The Human Soul and its Relations with Other Spirits by Vonier Dom Anscar

The Human Soul and its Relations with Other Spirits by Vonier Dom Anscar

Author:Vonier, Dom Anscar [Vonier, Dom Anscar]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Assumption Press
Published: 2013-01-16T00:00:00+00:00


XXXI

The Psychology of Consequences

Catholic philosophy, more than any other philosophy, deserves the name of “Philosophy of consequences.” Man is the slave of his own deeds; the stress which our philosophy lays on freedom, makes it clear that, when one deals with Catholic principles, one has to be ready to find human responsibility to be the law of this world and of the next. Hell may be an uncouth term in the ears of our degenerate civilization; but what is hell, if not human responsibility, a free result of a free will. God has left man in the hands of his own counsel to an extent we can hardly realize.

Catholic psychology, being a branch of Catholic philosophy, is, like the philosophy itself, essentially a psychology of consequences; the soul makes and mars itself, through its own act. This is what we mean in theology by the expression macula peccati, “the stain of sin.” It is simply this: when sin, or at least mortal sin, is committed, the soul is stained, or warped in the innermost and spirit-like part of itself; and so deep is that spirit-stain, that nothing short of the supernatural grace of God can wipe it out.

Man may forget the act that stained his soul; he may even regret his act; but as long as the regret is merely a human regret, based on human motives, the stain remains. If the regret were based on higher and spiritual motives, the supernatural grace of God would necessarily come along with it, and heal the spirit’s wounded powers.

It may be said therefore universally that man left to himself cannot right himself spiritually. The innermost part of his soul is made unfit for God, through the act of sin.

When we say therefore that the human soul, at its separation from the body, chooses eternally and irrevocably either good or evil, we mean this: before death, before the separation, the soul was actually in charity with God, or actually outside God’s charity, owing to a mortal sin; the choice is really made; but the simple transition from union with the body into the spirit-state, makes the soul’s condition an unalterably fixed one.

In the case of the sinful soul, the choice of evil is simply its incapacity of choosing God, which incapacity comes from that free warping of the will, which took place when mortal sin was committed.

As reprobation is essentially the loss of God, we cannot be surprised to hear that the guilty soul chooses evil; for its evil is the very act by which it turns away from God.

St. Thomas frequently uses the metaphor of a man throwing himself willfully into a pit; he only can be helped out by extraneous assistance. Mortal sin is an act by which the soul falls away from God, back on itself.

There is therefore a continuation of sin between the present life and the future life, not in the act of sinning, but in the state of the soul. As a matter of fact, that terrible collapse of the body, called death, makes continuation in the act of sinning an impossibility.



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