Is there identity of person between a living human being and a separated soul?
Christopher Martin
249
Studia Theologica VI, 4/2008, 249 - 253
1. Theological preamble
“Personal identity” is a question which in secular philosophy, analytical philosophy in
particular, is treated as unproblematical, although of course there are differing answers
given. An attempt to develop the question, however, in the context of faith, leads to
problems. I don’t know whether my problem – is there identity of person between the
living human being and the separated soul? – is properly a philosophical question or a
theological question. Thomas Aquinas, whose ideas I shall be exploring, clearly treats it
as a philosophical question in the Summa, but we have the authority of the later Cajetan
to support us if we decide that it is a theological question. Moreover, in the Commentary
on I Corinthians 15,, if that text is authentic, we find Thomas himself apparently doubting
whether the immortality of the soul can be proved independently of faith in the
resurrection1.
I shall treat “person” and “self” as synonymous, and treat them both as clearly
instantiated in our use of personal pronouns.
I want to suggest that for St Thomas there is not and cannot be a concept of “personal
identity”, especially when looking at the personal identity of a human person across
death. Trying to develop one seems to lead to a string of heterodox views. In a nutshell,
St Thomas maintains that the separated soul is not the self – “anima mea non est ego”. He
uses this phrase twice in his commentary on the first epistle to the Corinthians, Chapter
152. He also maintains, in the Summa, the soul of St Peter is not St Peter: that when we
say “Sancte Petre, ora pro nobis”, we are speaking loosely. We call St Peter’s soul by the
name that he had when he merited to pray for us, during his lifetime, and in order to
proclaim our faith in the future resurrection, when St Peter will be St Peter again 3. that it
is not strictly correct to say that St Peter is in Heaven. This teaching seems fully in accord
with that of the Council of Vienne, which stated that the rational soul is the form of the
body.
In I Cor. C. 15 l. 2: “[Q]uia si negetur resurrectio corporis, non de facili, imo difficile est sustinere
immortalitatem animae.” Also, In I Cor. C. 15 l. 4: “Nec obstat, si dicatur quod anima separata praemiatur,
quia, ut probatum est supra, non posset probari quod anima esset immortalis.”
2
In I Cor. C. 15 l. 2: “Alio modo quia constat quod homo naturaliter desiderat salutem sui ipsius, anima
autem cum sit pars corporis hominis, non est totus homo, et anima mea non est ego; unde licet anima
consequatur salutem in alia vita, non tamen ego vel quilibet homo.”
3
S. Th. IIª-IIae q. 83 a. 11 obj. 5 Praeterea, anima Petri non est Petrus. Si ergo animae sanctorum pro nobis
orarent quandiu sunt a corpore separatae, non deberemus interpellare sanctum Petrum ad orandum pro
nobis, sed animam eius. Cuius contrarium Ecclesia facit. Non ergo sancti, ad minus ante resurrectionem,
pro nobis orant.
Ad 5 Ad quintum dicendum quod quia sancti viventes meruerunt ut pro nobis orarent, ideo eos invocamus
nominibus quibus hic vocabantur, quibus etiam nobis magis innotescunt. Et iterum propter fidem
resurrectionis insinuandam, sicut legitur Exod. III, ego sum Deus Abraham, et cetera. Here St Thomas
clearly seems to accept the premiss of the objection, that “Anima Petri non est Petrus”.
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Is there identity of person between a living human being and a separated soul?
Christopher Martin
250
However, I have against me here (and apparently against St Thomas, and even, perhaps,
against the Council of Vienne) a letter of the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the
Faith, dated 17th May 1979. The crucial section of this seems to say that “the Church
affirms the survival and subsistence after death of a spiritual element which is endowed
with consciousness and will, so that the human “self” subsists. The Church uses the word
“soul, consecrated by Scripture and Tradition, to designate this element”4.
I have to say that I find this passage difficult to understand, or to believe. It seems to
affirm the existence of a “self” – a word put into quotation marks, and thus presumably
being used as a technical term – after death, and then glosses this usage with the word
“soul”, drawn, as the letter says, from Scripture and Tradition. Surely in a statement of
the Church’s teaching the word used in Scripture and Tradition should come first? And
what is the technical “self” which the letter affirms to exist? Perhaps I am being
distracted by the fact that the editio princeps of this letter is in French, when I say I
suspect that a Cartesian sense is being given to the word. Surely the Cartesian self has no
place in an affirmation of the Church’s belief? Where is there room here for the doctrine
of the Council of Vienne, which says nothing of the “moi” or “ego”?
Perhaps I am being too suspicious. Perhaps all the use of the word “self” means is that I
shall live after death, when my separated soul survives my death. But this is already
enough to seem to contradict St Thomas. In any case, I submit my discussion here to the
judgement of the Church. I only intend to discuss the implications of what St Thomas
says, on the supposition that what St Thomas says is in fact consonant with the faith of
the Church. It is perhaps worth noticing that the Catechism of the Catholic Church (1992
and 1997) does not pick up on the content of this letter of the Sacred Congregation for the
doctrine of the Faith. Also we should note that for St Thomas the identity of a human
person is simply the identity of a human being, and in that case it is clear that a separated
soul is not the same human person (because it is not a human being) as the living human
being whose soul it was and will again be at the resurrection.
2. Personal identity “as such”
A possible way of approach to the question of the identity of the human person would be
to try and establish what is personal identity as such, and then apply the notion to the
human person. Indeed, it might be thought that the best way of approach would be to first
examine identity as such, then apply it to the identity of the person, and then apply it to
the human person. I do not think that either of these methods has any value.
There is a discussion within analytic philosophy about identity as such: most authors (for
example Wiggins) regard it as an absolute notion, while Geach (practically on his own)
regards it as a relative notion – for a to be identical with b, a must be the same F as b, for
some reading of F. I don’t know whether Geach has theological notions definitely in
mind, but there would seem to be a clear Trinitarian reason for the position he maintains.
SCDF Lettre, 17-V-1979 “L’Eglise affirme la survivance et la subsistance après la mort d’un élément
spirituel qui est doué de conscience et de volonté en sorte que le « moi » humain subsiste. Pour désigner cet
élément, l’Eglise emploie le mot « âme », consacré par l’usage de l’Ecriture et de la Tradition”. The editio
princeps is in French.
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Is there identity of person between a living human being and a separated soul?
Christopher Martin
251
One of the key notions tied up in that of identity is Leibniz’s Law: if a and b are identical,
then everything which is true of a must also be true of b. But while a Christian wants to
maintain that the Son is identical with the Father, a Christian also has to affirm that while
the Father begets, the son does not beget. Further, a Christian must say that while the Son
suffers, the Father does not suffer. If we hold a relative notion of identity, there is no
difficulty here: we can say that the Father is the same God as the Son, but not the same
person. As one of the Fathers of the church put it, the three persons of the blessed Trinity
are allos kai allos kai allos, but not allo kai allo kai allo – someone and someone and
someone, but not something and something and something.
Even apart from theological considerations, I think that Thomas would agree with Geach
here (or that Geach is agreeing with Thomas). For Thomas, we know that ens et idem
convertuntur; and we also know that quodlibet esse est secundum formam aliquam. From
this it would follow that omne idem est secundum formam aliquam: thus, identity is
relative.
So much for the notion of identity “as such”: what about the identity of a person “as
such”? This notion is, I think, almost equally problematic. Consider the identity of a
game “as such”: is there any such thing? Is there, to put it another way, any relevant
“such”? I would say not: different games are identified or made to be the game that they
are by different criteria. For example, the identity of some games require identity of
players, while this does not seem to be the case for other games. Some games are limited
in time; others are not. And so on. Hence there is no such thing as the identity of a game
“as such”: only the identities of different games of different kinds.
(We might make a parenthesis here on the distinction between diachronic identity,
identity through time, and synchronic identity, identity at a given time. These two may
easily come apart: in a living thing, diachronic identity depends on form, while
synchronic identity depends on matter. It is perhaps worth noting that for the divine
persons there is no diachronic identity, as they do not exist in time. Perhaps the same is
true of angelic persons, who are also not in time, thought there are or have been subject to
some change.)
To a Thomist these remarks might suggest that identity is an analogous notion, which
may very well be true, but it may not help us very much. It is fairly clear that the prime
analogates in the order of being are the divine persons, but I would also maintain that
they are the prime analogates in the order of knowledge as well. The notion of “person”,
which is not to be found in Greek philosophy, was forged in Trinitarian, theological
disputes. But if the divine persons are the prime analogates in both the order of being and
in that of knowledge, and they are also unknowable by us in this life, the use of the idea
of “analogy” here seems to be of little helpfulness.
I want to suggest, then, that any time we try to discuss the notion of personal identity we
should always explicitly relativise the notion: we should discuss the identity of a divine
person, of an angelic person, or of a human person. This is not an ad hoc proposal: there
are many notions which do not determine criteria of identity, and whose identity we
Is there identity of person between a living human being and a separated soul?
Christopher Martin
252
cannot therefore discuss. We cannot discuss the identity of a thing or of an event, though
there may be many things or events – rivers, mountains, lumps of gold, statues, words,
kisses, blows – whose identity we can discuss.
I wish now to discuss St Thomas’s view that the identity of a human person is the identity
of a human animal, that is, of a form in matter. From this it follows immediately that the
separated human soul, which is not a human animal, is not a human person or self.
Granted, as St Thomas insists, that the human being, and therefore the human person, will
live again after the resurrection: what happens, if we may put it that way, in between?
What, to put it another way, are the criteria of identity across death?
St Thomas’s eschatology maintains that all that remains of the human person between
death and the resurrection is the intellectual soul, which he insists more than once may be
called by the name of the person, though improperly5. This means that all that continues
to exist, of the previously living human being, are certain thoughts. But how can they be
our thoughts if we do not at that time exist? Or, if one objects to the phrase “at that time”,
one might say, how can these thoughts, which are thought between my death and my
resurrection, be my thoughts if between my death and my resurrection I, this human
being, do not exist?
To sharpen the problem, we might point out that we say that between my death and the
resurrection I will have undergone the particular judgement. But how can it be that I will
have been judged – future perfect tense – when there appears to be no future in which I
will exist? – simple future.
What, we might ask, is the subject of my soul’s incorporeal thought? To say “my soul” is
just to repeat the problem. Is it a person? A person is the subject of certain (rational)
actions – it is because we know that the table is incapable of such actions that we know
that it is not a person. But what are the criteria of identity for such a subject of such
actions? It begins to look as if, since there will be actions of the relevant kind, there must
be a subject, and the subject must be a person, and that subject will not be I. Who, what
then will it be?
5
Super Rom., cap. 7 l. 3. Prosequamur ergo declarando qualiter haec verba et sequentia diversimode
possunt utroque modo exponi, quamvis secunda expositio melior sit. Quod ergo dicitur primo ego autem
etc. sic intelligendum est, ut ly ego pro ratione hominis intelligatur, quae est principale in homine; unde
videtur unusquisque homo esse sua ratio vel suus intellectus, sicut civitas videtur esse rector civitatis, ita ut
quod ille facit, civitas facere videatur. Also Super Sent., lib. 2 d. 18 q. 2 a. 1 ad 1. Ad primum ergo
dicendum, quod locutio illa est synecdochica; ponitur enim pars principalis, scilicet anima, pro toto
homine; et hic modus loquendi consuetus est in sacra Scriptura, et apud philosophos; unde philosophus
dicit 9 Ethic. quod totus homo dicitur intellectus, per modum quo etiam tota civitas dicitur rector civitatis;
Super Sent., lib. 3 d. 22 q. 1 a. 1 ad 7. Ad septimum dicendum, quod philosophus loquitur figurative, et non
proprie: unde ipse dicit, quod ita homo dicitur intellectus sicut civitas rex, quia totum quod est in civitate,
dependet ex voluntate regis, and Quaestio disputata de anima, a. 12 ad 13. Ad decimumtertium dicendum
quod homo dicitur intellectus esse, quia intellectus dicitur id quod est potius in homine, sicut civitas dicitur
esse rector civitatis; non tamen hoc dictum est eo quod essentia animae sit ipsa potentia intellectus.
Is there identity of person between a living human being and a separated soul?
Christopher Martin
253
Rational actions – thoughts, acts of will – are identified in one way by their content. But
this seems to be useless here, since it would seem that in this sense two people can have
the same thought. Actions are specified by their end; rational actions are specified by an
end rationally grasped. But for the angels and the blessed this specification would be one
and the same. The only other way we can identify thoughts and differentiate them from
others is by their subject – but this seems to bring us round in a very tight vicious circle.
We cannot say that we identify persons by their thoughts and then say that we identify
thoughts by the persons who think them.
Let us imagine this problem solved for a moment, and suggest that separated souls will
have sufficiently different mental, intellectual, propositional contents to distinguish them.
Even St Michael and St Gabriel, we may imagine, may have subtly different mental
histories, so to speak. And if this is true of the angels, as it may be, a fortiori it could be
true of human separated souls, who will have had different mental histories, and thus
mental contents. We are still left with the question, who or what has this mental history or
content? Obviously, according to St Thomas, it will not be a human being, and thus not a
human person. Will it then be another person? Or even a person of a different kind, and
thus a fortiori another person?
This sounds fantastic and clearly contrary to the mind of the Church. If what survives my
death is a different person from myself, then it will be a different person from myself
who is judged and perhaps damned for what I have done. Perhaps the absurdity of this
position is what inspired the letter of the Sacred Congregation for the doctrine of the
Faith.
A possible compromise would be to say that there is as much identity between myself
and my separated soul as it is possible for there to be between a human person and a
separated soul. Or we might take a hard logical line and say that it is senseless to speak of
there being identity between a living human being and a separated soul. This has the
following advantage: that if it is senseless to speak of identity, then it is senseless to
speak of difference.
This not mean a retreat into agnosticism. It rests on the facts (if they are facts) that the
identity of a human being is the identity of an animal, while the identity of a separated
soul is the identity of its mental contents. We may also say, I think, that a human being
and a separated soul can have identical or significantly overlapping mental contents.
The fantasy of my separated soul being a different person from myself derives from the
fantasy that it is the same person of myself: and both, I want to suggest, are illusions.
Christopher Martin
Center for Thomistic Studies
University of St Thomas
Houston,
Texas