The Ascension

ML said -
"No, they are not the same thing. Please show me any traditional Catholic source such as the Catechism or maybe the Summa Theologica that expresses this idea."

JRoberts said -
First, I didn't say they were the same thing. I said that they are two ways of talking about the one thing. I also wouldn't say that the heads and tails sides of a coin are the same thing, but they're not completely separate things either.

If the soul and the body are two ways of talking about the same thing - what is that one thing they are two ways of talking about? Human nature? I am not clear as to how this is different than saying they are the same thing. At most it seems to only raise the level of abstraction by inserting a new unnamed thing to identify.

Again the errors in other dualistic ideas is of no consequence to this one, and it is an argument of guilt by association to imply that they are.

JRoberts said -
First, why do you think we venerate Mary? When did Marian theology start emphasizing her importance? In the fight against dualism. Mary carried the body of Jesus around in her womb, which is part of her body. For this, we call her the Mother of God. We don't call her, as some Protestants do, someone who just happened to physically carry around Jesus, or "Yeah, but not really the mother of God, she's just the mother of Jesus' human body."

But Jesus was both fully God and fully man, is this not also a dualism? Is there any way to reduce God to man or man to God? If not then there is a distinction between the two natures, which is of course why the phrase fully God and fully man needs to be stated. It becomes an unnecessary statement if the dualism does not exist.

JRoberts said -
Second, look at what Augustine said in the Enchiridion, 91, "This is why their bodies are called "spiritual," though undoubtedly they will be bodies and not spirits. For just as now the body is called "animate" [animale], though it is a body and not a "spirit" [anima], so then it will be a "spiritual body," but still a body and not a spirit...For there will then be such a concord between flesh and spirit—the spirit quickening the servant flesh without any need of sustenance therefrom—that there will be no further conflict within ourselves." Then take into consideration his philosophical underpinnings. He's a neo-Platonist, saying clearly that we will still very much be with our bodies. Think about how bizarre it is for a Platonist to grant even that much. Even a Platonist can't imagine a resurrection that isn't in the same body as in this life (as he clarifies at the start of 91).

I find this in complete accord with the verses I quoted in my last post. The body we have will be changed before resurrection and as Augustine says - "This is why their bodies are called "spiritual," though undoubtedly they will be bodies and not spirits." But they will (as Christ demonstrated) not be physical in the exact sense we understand it now.

It still does not answer how it is possible to reduce one to the other. The nature of the soul and the nature of the body may indeed be linked but they are not the same. They cannot be reduced one from the other.

JRoberts said with regard to Aquinas' position -
That is, the soul and the body are united. This is not to say that they're the same thing (i.e., monism), but only that they are united. The soul, without the body, simply can't do all of the things that souls do.

Again united does not make them the same nature and so the dualism exists. It may very well be that this uniting makes us what we are, in the sense that the animals who do not possess a soul are not made who they are by a similar uniting, but that does not mean the two are inseparable.

It would have been so much more helpful if you had in addition responded to the issues I raised with Paul discussing being absent from the body and being present with the Lord, and showed how that is possible in your model of the soul and body being two ways to speak about some third unidentified thing (what we are). Was Paul aware that "the one thing" as you put it above, that made him who and what he was ceased to exist when he was absent from his body? Was Paul not really Paul in toto, when he was present with the Lord? As it is there is still much about these questions that seem unanswered in your rejection of a dualistic nature of the soul and body.

JRoberts said -
You seem to be rasing, roughly, the following objection, form the same article:
"Objection 1: It would seem that the intellectual soul is improperly united to such a body. For matter must be proportionate to the form. But the intellectual soul is incorruptible. Therefore it is not properly united to a corruptible body."

No I would never say they are improperly united, I would say that the separation that occurs at death and continues until the reuniting at the resurrection does not destroy who we are or cause us to cease to exist.

JRoberts said -
Dualism, the separation of body and soul, is remedied for by grace. Perhaps in our fallen states dualism makes sense and is phenomenologically valid, but as God created us, dualism is pure nonsense. The two things are united things, not separate things.

Is this your idea or does it come from the Church? How does grace remedy or remove the dualism of the natures of soul and body?

JRoberts said -
Lastly, CCC 365: "Spirit and matter, in man, are not two natures united, but rather their union forms a single nature." Human nature consists precisely in the embodiment of the form of being human.

This is by far your strongest argument and I will need this explained further to me by someone as I still do not understand how this single human nature continues to exist or be described when the body and the soul are separated. Again that is why it is so crucial that you address the points I made in my previous post and assist me in properly understanding the nature of the Saints in the Church Triumphant.

If we bring these two different natures (spirit and matter)together such that they become on new nature, then how is it that we remain who we are when we are absent from the body, but present with the Lord?