and all the thoughts of the soul reside” and our aim in prayer is to “collect our intellect, outwardly dispersed through the senses and bring it back within ourselves—back to the heart itself, the shrine of our thoughts”. To Palamas, the Hesychasts strive to "bring their intellect back and to enclose it within their body and particularly within that innermost body within the body that we call the heart" (see Triads in Defence of the Holy Hesychasts 1.2.3-4 quoting John Climacus, The Ladder of Divine Ascent 26 PG 88.1020A and Macarius SH15.20) .Palamas thinks that “after the Fall, our inner being naturally adapts itself to outward forms" ( Triads 1.2.8 and The Encounter of the Religions: a Dialogue between the West and the Orient, with an Essay on the Prayer of Jesus Tournai 1960 92-93). He thus defends the psychosomatic techniques used by the Hesychasts (those who pursue inner stillness (hesychia) through the practice of contemplative prayer, usually in the form "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on us", a bit like the Tibetan Buddhists' recitation of various Buddhist mantras. They would adopt a crouching postures in their prayers, with their gaze fixed on the heart or navel, and would link the words of the Jesus Prayer with the rhythm of their breathing and at the same time they would practice an inner exploration, striving to bring their intellect  descend into their heart and for which practice they were often ridiculed as omphlopyshoi or "navel-psychics" or people who locate the soul in the navel, a name against which they vigorously protested)  Palamas thus thinks that there is a certain correlation between the organs of our physical body and the different centres of spiritual energy within ourselves operating through in a kind of "analogy-participation" but not literally.

Palamas' interpretation of the heart has much in common with the understanding of "memoria" in Book 10 of the Confessions of Augustine (354-430) but by "memoria", Augustine meant not primarily the recollection of past events but the “deepest abyss of the ego” to use Henry Chadwick’s phrase (Augustine 1986 p 67) or in the words of John Burnaby “that deep of the soul in which is treasured not only the consciousness of the self but a consciousness of God” (Amor Dei: A Study of the Religion of St. Augustine 1938 p155). It is "aula ingens" “a vast courtyard” “a profound and infinite multiplicity” “a large and boundless interiority” (penetrale): Within the "memoria", each of us finds contained “the heaven, the earth and the sea”: there we encounter not only our own true self but God"  (Augustine Confessions 10:8.14-15; 10.17.26). The "memoria" is thus closely associated with the intellect (mens) and the spirit (spiritus): our sense of continuity and identity is rooted in the memory and it is through memory that we experience ourselves as created in the image of God and so become responsive to divine grace. Here there are very close parallels between the Biblical, the Greek Patristic notions of the functions of the heart and indeed, save for the existence of a monotheistic God, very close to the traditional Chinese conception of what the heart does as in the "heart philosophy" of Sung and Ming Dynasties. And if the Greek Christian understanding of the heart resembles Augustine’s memoria, it also anticipates the concept of the self as found in C. G. Jung, which includes not only the "ego-consciousness" but the innermost depths of our "personhood": “The self is not only the center of but the whole circumference which resembles both consciousness and the unconscious; it is the center of this totality, just as the ego is the center of the conscious mind…The self is our life’s goal, for it is the completest expression of that fateful combination we call individuality” (Memories, Dreams, Reflections ed. Aniela Jaffe 1967 417)  In short. in the Greek Patristic usage, the heart and the soul overlap. The soul is seen as non-material and is contrasted with the body; the heart is both a physical organ and a center of spiritual energy and thus symbolizes the fundamental unity of the human person and while the word soul has predominantly philosophical associations, the heart is more explicitly religious in its overtones, oriented towards the spirit and towards God and designates the human being as a creature made in the image of God and a finite expression of God’s infinite self-expression.

(To be con'td)