Thomas Aquinas and the Soul’s Journey After Death

In his Summa Contra Gentiles, Thomas Aquinas develops a comprehensive metaphysical and theological account of the soul’s destiny after death, integrating Aristotelian philosophy with Christian doctrine. Written to address both missionary and intellectual challenges, the work asserts that merit and fault reside in the soul, not the body, thereby justifying immediate reward or punishment after death without waiting for bodily resurrection. However, because the soul must be perfectly purified to attain the beatific vision, Aquinas affirms the necessity of purgatory, grounded in the sacrament of penance. He treats resurrection as metaphysically necessary, since the soul is the form of the body, and insists that perfect happiness can only occur when body and soul are reunited. The Last Judgment becomes a confirmation of the individual judgment occurring at death, but loses its dramatic eschatological centrality, as the soul’s fate is largely sealed earlier. Aquinas’ careful distinction between death, interim state, and resurrection reshapes medieval eschatology, emphasizing purgatory and sacramentalism as key to the soul’s postmortem journey and reinforcing a new configuration of Christian hope and theological reflection.

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The work of Thomas Aquinas represents one of the great achievements of the new approach to theology. His Summa Contra Gentiles, written between 1258 and 1263, was intended to assist Christians as they faced Islam both as a missionary challenge in Spain and, through the Islamic commentators on Aristotle, an intellectual challenge at Paris and other universities.¹ Thomas’s better known Summa Theologiae was incomplete at his death, and its eschatological articles were provided later by disciples, so Contra Gentiles is the most complete treatment of our subject available.

The following passage, which deals with the fate of the soul immediately after its separation from the body, ought to give some indication of the general tone of Thomas’s work:

There is … in the order of fault and merit a harmony with the order of punishment and reward. But merit and fault are fitted to the body only through the soul, since there is essentially no merit or demerit except so far as a thing is voluntary. Therefore, both reward and punishment flow suitably from the soul to the body, but it does not belong to the soul by reason of the body. There is, therefore, no reason in the infliction of punishment or bestowal of reward why the souls should wait for the resumption of their bodies; rather, it seems more fitting that, since the souls had priority in the fault or merit, they have priority also in being punished or rewarded. …

Nonetheless, one must weigh the fact that in the case of the good there can be an obstacle to keep the souls from receiving their ultimate reward, which consists in the vision of God, right after their release from the body. To that vision no rational creature can be elevated unless it be thoroughly and entirely purified, since that vision exceeds the whole of the creature’s natural powers. … But by sin the soul is unclean in its disordered union to inferior things. To be sure, the soul is purified from this uncleanness in this life by penance and the other sacraments, as was said above, but it does at times happen that such purification is not entirely perfected in this life; one remains a debtor for the punishment, whether by reason of some negligence, or business, or even because a man is overtaken by death. Nevertheless, he is not entirely cut off from his reward, because such things can happen without mortal sin, which alone takes away the charity to which the reward of eternal life is due. … They must, then, be purged after this life before they achieve the final reward. This purgation, of course, is made by punishments, just as in this life their purgation would have been completed by punishments which satisfy the debt; otherwise the negligent would be better off than the solicitous, if the punishment which they do not complete for their sins here need not be undergone in the future. Therefore, if the souls of the good have something capable of purgation in this world, they are held back from the achievement of their reward while they undergo cleansing punishments. And this is the reason we hold that there is a purgatory.²

The first characteristic which distinguishes Thomas’s work from that of the early medieval theologians is his profound interest in the doctrine of the soul as a metaphysical problem. Indeed, the problem of the soul was one of the chief topics of debate in the thirteenth century. Thomas, working on the Aristotelian base, developed a doctrine “that the soul, as pure form, actualizes the body as its matter,” and that the intellective soul contains in itself in an eminent degree all the perfections of the sensitive and vegetative souls, which it supplants in the embryo of the human being at the moment of its creation.”³
In a metaphysical context similar to that of his development of the doctrine of Transubstantiation, Aquinas considered at length the issues of the relation of soul and body after death and of the interim between death and resurrection. He accepted immortality as a fundamental Christian tenet; but, unlike the early medieval theologians, he was aware of the philosophical issues raised and treated them sensitively and extensively.

But, as is evident from the treatment of the problem of the soul’s destiny after death in Contra Gentiles, theological issues were also profoundly involved. The subject of eschatology is treated in Book IV, which deals with salvation. Thomas believed that salvation is by grace alone. Thus, he treats the doctrines of Christ, the Holy Spirit, and the Trinity as loci of teaching about God’s gracious or saving activity among men and turns to the sacraments,⁴ which he regards as “instruments … of a God who was made flesh and suffered,” as “visible things” which “work out a spiritual salvation.”⁷ At the end, he discusses the Last Things, the consummation of the work of salvation.⁵

The organization of these final chapters is, at first glance, curious; for Aquinas deals immediately with the resurrection of the dead—that great stumbling block to the “Gentiles”—with objections to it and with the nature of the body which is to be raised. As Christ died for “the remission of sin …, the sacraments work in the power of Christ.” Similarly, as Christ was raised to effect “our liberation from death” mankind will be raised at the end of history.⁶ This resurrection, metaphysically conceived, is necessary since the soul “is the form of the body” and “it is … contrary to the nature of the soul to be without a body.”⁷ Resurrection is also necessary in the light of “the natural desire of man to tend to happiness.” Since perfect happiness is impossible in this world and impossible as well for the disembodied soul (for in that state it is imperfect), perfect happiness must await a future state in which body and soul will be reunited.⁸ The same can be said in the light of the necessity that men be punished for their sins: ultimate punishment, like ultimate reward, demands reunion of soul and body.⁹ In his risen and glorified state, or in his damned state, man will be immortal, animal, and incorruptible.¹⁰ The effect of Thomas’s treatment of resurrection is to make it absolutely clear that he takes very seriously the biblical texts upon which it is based and is intent upon interpreting those texts in a clear and logical metaphysical context. He is also concerned to fortify the biblical notions that Christ’s sacrifice is an act of God’s justice and that, without grace, man cannot be saved.

These latter considerations also motivate the treatment of the fate of the soul between death and resurrection. Punishment and reward are of the essence of God’s justice, he asserts in the passage quoted above. One further element also argues for this conclusion: the soul as the rational element in man can have a vision of the divine once it is separated from the corruptible body; and, since that vision is “man’s ultimate beatitude, which is the ‘reward of virtue,’” punishment or reward is ineluctably the lot of the soul immediately after it is separated from the body.¹¹

But the soul that is ultimately to be rewarded must be “entirely purified.” Purgatory, in other words, is made necessary in the Thomistic system by the sacramental understanding of penance. In the sacrament of penance, the minister acts for Christ as judge of the sinner who is contrite for sins he has committed after baptism and imposes upon the penitent an obligation or “satisfaction.” “By this a man is entirely freed from the guilt of punishment when he pays the penalty which he owed.”¹² As further justification for the doctrine of purgatory, Aquinas cites the church’s custom of praying for the dead,¹³ but one has the impression that this argument is traditional and not so important to his position as it had been to the Latin Fathers.

After a passage in which he heightens interest in the state of the soul by arguing that the wills of souls separated from the body are immutable,¹⁴ Aquinas finally considers the Last Judgment. There is, he declares, “a twofold retribution for what a man does in life”; one occurs for the soul immediately it is separated from the body, and the other will take place when the soul is reunited with its body. There is individual judgment at death, and there is general judgment at the end.¹⁵ Metaphysically, since the soul is the form of the body and incomplete without the body, the Last Judgment is necessary. Practically speaking, the apocalypse is only the ratification of the judgment of the soul at the hour of death.¹⁶

Thus, Thomas Aquinas takes the biblical doctrine of the resurrection of the dead very seriously and, at the same time, integrates that element of the church’s teaching with the immortality of the soul in a metaphysically more satisfactory manner than even the great Greek Fathers. But this very success is one of the signs of a profound alteration of theological emphasis. For Thomas and his contemporaries were unwilling to leave unanswered, or as a matter of mystery, the question of the soul’s fate between death and resurrection. They were impelled to ask what immortality means in the Christian scheme. Their answer was that the soul is judged at the hour of its separation from the body and enters immediately into its reward or punishment. The answer was not exactly a new one; it had been implied by the Fathers and stated by early medieval theologians. But it was pursued to its logical ends and given a new force and cogency in the High Middle Ages. The Last Judgment becomes a ratification of individual judgment. It represents the consummation of salvation and the goal of history, but it has lost its force as the focus of eschatological concern and primary element in the explanation of the meaning of death.

The very organization of Thomas’s treatment at the end of the Summa Contra Gentiles demonstrates this phenomenon. The convincing and extended metaphysical case for the necessity of resurrection based on the notion that the soul is the form of the body is followed by a discussion of the soul’s destiny before the resurrection. The reader’s interest in this subject has been whetted by the important role played by the doctrines of the soul and immortality in the earlier books of this Summa and in the entire Thomistic corpus. Thomas’s concern for this aspect of the history of the individual thus undercuts his concern with the dénouement of the history of mankind. And the two brief concluding chapters on the Last Judgment do not serve to restore the reader’s interest in that event. It is, indeed, the consummation; but somehow, since the souls of those saved by the grace of God have already achieved the beatific vision, the coming of the end has lost its urgency and its place as the event for which the whole of creation yearns.

The increased importance of purgatory in this whole scheme only intensifies this development. If salvation is by grace, and if the sacraments are the chief vehicles of grace, then satisfaction or punishment imposed after priestly judgment and absolution becomes a vital element. Those who have not been purged while living must not be consigned to eternal punishment but must, in their disembodied state, be allowed to complete their satisfaction. At the time Aelfric wrote, while the sacrament of penance was certainly emerging, it had not yet reached its fully articulated form.¹⁷ By the thirteenth century, penance was a vital element in the understanding of the justice and mercy of God. Thus, purgatory, as the state in which God graciously allowed one to complete his purgation, became increasingly important; and the tendency to view the existence of the soul in the interim after death as an active one was enhanced. Sacramentalism and the new interest in philosophical issues concerning the soul gave rise to an entirely new configuration of eschatological expectations.

NOTES

1. M. D. Chenu, Toward Understanding Saint Thomas, trans. with authorized corrections and bibliographical additions by A. M. Landry and D. Hughes (Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1964), pp. 289–292.

2. Summa Contra Gentiles IV. 91. 4, 6. Trans. quoted from On the Truth of the Catholic Faith: Summa Contra Gentiles, trans. A. C. Pegis (Bk. I), J. F. Anderson (Bk. II), V. J. Bourke (Bk. III), and C. J. O’Neil (Bk. IV) (Image Books, D26–D29; Garden City: Doubleday, 1955–1957). Used with permission.

3. Knowles, Evolution of Medieval Thought, p. 295; see also pp. 291–296. For Aristotle, the soul is the form of the body, and there is less emphasis upon the possibility of its independent existence than there had been in Plato.

4. Contra Gentiles IV. 56. 7.

5. Ibid., IV. 79–97.

6. Ibid., IV. 79. 3–4.

7. Ibid., IV. 79. 10. These assertions are explicitly related to the philosophical proof of immortality in Bk. III.

8. Ibid., IV. 79. 11.

9. Ibid., IV. 79. 12.

10. Ibid., IV. 82, 84–85.

11. Ibid., IV. 91. 2. See also III. 51.

12. Ibid., IV. 72. 14

13. Ibid., IV. 91. 7

14. Ibid., IV. 92–95.

15. Ibid., IV. 96. 1

16. Thomas’s disciples who completed Summa Theologiae (III. a Suppl. Q. 88.2) come closer to this position than Thomas himself.

17. See John T. McNeill, A History of the Cure of Souls (Harper Torchbooks, TB 126; New York: Harpers, 1965), Chap. VI, passim.

SOURCE: Milton McC. Gatch, Death. Meaning and mortality in Christian thought and contemporary culture, The Seabury Press, New York, 1969; pp. 96-102