A Short But Dense Philosophical Explanation of the Christian Resurrection
As the integrated substances that humans are (an example of this integrity is between our intellects which can move our bodies to certain ends and our bodies which can influence what objects we conceptualize, where this mind-body interaction would be expected in an integrated and unified substance), the intellect and body share certain qualities as being apart of that same substance. Here is one quality that they share: just as one can condition their body to be physically healthy, to form new reflexes, to get used to a poison through repetition, or to get used to a certain kind of food such that the bodily appetites are directed toward that food and opposed to others, the same can be said of the intellect, that it can be conditioned in a similar way to be habitually inclined toward certain objects as opposed to others. Now, the intellect's proper and principle object is intelligible being as such, which entails that the passive intellect stands in potency to the reception of the forms of all material things, because all material beings are intelligible through their form, and material beings are the primary and proper objects of human knowledge as material beings themselves.
But, to stand in potency to all material forms is to lack the actuality of any material form, and so the intellect is immaterial, and given agere sequitur esse (the principle that the activities of things reflect the natures of those things), to be immaterial means to act and therefore exist (since existence is an act) independently of anything material/corporeal, and thus the intellect can persist in existence beyond the death of the composite substance, and as the will is the appetite of the intellect (that part of the intellect which desires), the intellect which persists beyond one's death will naturally tend to those objects which in life it had been conditioned to desire, and those things correspond to virtuous and vicious objects, and one's "entrance" into heaven or hell corresponds to these virtuous or vicious objects that the intellect was conditioned to desire (those whose intellects were formed toward habitual virtue will naturally tend toward God, whereas those whose intellects were formed toward habitual vice will naturally tend away from God).
Consequently, this state of the intellect post mortem affects the re-composition of the intellect with its matter (the resurrection), since the soul is what forms matter to be a living body, and the intellect is the last existing remnant of the soul. Thus, a virtuous intellect reforms its matter into what is theologically denominated as a glorified body had by the blessed, and a vicious intellect reforms its matter into what is theologically denominated as a damned body had by the wicked, where the blessed see the essence of God and cannot but will the good, and the wicked see not the essence of God and cannot but will the evil, since the mutability of the will is, at least in part, in virtue of the neutrality of the human form at its creation, where the form of the blessed is essentially virtuous and the form of the wicked is essentially vicious (I say "essentially" because the object of the intellect is formally identical with it, so when recomposed as a substance, which is essentially a composite of matter and form, that composite substance will thus either be essentially a composite of a virtuous soul and matter or a vicious soul and matter. The soul's initial neutrality allows for the fluctuation between virtue and vice in this life, so this fluctuation is unavailable post-resurrection).
Good post spelling out the Thomistic position Jacob.
ReplyDeleteWhen debating with universalists (like SpicY), you will see that they will simply reject the idea of the immutability of the intellect post mortem, and they will appeal to God's universal salvific to argue otherwise. This is in my opinion the strongest counterargument made by universalists, so the approach I take when debating this topic is to first show from scripture that hell is eternal, and from there show that the line of reasoning used in this post above necessarily follows in order to maintain such a position.
The method outlined above in the universalist/eternal hell debate is similar to the distinction between the De Ente vs. the argument from motion. The De Ente assumes there is Pure Subsistent Existence first and then outlines what this would be like, then shows that no conditioned reality is Ipsum Esse Subsistens. The argument from motion gets to Pure Act first and then derives the Divine attributes afterwards. So, there is a flip-flop in order between the De Ente and the argument from change. Similarly the universalist starts from the philosophical belief of God's universal salvific will and erroneously gets to universalism first, then informs his reading of Scripture with this afterwards. Whereas the Catholic starts from Scripture and recognizes that the eternity of hell is taught first, then informs his philosophical theory of the Resurrection to explain why this is the case afterwards.