Aquinas on the Afterlife Flashcards
Who did Aquinas admire?
Aristotle
What did Aquinas teach about the soul?
it is a ‘life principle’ and also the ‘form’ or distinctive character of living things
Who did Aquinas believe had souls?
all living things
According to Aquinas, what type of soul did an animal and plant have?
animal = sensitive soul plant = vegatitive soul
Where did Aquinas get the ideas of the sensitive and vegetative soul from?
Aristotle’s work, De Anima (On the Soul)
What is the difference between the animal and vegetative soul?
other life forms have souls which die when the body dies, but human beings have a special kind of soul, a ‘rational soul’, which enables life after death as a possibility
Aquinas was Christian… TRUE/FALSE
TRUE
How did Aquinas define the soul?
that which gives humans the ability to accomplish their purposes and reach the potential for which they were made: in particular, to reason and to make a free choice to love God, with the final goal and reward of living eternally in the presence of God
What was perfect happiness according to Aquinas?
living eternally, outside time, in a state of perfect bliss in the presence of God
What biblical quote supports the idea of the beatific vision?
1 CORINTHIANS 13:12, NIV
“For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror, then we shall see face to face to face”
What biblical quote supports the idea of the beatific vision giving us 100% assurance in the existence of God?
1 CORINTHIANS 13:12, NIV
“Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known”
Why does the beatific vision not have some of the same problems that the more Protestant understanding of heaven might have?
if the beatific vision is eternally timeless in the sense of there being a single ‘simultaneity’ rather than a timeline, then there is no need to wonder what the people in heaven would be doing all the time and how they would ‘fill’ their endless days without getting bored. There would just be one eternal moment of being in the presence of God
What issue does the concept of the beatific vision have?
If the soul is timeless in the presence of God, it is difficult to understand how this could be ‘the same person’ as the one he had the physical body while on earth and went about a physical daily life. Many of the characteristics which may cost the people we are involved relationship with linear time. For example, we think in sequences, first thinking of this , and then that follows: we respond to circumstances in our own individual ways, so that when this happens, I usually respond like that; there are activities we enjoy which happen in time. The difference between a person living in time, and a timeless soul, is perhaps so great that it is impossible to assert that this person experiencing would beatific vision is really the same person as before death.
