On the Human Soul

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Subsection

When Soul is Joined to Body in the Womb
Free Choice

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Order of Contents

Articles  2
Hylemorphism  1
Intellect & Will  1
Soul’s Immortality  6
Latin  3


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Articles

Medieval Church

Aquinas, Thomas – Contra Gentiles, bk. 2, Creation

46. That the perfection of the universe required the existence of some intellectual creatures
47. That intellectual substances are endowed with will
48. That intellectual substances have freedom of choice in acting
49. That the intellectual substance is not a body
50. That intellectual substances are immaterial
51. That the intellectual substance is not a material form
52. That in created intellectual substances, being and what is differ
53. That in created intellectual substances there is act and potentiality
54. That the composition of substance and being is not the same as the composition of matter and form
55. That intellectual substances are incorruptible
56. In what way an intellectual substance can be united to the body
57. The position of Plato concerning the union of the intellectual soul with the body
58. That in man there are not three souls, nutritive, sensitive, and intellective
59. That man’s possible intellect is not a separate substance
60. That man derives his specific nature, not from the passive, but from the possible, intellect
61. That this theory is contrary to the teaching of Aristotle
62. Against Alexander’s opinion concerning the possible intellect
63. That the soul is not a temperament, as Galen maintained
64. That the soul is not a harmony
65. That the soul is not a body
66. Against those who maintain that intellect and sense we the same
67. Against those who hold that the possible intellect is the imagination
68. How an intellectual substance can be the form of the body
69. Solution of the arguments advanced above in order to show that an intellectual substance cannot be united to the body as its form
70. That according to the words of Aristotle the intellect must be said to be united to the body as its form
71. That the soul is united to the body without intermediation
72. That the whole soul is in the whole body and in each of its parts
73. That there is not one possible intellect in all men
74. Concerning the theory of Avicenna, who said that intelligible forms are not preserved in the possible intellect
75. Solution of the seemingly demonstrative arguments for the unity of the possible intellect
76. That the agent intellect is not a separate substance, but part of the soul
77. That it is not impossible for the possible and agent intellect to exist together in the one substance of the soul
78. That Aristotle held not that the agent intellect is a separate substance, but that it is a part of the soul
79. That the human soul does not perish when the body is corrupted
80. Arguments to prove that the corruption of the body entails that of the soul [and their solution]
81. Continued
82. That the souls of brute animals are not immortal
83. That the human soul begins to exist when the body does
84. Solution of the preceding arguments
85. That the soul is not made of God’s substance
86. That the human soul is not transmitted with the semen
87. That the human soul is brought into being through the creative action of God
88. Arguments designed to prove that the human soul is formed from the semen
89. Solution of the preceding arguments
90. That an intellectual substance is united only to a human body as its form
91. That there are some intellectual substances which are not united to bodies [i.e. angels]

94. That the separate substance [angels] and the soul are not of the same species

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1700’s

à Brakel, Wilhelmus – ch. 10, ‘Concerning Man, Particularly the Soul’  in The Christian’s Reasonable Service, vols. 1  ed. Joel Beeke, trans. Bartel Elshout  Buy  (1700; RHB, 1992/1999), pp. 307-31

a Brakel (1635-1711) was a contemporary of Voet and Witsius and a major representative of the Dutch Further Reformation.


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On a Hylemorphist View of the Soul

See also ‘On Hylemorphism’ at ‘Man, the Image of God’.

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2000’s

Feser, Edward – ‘The Soul’  in ch. 4, ‘Psychology’  in Aquinas: a Beginner´s Guide (OneWorld, 2010), pp. 114-22

Hylemorphism means “matter-form” and refers to Aristotelian categories that things are metaphysically made of a combination of matter and form.  This was by and large the view of Reformed Orthodoxy before the winds of change with Cartesianism rose, especially, in the late-1600’s.

The soul is simply the form of a human person.  Feser, an analytical Thomist, elaborates on what this entails.


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On the Intellect & Will

Feser, Edward – ‘Intellect & Will’  in ch. 4, ‘Psychology’  in Aquinas: a Beginner´s Guide (OneWorld, 2010), pp. 122-29

Feser is an analytical Thomist.


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On the Immortality of the Soul

Articles

1600’s

Rutherford, Samuel – ch. 20, section 1, ‘Whether souls are immortal?  We affirm against the doubting Remonstrants and Socinians.’  in Rutherford’s Examination of Arminianism: the Tables of Contents with Excerpts from Every Chapter  tr. Charles Johnson & Travis Fentiman  (1638-1642; 1668; RBO, 2019), pp. 135-36

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1700’s

à Brakel, Wilhelmus – ‘The Immortality of the Soul After Death’  in ch. 100, ‘Concerning Death & the State of the Soul After Death’  in The Christian’s Reasonable Service, vol. 4  ed. Joel Beeke, tr. Bartel Elshout  Buy  (1700; RHB, 1992/1999), pp. 317-22

a Brakel (1635-1711) was a contemporary of Voet and Witsius and a major representative of the Dutch Further Reformation.

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Historical

Feser, Edward – ‘Immateriality & Immortality’  in ch. 4, ‘Psychology’  in Aquinas: a Beginner’s Guide  (OneWorld, 2010), pp. 129-38  See especially pp. 135-38.

On Aquinas’s view that the soul is immortal by nature, which was the typical Romanist view.  That it was not immortal by nauture, but by God’s ordination, was a common protestant view.

Goudriaan, Aza – in Reformed Orthodoxy & Philosophy, 1625-1750

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Latin

1700’s

Roy, Albert – The 4th Theological Exercise, which is on the Immortality of the Human Soul  (Bern, 1713)

Roy (1663-1733) was a reformed professor of Hebrew, Catechesis and Theology at Lausanne.

Hartmann, Johann Adolph – A Philosophical Disputation in which is Demonstrated that the Human Soul is Not Able to be Destroyed  (Marburg, 1739)  28 pp.

Hartmann (1680-1744) was a reformed professor of philosophy, history and rhetoric at Kassel and Marburg.  He was a Romanist previous to 1715.


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Latin

Generally

Löw, Georg

Theses on the Human Soul  (Basil: 1600)

Philosophical Theses on the Soul & its Functions in corpore animato, quatenus in eo vitae principium & cuasa existit  (Basil, 1596)

Low (1565-1610)

Kyper, Albert –  Anthropology: the Nature of the Contents of the Human Body & the Soul, & the Powers Respecting the Circular Motion of the Blood Explained, to which is added a Response of the Same Author to the Pseudo-Apology of V.F. Plempius  (1660)  665 pp.  ToC

Kyper (1614-1655) was a professor of medicine at Leiden.

de Vries, Gerardus – Gerardi de Vries, … Narrator Confutatus, Sive Animadversiones In Narrationem De Controversiis Nuperius in Academia Ultraiectina Motis : Quibus I. Verae litium illarum origines panduntur, II. Novum dogmma, de infantibus in utero matrum actu peccantibus, refutatur, III. Effentiam animae humanae in sola cogitatione non consistere, demonstratur, et quae illis affines sunt controversiae pertractantur (Utrecht, 1679)

de Vries (1648-1705) was a reformed, Voetian, professor of philosophy and theology at Utrecht.

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