Soul Gender?

[Semperviva]

Every human being has a soul.

Human beings may be born as either male or female

A soul must not itself be male or female.



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( So many questions, so little time )

[Apotheoun]

If you're talking about the soul in itself, it doesn't have a sex, because sexual distinction is a bodily condition. But the soul and the body form a single living being, and so one without the other is incomplete. Thus, the sex of a person is not simply an accident; but is instead a substantial property of his or her existence.

[Apotheoun]

By the way, I suppose a "soul" can have gender, because gender is merely a grammatical subclass in a language. In Latin the word for "soul" is [i]anima[/i], which is a feminine noun.

As the saying goes, "Words have gender, people have sex."

[Brother Adam]

lol. nice saying. I"ll have to use it in Greek this fall. It'll be my motto

[Semperviva]

[quote name='Apotheoun' date='Jun 26 2005, 01:03 AM']If you're talking about the soul in itself, it doesn't have a sex, because sexual distinction is a bodily condition.  But the soul and the body form a single living being, and so one without the other is incomplete.  Thus, the sex of a person is not simply an accident; but is instead a substantial property of his or her existence.
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I didne't mean it had gender in the sense of when a baby's born, "Oh gosh, it's a boy..." lol, I mean more along the lines of when one hears a term such as "Masculine Soul" or "Feminine Soul" what is the full meaning of this...and as we are ensouled bodies, embodied souls, body-soul composites, etc etc what is the relationship between the bodies gender and the soul...does the soul overcome gender, transcend it? Does a masculine or feminine soul have differnences?

[Cam42]

Here is what Aquinas has to say on this:

[quote name='Summa Theologica I' date=' 75, 1']To seek the nature of the soul, we must premise that the soul is defined as the first principle of life of those things which live: for we call living things "animate," [*i.e. having a soul], and those things which have no life, "inanimate." Now life is shown principally by two actions, knowledge and movement. The philosophers of old, not being able to rise above their imagination, supposed that the principle of these actions was something corporeal: for they asserted that only bodies were real things; and that what is not corporeal is nothing: hence they maintained that the soul is something corporeal. This opinion can be proved to be false in many ways; but we shall make use of only one proof, based on universal and certain principles, which shows clearly that the soul is not a body.

It is manifest that not every principle of vital action is a soul, for then the eye would be a soul, as it is a principle of vision; and the same might be applied to the other instruments of the soul: but it is the "first" principle of life, which we call the soul. Now, though a body may be a principle of life, or to be a living thing, as the heart is a principle of life in an animal, yet nothing corporeal can be the first principle of life. For it is clear that to be a principle of life, or to be a living thing, does not belong to a body as such; since, if that were the case, every body would be a living thing, or a principle of life. Therefore a body is competent to be a living thing or even a principle of life, as "such" a body. Now that it is actually such a body, it owes to some principle which is called its act. Therefore the soul, which is the first principle of life, is not a body, but the act of a body; thus heat, which is the principle of calefaction, is not a body, but an act of a body.[/quote]

[quote name='Reply to Obj 2']The likeness of a thing known is not of necessity actually in the nature of the knower; but given a thing which knows potentially, and afterwards knows actually, the likeness of the thing known must be in the nature of the knower, not actually, but only potentially; thus color is not actually in the pupil of the eye, but only potentially. Hence it is necessary, not that the likeness of corporeal things should be actually in the nature of the soul, but that there be a potentiality in the soul for such a likeness. But the ancient philosophers omitted to distinguish between actuality and potentiality; and so they held that the soul must be a body in order to have knowledge of a body; and that it must be composed of the principles of which all bodies are formed in order to know all bodies.[/quote]

Basically what Aquinas is getting at is this; there is no gender nor is there any sex to the soul. There is no masculine soul, there is no feminine soul. Those are appetites. That is a different matter all together. Appy spoke about that earlier. It is also what Aquinas is talking about in Reply to Obj. 2.

The sex of a person is corporeal, the soul is incorporeal.

Aquinas also speaks to this:
[quote name='Summa Theologica I' date=' 75, 5']The soul has no matter. We may consider this question in two ways. First, from the notion of a soul in general; for it belongs to the notion of a soul to be the form of a body. Now, either it is a form by virtue of itself, in its entirety, or by virtue of some part of itself. If by virtue of itself in its entirety, then it is impossible that any part of it should be matter, if by matter we understand something purely potential: for a form, as such, is an act; and that which is purely potentiality cannot be part of an act, since potentiality is repugnant to actuality as being opposite thereto. If, however, it be a form by virtue of a part of itself, then we call that part the soul: and that matter, which it actualizes first, we call the "primary animate."

Secondly, we may proceed from the specific notion of the human soul inasmuch as it is intellectual. For it is clear that whatever is received into something is received according to the condition of the recipient. Now a thing is known in as far as its form is in the knower. But the intellectual soul knows a thing in its nature absolutely: for instance, it knows a stone absolutely as a stone; and therefore the form of a stone absolutely, as to its proper formal idea, is in the intellectual soul. Therefore the intellectual soul itself is an absolute form, and not something composed of matter and form. For if the intellectual soul were composed of matter and form, the forms of things would be received into it as individuals, and so it would only know the individual: just as it happens with the sensitive powers which receive forms in a corporeal organ; since matter is the principle by which forms are individualized. It follows, therefore, that the intellectual soul, and every intellectual substance which has knowledge of forms absolutely, is exempt from composition of matter and form.[/quote]

There is no easy way to say what Aquinas said, so you'll just have to digest it....he says it more succinctly than we can.

[Snowcatpa]

Then why does the Catholic Encylopedia make it seem like souls are gendered in their article on women?

[quote]The female sex is in some respects inferior to the male sex, both as regards body and soul. On the other hand, woman has qualities which man lacks[...]

The fact that there is no sexually neutral human being has, however, a second consequence. The sexual character can be separated from the human being as something secondary only in thought, not in actuality. The word "person" belongs neither to the soul nor to the body alone; it is rather, that the soul informing the body constitutes the full conception of the human personality only in its union with the body. It is in no way, therefore, permissible to limit differences only to the primary and secondary peculiarities of the body. On the contrary, the indisputable results of anatomical, physiological and psychological research show a difference so far-reaching between man and woman that the following is established as a scientific result: the feminine personality assumes the complete human nature in a different manner from the masculine.
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[Semperviva]

The soul is defined as the first principle of life of those things which live.

Things which live are either male or female.

The soul determines maleness or femaleness.



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[Cam42]

Semper,

You are cofusing matter and form. The soul does not have matter, so it has no gender, per Aquinas.

[Semperviva]

[i]The soul has no matter.... it is impossible that any part of it should be matter[/i]


I may just misunderstand you and Aquino. But, I'm not trying to say the soul has [i]material [/i] sex?(like that, Apoth?) characteristics, per se. I'm trying to say the soul as form of a male or female would have to have [i]some[/i] difference. Yes, soul is not matter. The body is matter. I don't see the connection in which this fact implies that a masculine or feminine characteristic of some [i]non-material[/i] kind is impossible, or unlikely.

Edited June 26, 2005 by Semperviva

[Apotheoun]

This conversation might be less confusing if people used the words "gender" and "sex" correctly.

[Snowcatpa]

[color=purple]
I think I'm still a little lost as Semperviva is. You're saying that Aquinas said that the soul isn't gendered because it doens't have material form. But what about non-material genderness? I'm a little more confused because online, I was reading an article whose author explains Aquinas soul theory differently:

[quote]Because for an Aristotelian the soul is the form of the body, in Thomas’s eyes, the female soul must be different from the male soul. And as the female body, is the biology of Aristotle-Aquinas, is a freak of nature, definitely inferior to the physical perfection of the male body, the feminine soul must also be less perfect than the male soul. [/quote]

And then I was reading this other article talking about St. Edith Stein (yes Semperviva I thought of you! ) which was talking about how Stein was departing from Aquinas view on this:

[quote]Stein took a different approach. She sought, in her philosophical work to go to the core of the matter, not only of woman's nature but also of the nature of woman's soul. She "inferred from a formulated truth of St. Thomas, anima forma corporis (p.19) the following: Inasmuch as the feminine body is a feminine body, this feminine body must also correspond to a feminine soul just as the masculine body must correspond to a masculine soul." (p.19) [/quote]

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Thoughts? Explanations? Help?

Edited June 26, 2005 by Snowcatpa

[Snowcatpa]

[quote name='Apotheoun' date='Jun 26 2005, 11:48 AM']This conversation might be less confusing if people used the words "gender" and "sex" correctly.
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Can you explain how that might help us clear up what we're talking about Apotheoun? Thanks [/color]

[Apotheoun]

[quote name='Snowcatpa' date='Jun 26 2005, 07:50 AM'][color=purple]
Can you explain how that might help us clear up what we're talking about Apotheoun? Thanks [/color]
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I pointed it out earlier in the thread. Gender concerns language, while sex concerns the being in itself.

[Semperviva]

Stein took a different approach. She sought, in her philosophical work to go to the core of the matter, not only of woman's nature but also of the nature of woman's soul. She "inferred from a formulated truth of St. Thomas, [b]anima forma corporis[/b]
...took the words right outta my mouth

[i](p.19) the following: Inasmuch as the feminine body is a feminine body, this feminine body must also correspond to a feminine soul just as the masculine body must correspond to a masculine soul." [/i](p.19)

This is more what I'm getting at. I had no idea Edith Stein addressed this. Interesting.

Edited June 26, 2005 by Semperviva