This past week I've been reflecting quite a bit on the difference between traditional Catholic truth as opposed to enshrined ignorance. It's led me to look at some fundamental assumptions about core doctrine. One of those core doctrines is the doctrine of the soul. The following is taken from the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

In Sacred Scripture the term "soul" often refers to human life or the entire human person. But "soul" also refers to the innermost aspect of man, that which is of greatest value in him, that by which he is most especially in God's image: "soul" signifies the spiritual principle in man.

The human body shares in the dignity of "the image of God": it is a human body precisely because it is animated by a spiritual soul, and it is the whole human person that is intended to become, in the body of Christ, a temple of the Spirit:

Man, though made of body and soul, is a unity. Through his very bodily condition he sums up in himself the elements of the material world. Through him they are thus brought to their highest perfection and can raise their voice in praise freely given to the Creator. For this reason man may not despise his bodily life. Rather he is obliged to regard his body as good and to hold it in honor since God has created it and will raise it up on the last day.

The unity of soul and body is so profound that one has to consider the soul to be the "form" of the body: i.e., it is because of its spiritual soul that the body made of matter becomes a living, human body; spirit and matter, in man, are not two natures united, but rather their union forms a single nature.

The Church teaches that every spiritual soul is created immediately by God—it is not "produced" by the parents—and also that it is immortal: it does not perish when it separates from the body at death, and it will be reunited with the body at the final Resurrection.

Sometimes the soul is distinguished from the spirit: St. Paul for instance prays that God may sanctify his people "wholly," with "spirit and soul and body" kept sound and blameless at the Lord's coming. The Church teaches that this distinction does not introduce a duality into the soul. "Spirit" signifies that from creation man is ordered to a supernatural end and that his soul can gratuitously be raised beyond all it deserves to communion with God.

I've read and reread the above and have discerned very little core truth about this notion of soul. It boils down to some ill defined animus that is eternal and will be united with it's body at the Second Coming. Other than this it says very little of practical use about the soul, and yet, it is my duty as a Catholic to save my soul from the ignorance and sin of my earthly body. The soul apparently animates this potential den of iniquity called the body and then becomes totally dependent on the choices of the body for it's eventual judgment.

Not having gotten a great deal of enlightenment from the above I then went to Catholic Answers.

After reading numerous questions I learned the following: Thomas Aquinas felt ensoulment occurred some time after conception--40 days for boys, 80 days for girls, but still believed abortion was homicide. I learned this one numerous times. It seems this teaching of Aquinas is a serious problem for serious Catholic questioners. The answer is that we are to accept the current arbitrary date of conception for Aquinas's arbitrary dates because scientific reason tells us that girls really are as human as boys all through pregnancy and so conception is a better arbitrary date for ensoulment. Or something along these lines.

I learned animals and plants have souls but they are material souls and do not survive death. Material souls are apparently a function of the biological process of life, not a spiritual infusion from God. I learned the difference between material and spiritual souls is the ability of spiritual souls for self reflection, for abstract thinking and for love. I learned that the Buddhist concept of Nirvana and reincarnation are totally wrong, (mostly based on Revelations and a few other biblical passages), that New Agers have basically zero correct about the soul, that contrary to some great fictional literature, it is not possible to sell one's soul to the devil, and that when Jesus spoke about Himself as always existing, that only applied to His soul. Ours has a starting but not an ending point and it most certainly can wind up eternally in hell based on the decisions of it's material representation.

What I learned more than anything is that Catholic teaching on the soul is at best nebulous and at worst purposeful in rejecting any experience of the concept from any other spiritual tradition. Why do I go into all of this? Because I strongly believe it is the obvious holes in this notion of soul/body paradigm which is driving people to search for truth else where. People are experiencing things that just scream for a better understanding of the totality of the human being. Science is discovering more and more about the brain body connection which is not meaningfully addressed by Catholic teaching. Quantum physics is postulating a notion of reality which blows a great deal of this neo platonic postulating out of the water. Jesus's life and teachings seem to affirm there is more to being human that taught in the Old Testament. His Resurrection and Transfiguration showed potentials for a human experience which went far beyond the accepted limits of physical expression.

One of the major assumptions Catholics are asked to accept is that the things Jesus did are reserved to Jesus. The rest of us have to wait for the Second Coming and even then only if we've been good boys and girls. (Apparently when Jesus said we could do what He did, He was just kidding.) What if this is all wrong and Jesus actually came to show us our existing potentials and the way to unlock them? What if when He told us to look within for the Father, He meant go deeper into what self aware human consciousness is capable of because there we will be closer to the Creator's design for creation---and to the truth of ourselves.

What if we turn things around a bit and ask if consciousness created the evolution of the human body in order to have a vehicle in which to experience material existence? What if in fact the conscious and self aware soul somehow creates or directs the body which houses it and the price of that incarnation is being subject to the physical laws of neural and physical development--which would then mean that original ignorance is the price for a material experience. It could be with a different starting point we would come to some very different understandings about material reality and what Jesus was on about.

In the future I will definitely be doing some speculation from this different starting point and this will include looking at the world view of the shamanic tradition. In that vein, I really connected with the NCR article with Fr. Paul F Knitter on 'double belonging'. Buddhism has a great deal of insight, which I have found inspirational even though my own 'double belonging' lies with a different mix of traditions. I suspect getting the whole picture is going to require entertaining the insight of many spiritual paths which is to be expected if the Buddhist and shamanic traditions are correct in stating we are all innerconnnected at the core existential level.

May the comments flow until next time.