Letters

Soul and body (letter)

Dr Nicholas Tonti-Filippini

Contents - Oct 2002 - Buy a copy now Editorial: Positive developments in liturgy - Michael Gilchrist Power without responsibility: the vendetta against Dr Pell - Peter Westmore News: The Church Around the World - AD2000 Commission for Australian Catholic Women justifies its existence - Michael Gilchrist Liturgy: Vatican control over ICEL tightens - Dr William Oddie Bishop Power: Church teachings need to be 're-examined' - AD2000 REPORT US billionaire promotes orthodox teaching - Zenit News Service Catholic liturgy in the 21st century: major challenges facing the Church - Fr Peter Williams John Henry Newman's critique of liberalism - Michael Davies Letters: Archbishop Pell (letter) - Eamonn & Patricia Keane Letters: "The Pell Show" (letter) - Stephen Hitchings Letters: Justice? (letter) - Godwin Brown Letters: Shepherds (letter) - Br Con Moloney CFC Letters: Church "renovation" (letter) - B. Tooley Letters: Church re-design (letter) - Michael Barry Letters: Soul and body (letter) - Dr Nicholas Tonti-Filippini Letters: Zero tolerance (letter) - Alan A. Hoysted Letters: Letters to the Bishops (letter) - Mavis Power Letters: Catholic education (letter) - Dr Garrick Small Letters: US theologians (letter) - Fr G.H. Duggan SM Letters: Celibate priesthood (letter) - Cyril Drew Letters: Good response (letter) - C.G. Jarrells Letters: Novus Ordo (letter) - Maurice Collins Letters: New Zealand (letter) - Kevin E. Fennessy Poetry: The Great Deliverance - Marion Craig Books: The Courage to be Catholic, by George Weigel - Michael Novak (reviewer) Books: Completed Jew, by Andrew Sholl - Michael Casanova (reviewer) Books: Godfaring: On Reason, Faith and Sacred Being, by Francis Clark - Br Christian Moe FSC (reviewer) Books: New Titles from AD Books Reflection: Devotion to God through the Angelus and Rosary - Fr Fabian Duggan OSB

The discussion furthered by Bob Denahy (September AD2000) of the "infusion of a rational soul" cites St Thomas as an authority. The notion of the "infusion of a soul" into "organised matter" presupposes a dualist understanding of soul and body as distinct entities. Aquinas proposed that the soul is the form of the body.

Put simply there is no living human body without a soul, because a human body could not exist as an organised entity without form. Defining a soul as Thomas defined it, the notion of infusion of a soul is thus incoherent.

That is why the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (Donum Vitae 1987) was prompted to ask in relation to the human zygote, "How could a human individual not be a person?"

There can be no such thing as the infusion of a soul. The body is, at all times of the existence of the body, the physical instantiation of a soul. The soul and the body are a unity not a duality.

DR NICHOLAS TONTI-FILIPPINI
Lecturer in Biomedical Ethics