Soul, spiritual Identity

Soul, Spiritual Identity


"… that’s the same for the soul ; when she looks at fixedly on what the truth and the being illuminate, she understands him, knows him, and shows that she is endowed with intelligence ; but if she looks at what is obscure, what dies, her sight attenuates itself, she has only opinions, she is passing ceaselessly from one thing to another, and seems devoid of intelligence." (cf. Plato - The Republic - 509a),

"The man, here on the earth,is he a formal reason which makes of him a man, a reason different from the soul who produces this man and who enables him to live and to reason ....
But what is thus this formal reason? Can we say that the expression "reasonable animal" is meaning "reasonable life" ? The man would be then a reasonable life.
But is it possible that there is a life without soul ? Indeed or the soul will give this reasonable life, and the man will be an activity of the soul and not an essence, or the man himself, will be the soul.
But if the reasonable soul is the man, when this soul goes away in another animal, why is not she a man? " (cf. Plotinus - Treatise 38 - 4, 5 - 35),

"The best is inside, to whom the body's mails have all reported ..., , whereas the sky and earth, with all that they contain, have said : we are not God, and : He made us, Himself.
… Me therefore, inside, me, me as soul, I have known these things by the mean of by my body's organs ..." (cf. saint Augustine – Confessions – Livre X – 6, 10),

" Those who imagine our life as a dream, have of the reason, more than they think. When we dream, our soul is living, is acting, is exercising all his faculties, as when she watches , …Yes as we pass of the night to the shadow : there she sleeps, here she slumbers, more or less … Our soul with the absurdities and opinions which came to her by sleeping, authorizes the actions of our dreams as those of the day…" (cf. Michel de Montaigne - Essays, II, 12).

At the beginning of the third millennium, what can we say about the soul ?, this mysterious spiritual identity imagined since generations, knowing that the man's child has a state of consciousness only to about one and a half year,
and that some evolved animals express a proto-state of consciousness ?

------------------

About identities.

In the fourth part of "Discourse on Method" (1637), Descartes has noticed with the greatest assurance :
" … I was a substance from whom essence, or nature, only has to think, a substance who for being, does not need place and does not depend on material thing, and thus, I, the soul by whom I am what I am, is completely different of the body, …".

Then, with his famous "Cogito ergo sum" (I think, therefore I am), proposed in the "Principles of philosophy"(1644), he expressed what is for him the strong principle of the human being :
"In man we must distinguish very clearly two entities, the thinking thing (res cogitans) and the body, a body which must be considered in all the expanse and complexity of its organs (res extensa). ".
Regrettably, Descartes has been unable from developping this understanding (did not dare) ; for it, it would have had to reject some archaic and dogmatic ideas of the world,
an inconceivable act at this epoch !

Fortunately, henceforth the sciences throw a new lighting on the reality's dynamics,
a new lighting which enables the clear differentiation of two orders of phenomena : physical and transcendent, and, by there even,
of two natures of identities : physical and spiritual.

However, when we wish to discuss identities we must, preliminarily, to agree on the notions of thought, of consciousness and of subject, because the ambiguities of this notions impede evolution of philosophic speeches and theological speeches.

Indeed, the thought is not an operator who can recognize, judge, choose, ..., decide and to act ; the thought is representative of numerous transcendent activities and that is why, in a research of the primordial causes, we must speak of thought's activities and not of activities of the thought.

That's the same for the consciousness ; it is more realistic to speak about state of consciousness, a state of be, at once and the same time spatio-temporal and transcendent.
More exactly, the state of consciousness is a bio-spiritual state which is not only fruit of cerebral processes, but too, fruit of transcendent activities of understanding,
of activities which are led by the entity who animates us and recognizes herself in the I (ego, subject, spirit),
an entity not omnipotent because, in and by us, she must notably work to know and research to know more.

Now after this preliminary, let's speak of the complex and subtle problem of the identity ,
complex and subtle because it is clear that we have two simultaneous interactive existences :
- the one biophysical that is expressed by our commonplace physical identity,
- the other one spiritual correlative of ceaseless activities of transcendent order, which take place in the abstraction's field.

Said differently, we live physically in space which contains the reality,
and spiritually in one "beyond" this reality,
a beyond which the abstraction’s domain is a singular expression.

Furthermore, we know that the physical identity is multiple.
So, for example, besides the commonplace identity expressed by macro characteristics of the body, we have a genetic identity, even an electromagnetic identity because we are poles (centres) of permanent specific electromagnetic vibrations.

Actually, all the reality is resulting of potentialities actualizations (is resulting of materializations to become realities, of potentialities),
of actualizations which necessitate physical activities and transcendent activities. 
We can thus consider, reasonably, that all the things and all the beings have a spiritual identity (a soul) but we reserve however the  notion of soul to man, in order to distinguish him better, because it's the being who has a consciousness state.

Short digression.

Let's think of those who are explaining the culture and nature with of the arguments as :
- the totemism by showing the biophysical and moral continuity between the men and the other beings, without ever recognizing the duality of psychism, physical and transcendent,
- the analogism by talking of the relations and universal laws, as if these relations and these laws were operators having powers and faculties ; let's remind, that the things's structure is not the fact of laws, laws are the expressions (formalizations) of comportments, what is very different,
- the animism because of similar common activities to all the beings, in particular, the permanent taking into consideration of same value references,
- the naturalism on account of the priority given to the physical capacities.

Let us be clear, the culture it's expression by means of consciousness state, of numerous singular transcendent activities, notably those which enable common understandings and cooperation between the individuals.
In other words, the man did not become transcendent to the reality, but some transcendent activities which characterize him, can emerge from his spiritual identity, from his soul, by means of the consciousness state,
a consciousness state which, we repeat it again, enables to the divine creative entity who animates him and manages the world, from recognizing herself in the I (ego, subject, spirit).

Thus, we are far from the current speeches which try to persuade us that it is the brain which thinks,
or the ones ambiguous as : "the physical properties of the body distinguish a person of all the others, …, that's body which gives a different form." (cf. Andrew Gray).

The individuality ( the individualization) is resulting of ceaseless interactions between activities of transcendent order which characterize spiritual identity (the soul) and molecules which compose body,
of interactions which show the permanent implication of a creative entity, of divine character, master of the time and sense.
That’s why,
the body and brain are of biological means which enable the thinkings and world's understanding,
of biological means which are also, the memories and sense's vectors, in particular of information and of processes organizations with biological effects.

Besides, the man is not object and subject, only of the knowledge as say philosophers today ; it is an extraordinary pole (centre) which enables elaboration and expression of transcendent activities concerning not only the life's phenomenon but also universe,
notably because we are permanently, built and reconstructed by quantum particles exchanges.

On the other hand, we know that the individual characters are resulting of genetic potentialities actualizations (of materializations to become realities) which depend on numerous factors as the environment's impact on structure and development of the mother cell.
Naturally, the geneticists will never master totally, these processes.
Thus, of strictly identical individuals of the points of view : physical and psychic, cannot exist ; true clones, perfect clones cannot exist.
The question to philosophical and theological connotation :
if we had made the perfect cloning of a man, whom would be the I (ego, subject, spirit) ?, in other words, would we have also cloned the I (ego, subject, spirit) ?,
is therefore, without object.
End of the digression.

*
That we can henceforth recognize, with a great assurance, the "realism" (the existence) of a spiritual identity for every individual, identity which depends, partially, on genetic potentialities, leads, obviously, to a new and revolutionary understanding of the spirit, spiritual life and spirituality.

Blaise Pascal had noticed the vulnerability and sensibility of the entity who, in us, recognizes and is judging :
"The spirit of this sovereign judge of the world, is not so independent since he is disturbed by the first din which is made around him. It is not necessary that it is the noise of a cannon to prevent his thoughts ... a fly buzzs in his ears : it is enough for doing him incapable of good advice.
If you want that he can find the truth, brush away this animal who holds in check his reason and disturbs this powerful intelligence." (cf. - Thoughts - fragment 44),

"Things have different qualities and soul has several propensities, because nothing is simple for the soul, and the soul never offers itself simple to no subject. From there comes that we weep and that we laugh at the same thing. " (cf. Thoughts - fragment 50),

"In brief, "me" has two characteristics,
he is inequitable in itself in the fact that he is (that he wants be) centre of everything,
he is inconvenient for the others because he wants to enslave them ; every "me" is the enemy and would like to be the tyrant of all the others." (cf. Thoughts - fragment 509).

We also can emphasize the infatuation for utopia and the futile fashions,
or the attitude, sometimes more than friendly, of certain intelligent reputed persons, for absurd ideas conveyed by sects.

Are not these facts the testimony of non-omnipotence and of inexorable obligations (of insuperable constraints) ?
Certainly and among these, let us quote impact, on psychism's development, of ceaseless repetitions during the educational periods.

Indeed, this repetitions are followed of a "strengthening" of synaptic connections by means of a phosphorylation process, and so the ideas and concepts which are constantly repeated, can become almost imprescriptible truths (let's think of the "brainwashings" processes).
It is why, in particular and so easily, there have been transmissions, in course of generations, of false truths (truths of the moment, periods, civilizations), and naturally, of obsolete faiths.
Let's remind J. P. Sartre exclaiming : "there is faith into bad faith " (it is true that he knew subject !).

However, let's not fall in the intellectual traps elaborated by some researchers, as Joseph Ledoux :
"My idea of the personality is very simple: it is because our "me", essence of what we are, is image of the connections between neurons of our brain ....
Given the importance of the synaptic transmission for cerebral functioning, it should be a truism when we say "me" is synaptic ....
The question is not «how does consciousness emerge from the brain ? » but rather «how our brain is it making what we are ? » " (cf. Neurobiology of the personality).

Essence of what we are, is not image of connections between the neurons.
That are some facets (expressions) of the implication of this essence in us, which depend on synaptic connections, what is very different !
As for the brain, let's repeat again, it makes nothing, it's a biological entity who gives possibility (which enable) to make, another nuance !

Thus let's beware to ambiguous and simplistic speeches which, today, abound in the specialized literature, for example :
"brain learns various things by using distinct modules, …, brain of the foetus can discriminate events, …, brain analyzes the stimuluses, …, neurons compete to survive, … ".

Let's beware also to speeches which recognize only in the metaphysical and moral Person, actor able to act, in other terms, which recognize only conscious actor.
Without forgetting philosophers who use concepts, we dare to say it : hazy, by associating to the me, of numerous adjectives : implicit , explicit, discursive, social, …,
of expressions which enable from saying nothing about an essential fact :
the implication in us and in the world, of a creative entity of transcendent order, ipso facto, of divine character.

Besides, vagueness which is wrapping the essential concepts used by the church men, even if it is soothing, does not enable any more from giving a credibility to their speechs when they talk of primordial causes !
For example, our state of be is not, as buddhists say, a "permanent illusion in the non permanent".
During existence, our state of be is at the same moment, in space which contains reality, and in one "beyond" the world : realm of the potentialities and transcendent activities that enable virtualities, thoughts, …, processes organizations, …, anticipations, dreams …

Had they this comprehension, our illustrious ancestors, when they were speaking of the soul ?

Brief evocation of comprehensions of the spirit and soul

At prehistoric times, our ancestors tried to localize the useful powers and harmful powers which seemed to them associated to beings and to things.

So, exam of fossils, reveals that during the Neolithic, skull was probably recognized as main "source" of "mysterious power" which acts in us and by us.

Much more later, for the mesopotamian priests (2.000 years BC), even for sumerian priests (- 4.000 years),
for this observers of beings's behavior before death because they was regulators of animals sacrifices, and even of men,
this power has been recognized in the internal organs, more exactly in gall-bladder.

In Egypt, probably about 3.000 years before J.C., other "specificities" of the man's power are recognized in :
the heart for the knowledge and intelligence,
the chest for the courage,
the belly for the physical activities.

As for Bible's writers, influenced by the surrounding cultures, they even will prescribe :

"However, by no means eat the blood, for the blood is life itself ; you must not eat the life with the meat. You must not eat it ; You must pour it out on the ground like water. "(cf. Dt. 12, 23-24).

But if we consider the french bible's version :
"Seulement tu veilleras à ne pas manger le sang, car le sang, c’est l’âme ; tu ne mangeras donc pas l’âme avec la viande. Tu ne le mangeras pas mais tu le verseras par terre comme de l’eau." (cf. Dt. 12, 23-24),
we don’t know if expression "the blood is life itself " corresponds to concepts which prevailed in Israel six centuries before J. C..
Blood, was it the life or soul ?
What is the exegete who can answer ?

At the same epoch, an exceptional epoch in the humanity's history, Pythagoras (- 572, - 497) will imagine two essential entities,
- the "Phrenes" (intelligence) in brain,
- and the "Thumos" (active part of the soul) in heart,
of entities which he considered as vital principles.
We speak of this epoch as exceptional because it was also the one of Lao-Tsu (- 570, - 490) and Confucius (- 551, - 479).

Afterward, Democritus (- 460, - 370) will privilege brain where according to him, is intelligence, whereas Hippocrates (- 460, - 377) will consider the vital principles as conveyed by the air.
Short digression : Democritus, having meditated on very small particles which compose dust "propounded" the atom notion ; let's beware however to easy popularizations which try to persuade us that in the antique times, men already knew this inward structure of the inert matter, as our physicists.

Aristotle (- 384, - 322), inspired by Hippocrates, will see in the nerves, the vectors in body of vital principles which are within air,
of the vital principles that he named "entelechie" :
"What naturally moves body, what he names entelechie, a cold invention as no other one, because he does not speak of «essence», nor of the origin, nor of the soul's nature, but remarks only his effect." (cf. Aristotle quoted by Michel de Montaigne - Essays, II, 12).

We can moreover compare the entelechie to,
- the substance according to Descartes,
- the monad which would be for Leibniz (1646 - 1716), active substance of the beings and things,
- the creative entity of transcendent order (of divine character), henceforth credible due to recent knowledges.

Nevertheless, the first nobility letters of the soul and Spirit, were written by the Platonists and Neoplatonists :

" …What is producing fire by giving its shape, must act according to a reason (the "logos") and only a soul can be able of producing fire, that is at the same moment, a life and formal reason (the "logos"), both being the same thing.
That is why also Plato says that in each of these elements, there is a soul, and this soul, he does not
understand it otherwise than as a soul producing exactly this sensitive fire." (cf. Plotinus - Treatise 38 - 11, 40).

More precisely, the neoplatonists were seeing in soul an emanation of the Spirit, and thus, they were considering that soul had spiritual powers.
For them, it was also necessary :
"That the Spirit lives all the lives and with all their modes and that there was nothing that he is not living, ...
It is in the spirit's nature from transforming himself in all things." (cf. Plotinus - Treatise 38 – 15 et 25).

It has had too, the wide-spread concept of pneuma.

According to Erasistrate of Alexandria, doctor (- 320 ? - 250), vital energy necessary to body (pneuma zoticon) is going to heart by the pulmonary veins, whereas spiritual energy necessary to the psychism (pneuma psychicon) is going to brain through the nerves,
a theory resumed and completed, much later, by Galien (131, 201).

Indeed, Galien, a greek doctor whose notices made authority until the XVII century, considering all the animal and psychic functions of the beings, imagined a pneuma composed of :
- a pneuma physicon inherent to food and intended for the liver where would be mysterious physical power who animates body,
- a pneuma zoticon conveyed by the veins to heart, who would be mediator between power stimulating the body and power of the feelings and passions,
- a pneuma psychicon transported in the brain by the blood, who would be necessary for the intelligence and faculties.

This pneuma, how did it be one and multiple ?
Galien refrained from specifying it ; very likely however, he was under influence of neoplatonists.

Also let’s quote Philon of Alexandria (a Greek philosopher of Jewish confession, towards - 20, 45), for who, as the Essenes, the soul's material part is blood, soul which he was considering nevertheless composed of air and of fire. (cf. Life of Moses - 1, 9).
This follower of the metempsychosis, will consider even the space which surrounds us, as the permanent stay of the souls before their embodiment, and will imagine in the tops of the sky, the realm of the spirits.

Afterward, some christian religious people in charge, having taken control of the " medical sciences ", will try to integrate into their faiths, metaphysical theories founded on the dissections's study,
of essays that will lead the bishops to forbid medicine's practice by high clergy (synod of Reims, 1131) ; pope Innocent III (1160, 1216) will condemn even, doctors who work without the monks presence.

However, don’t be surprised by these behaviors because to this epoch, the knowledges were very elementary and notions of vital energy, of pneuma, of soul and of spirit, were particularly vague.
The examples abound :

- Léonard de Vinci (1452,1519 ), according to autopsies which he often practised, was believing that there is a transformation of the vital spirit who is coming from heart, in an animal spirit, in the brain's bottom : the rete mirabilis,
- Berengario of Carpi (1460 ? – 1530 ?), Bologna, will consider that the "vital spirit" become an "animal spirit" to contact of the ventricular secretions,
- André Vésale (1514 - 1564) who was flemish, father of the modern anatomy, condemned by the Inquisition, will try to show that the cerebral ventricles are intended for conservation of "animal spirit",
- André Césalpin (1519 - 1603 ),an italian doctor, for reason that heart is the first organ which emerges from embryo, will recognize in heart the seat of the vegetative soul,
- Van Helmont (1577 - 1644), a flemish doctor, will imagine an intangible entity, the archée supposed be sensitive (sensory) soul who is in charge of body's functions ; he will place her even, at stomach's level.

Descartes (1596 - 1650), too, will mislead :
"But, in my judgment, those who will often think in their spirit, to things which I wrote in my second Meditation, will be persuaded easily that spirit is not distinguished from body by a single fiction or an abstraction of the understanding, but that the spirit is known as a different thing, because it is such indeed …,
however I shall still say here that it seems to me that it is the very remarkable thing, that no movement can be made, either in animals body, or even in ours, if these bodies have not in them all organs and instruments which enable these same movements, movements which could be also carried out in a machine ; in such a manner that, even in us, it is not spirit (or soul) that moves at once the outside members, but only he can determine course of this very subtle liquor which we name "animal spirits", this liquor which is going constantly of the heart by the brain into the muscles, and which is cause of all our members's movements … (cf. The Fourth Answer, 178).

These various comprehensions of the spirit, soul and organs, reveal, obviously, influence of knowledges in philosophic reasoning, ipso facto, in theological debate,
and as a consequence,that erroneous world's comprehensions condemn, for ever, numerous speeches, even expressed by illustrious personages.

Denis Diderot (1713 - 1784) and Jean d’Alembert (1717 - 1783) have been conscious of it.
In an Encyclopaedia which resumes all knowledges to their epoch, they concluded :
"Not only we don't know our soul, and neither means by which she acts on the material organs, but also in these organs, we can perceive no disposition which shows that this one rather that another, is soul's seat.".

There will be, still, some attempts of localization of the soul and spirit, but on this matter and as for the primordial causes, since the XIXth century the scientists with their mechanical world's understanding, are confining the philosophers and theologians into a remarkable non-creativity.

*
Let us remember Socrates when he was interrogating his followers :
"What do you want ? Do you want to have reasonable souls, or souls without reason ?
Of the reasonable souls.
What sort of reasonable souls ? Good or corrupted ?
Good.
But why do you not look for them ?
Because we have them.
Why then these fights and these discussions between you ? (cf. citation of Marcus Aurelius - Thoughts, eleventh Book).

Yes, also at this beginning of the third millennium these discussions are necessary more than ever because of the social and moral confusion and of the lack of credible answers brought by the intelligentsia to the essential problems,
in particular those which concern soul, that is spiritual identity.

Spiritual Identity, Soul, for the modern man

Plato in Phèdre, has imagined soul as a carriage which its coachman cannot drive, on account of numerous internal conflicts.

As for Aristotle, he saw in soul, "the main entelechy of a natural element having life to potential state" (cf. Of the Soul, II, 1, 412 a 38-39),
the entelechy being representative of the perfection state ; to our knowledge, there is not philosopher who proposed a more "modern" understanding of the soul.
When someone speaks of natural element having life to potential state, does not he recognize universal character of the life's phenomenon ?

However, in numerous civilizations, today too, soul will be, is recognized as an operator having mysterious powers.
Let us remember saint Augustine :

"… my soul is doing enquiry on her own powers, she is not sure of herself …" (cf. Confessions - Book X, 32-48),

"The soul commands the hand to be moved, and such readiness is there that the command is scarce to be distinguished from the obedience. Yet the soul is mind, and the hand is body.
The soul commands that the soul will, and yet, ..., she does not do. Why this monstrous thing ? And why is it ? I repeat, it commands itself to will, and would not give the command unless it willed; yet is not that done which it commands.
But it wills not entirely; therefore it commands not entirely. For so far forth it commands, as it wills; and so far forth is the thing commanded not done, as it wills not. For the will commands that there be a will ; not another, but itself.
But it does not command entirely, therefore that is not which it commands. For were it entire, it would not even command it to be, because it would already be … " (cf. Confessions - Book VIII, 9).

Certainly, Augustine understanding of the powers and faculties is very elementary compared to the one that we can have at this beginning of the third millennium, nevertheless it is remarkable because it recognizes an essential fact : the "non-omnipotence" of the soul, of the spirit.

Afterward, at instigation of early fathers of the christendom who constantly have privileged biblical tradition , man and soul (spirit) have been "cut" of their transcendent roots and therefore universal.
But , who can forget mystic inspirations of Plotinus ? :

"If souls already had faculty from feeling something when they were engendered as souls,
if therefore they were engendered as souls to enter into reality, as a result, for them, enter into reality is inherent to their nature." (cf. Treatise 38. 1, 19),

"But if soul moves towards the "Non-Shape" (the Without-Dimension), being then in the total incapacity from seizing him, because she is not bounded by him ... "(cf. Treatise 9 - 3, 5).

So, for this great mystic, a little ignored, soul would not depend directly on a "Without Shape", of a "Without dimension", of an "unitary Power", but would go constantly towards him.

What can we say reasonably, today ?

Contrary to beliefs of P.J.Barthez (on 1734 - 1806) founder of the vitalist school, the life's laws are not fundamentally different of the universal laws.
Henceforth, the knowledges, indeed enable from asserting that we evolve in a cyberworld, fruit of ceaseless creations and continual "renewals", where the "sense" is omnipresent, and therefore, where there is no abyss between inert matter and living matter.

Regrettably, this revolution of the knowledge takes place under leadership of "monists" and without large reactions of "spiritualists" who appear to be satisfied with the current scientific logics.

Let's quote thus, the monists who ignore systematically, the permanent utilization of the value references which enable coherence and dynamics of the reality's states, perturbed or in an apparent equilibrium, and this, by means of transcendent activities.

For example, can we believe that the activity of the cells, these manufactories fathomless and immense where are scheduled and synthetized of the enzymes, of which processes will always unknown of our conscious understanding,
is a happy do-it-yourself ?,
can we believe that the activity of the cells is possible without a "will", without a primordial intention ?
Evidently, no.

*
Thus, at dawn of the third millennium, we can have a new world's understanding.
All phenomena have a dual character, ipso facto, the beings's identity.
Consequently, recognition of a new identity, the spiritual identity, is necessary, whereas soul loses its ancestral status of "operator".

Let's quote again Plotinus :
"That is why also Plato says that in each of these elements (the reality's elements), there is a soul, and this term of soul, he does not understand it otherwise than as a soul producing really this sensitive fire.
So what is producing fire, here, is an ignée life, a more true fire. Thus the transcendent fire which is much more that the fire, has to be too more in life." (cf. Treatise 38 - 11, 45).

Plato’s intuition according to which a transcendent fire (a transcendent state) and souls are associated to reality, was so a remarkable presentiment.
However this intuition rich of modernity, went out of use, giving free rein to incredible wanderings of the understanding, in particular those of Descartes :

"Although soul is joined to all body, there is nevertheless a part of this body in which soul exercises her functions more particularly than in all the others. And one believes commonly that this part is brain or can be heart ; the brain, because it is center of the sensory organs ; and the heart, because it seems that it is here that we have the passions." (cf. Passions of the Soul - First part, article 31),

"Therefore let's conceive here that soul has its principal seat in small gland which is in middle of the brain, and that her is in all the body by means of spirits, nerves and even of the blood … Let's add here that small gland which is main seat of the soul is so suspended between cavities which contain these spirits that it can be utilized by them of so many different manners that there are diversities in objects ; but also that this gland can be diversly utilized by soul." (cf. article 34),

"Because in us, there is only a soul, and this soul, herself, has no variety of part; the same who is sensory is reasonable, and all her wishes are wills." (cf. article 47),

"For me who recognize in dog no spirit, I think that there is nothing in him of similar to things which belong to spirit ...
Although spirit is united with all the body, this does not show that it is spread by all the body, because it is not the own of the spirit to be spread, but only from thinking ... (cf. Metaphysical Meditations - Fifth Answer, 359 - 389),

"There is nothing more clear in my Meditations, for me only body has power to feed itself, and not spirit or this part of the man who thinks." (cf. Metaphysical Meditations - Seventh Answer, 477),

"There is only a soul in the man, that is the reasonable ; because we must recognize for human actions, only those which depend on the reason.
As for vegetative force and to active power of the body to which we give name of vegetative soul, and of sensory soul when we talk of plants and violent persons, it is also in man ; but that must not be named the soul in the man because it is not the fundamental principle of his actions, and its genus is quite different of the one of the reasonable soul." (cf. Passions of the Soul – Letter to Regius, May 1641).

Fortunately henceforth, after interpretation of credible scientific theories and by profound introspections, we can differentiate spirit of the soul and it, although both have a transcendent nature.

Thus, according to us,
in the same way that the body is receptacle of animate structures (the cells), themselves fruits of biological activities,
soul is abstract and conventional receptacle of transcendent activities which characterize us.
In other words,
the theoretical receptacle of the transcendent activities that enable us to be what we are, can be likened to a spiritual identity : the soul.
So, soul is a virtual identity of analogical character.

Curiously too, the scientists, the philosophers and theologians don't know the "realm" of this spiritual identity, of this soul, ; that is why we specified it by an original word : spacimplicatio (contraction of latin words : spatium and implicatio).
That's a different domain of the space,
a timeless and transcendent beyond the reality, by which eternally, a divine entity implicates herself in the world,
a beyond of which the abstraction's domain is singular expression.

It is true, to admit permanent implication in the world of a transcendent power and it, by means of a transcendent domain different of the space which contains reality, is leading to reject of several "truths" transmitted by generations and sometimes, recognized as religious dogmas.

We are not at epoch where people was believing, with a great certitude, that ideas which has been recognized true for a long time, are necessarily true (quod ab omnibus, quod ubique, quod semper).
Today, world's understanding leads to other truths !
Besides, with the imbrication of the knowledges, a very great opening of spirit and an extreme semantic rigour are imperative.

Let’s resume, for example, comments of J. Maritain to Jean Paul II :
"In flesh and bones of the man, there is a soul who is a spirit and who is more important than the whole universe " (cf. Complete Works of Jacques and Raïssa Maritain - Book VII).

No, soul is not a spirit,
soul, spiritual identity, is receptacle of the spirit's activities,
soul, spiritual identity is not in flesh but at the same moment distant from flesh and implicated in flesh,
great nuances !

Will the monotheist theologians continue from ignoring divine entity (the Divine) implicated in man, in every being and in the world ?,
will they continue, wrongly, from believing that universal laws and principles govern world ?
In front of humanity that asks of the credible answers as for realism of our spiritual life,
how much time will they reject universalism of our illustrious masters Plato, Aristotle and Plotinus who have inspired Christendom's fathers ?,
by privileging only biblical tradition,
a tradition although recognized revealed, which never made an only reference to dual character of our existence.

And however, spiritual life due to activities of transcendent order which characterize it, is expressing what unites us permanently to God.

But then, being fruits of a divine implication,
some characters of the spiritual identity, of the soul, are not they subsisting after death, transfigured in timeless, transfigured in eternity ?
We are convinced of it.

*
Alas ! theologians have been always silent with regard to spiritual life on earth, even have been mutes as for spiritual identity.
We shall never repeat enough,
evidently body is a biophysical structure, therefore a deadly structure,
nevertheless abstraction's domain gives evidence of a transcendent life, of which we can have consciousness,
because in abstraction's domain are memorized past experiences judged in present moment to anticipate future,
and because too, our comportments necessitate permanent taking into consideration of durations, virtual cerebral world's representations, concepts, ideas, …, presentiments and feelings.

Therefore, religions do not lead to spiritual life (transcendent life) because this one is essential constituent of our being, but religions enable from expressing it.
Actually, henceforth, numerous sciences are revealing transcendent facts and the iimplication of a divine creative entity in the world.
Regrettably, the scientists in their large majority, although "open-minded" to their numerous and often changeable theories,have an education which lead them to deny implication of an order transcendent in the reality ; they are convinced that some laws and principles govern (manage) universe.

In a research of primordial causes, we must reject this a priori because the laws and the principles are not of operators who can recognize, judge, choose, decide and do.
We also have to relativise the philosophic speeches which did not innovate with regard to consciouness state, nothingness, time, transcendence, eternity and infinity ; many reflections of great minds, judicious at their epoch, today must be reconsidered, let’s quote :

"Of these two infinities of the sciences, the one which is infinitely big is more impressive, and that is why few persons have told that they know all things ; « I am going to speak about everything », was saying Democritus.
But the infinitely small is much less visible. Philosophers believed to know it, and it is there where all has stumbled. That has enabled these titles so common : Principles and Things, Principles of the philosophy …
But as that's us who surpass the small things, we consider that we are more capable from possessing them, and however the same capacities are necessary when we must go until nothingness or until "whole universe" …
Besides, the extreme things are for us as if they were not, and we are nothing for them ; they escape us or we escape them.
Here is our real state. We can't know certainly and to ignore absolutely. We navigate on a immense environment and always are uncertain and undecided, pushed of an extremity towards the other one …
Thus let's not look for certainty and neither firmness ; our reason is always disappointed by appearances's inconstancy ; nothing can fix a finite thing between the two infinites which enclose it and avoid it …" (cf. Blaise Pascal - Thoughts - fragment 185).

A text that we must reconsider indeed, because although the extreme things escape us, even with powerful technological means, we know however that nothingness understood in strict sense of word, does not exist and that the infinitely big depends on the infinitely small ; more precisely,the "infinitely big" is composed of "infinitely small structures" which are emerging from a dimensionless domain (a domain without structure, an unitary domain) : the universal energy.
We also know that we evolve in a world where "sense" is omnipresent, a cyberworld which is fruit of ceaseless creations and of continual destructions, with ceaseless interactions.
But then, what can we say of the transcendent entity who, from time immemorial, "manages" this universal dynamics ?,
of this creative entity who although of divine character, is not omnipotent and who thus, presupposes, out of necessity, an omnipotence : God.

Nietzsche :

"The madman - Have you not heard of that madman who lit a lantern in the bright morning hours, ran to the market place and cried incessantly : "I seek God ! I seek God !". As many of those who did not believe in God were standing around just then, he provoked much laughter. Has he got lost ? asked one. Did he lose his way like a child ? asked another. Or is he hiding ? Is he afraid of us ? Has he gone on a voyage ? emigrated ? Thus they yelled and laughed. The madman jumped into their midst and pierced them with his eyes. "Whither is God ?" he cried. "I will tell you. We have killed him, you and I ! All of us are his murderers ! But how did we do this ? How could we drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon ? What were we doing when we unchained this earth from its sun ? Whither is it moving now ? Whither are we moving ? Away from all suns ? Are we not plunging continually ? And backward, sideward, forward, in all directions ? Is there still any up or down ? Are we not straying as through an infinite nothing ? Do we not feel the breath of empty space ? Has it not become colder ? Is not night continually closing in on us ? Do we not need to light lanterns in the morning ? Do we not hear nothing as yet of the noise of the gravediggers who are burying God ? Do we smell nothing as yet of the divine decomposition ?—Gods, too, decompose ! God is dead ! God remains dead ! And we have killed him ! How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers ? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives, who will wipe this blood off us ? What water is there for us to clean ourselves ? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent ?…" (cf. The gay Science - Book III, 125),

would he approve our speech, him who looked for desperately this God ?
We think it, because the sciences, particularly biology, are these sacred games which incite to belief in God.



Paul Moyne
http://www.paulmoyne.com