Int J Philos Relig (2012) 71:103–116 DOI 10.1007/s11153-011-9303-8 ARTICLE

St. Thomas Aquinas on punishing souls Patrick Toner

Received: 7 April 2011 / Accepted: 10 May 2011 / Published online: 5 November 2011 © Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011

Abstract The details of St. Thomas Aquinas’s anthropological view are subject to debate. Some philosophers believe he held that human persons survive their deaths. Other philosophers think he held that human persons cease to exist at their death, but come back into being at the general resurrection. In this paper, I defend the latter view against one of the most significant objections it faces, namely, that it entails that God punishes and rewards separated souls for the sins or merits of something else: the (non-existent) persons to whom those souls once belonged. The objector takes this entailment to be problematic. I argue that it fits in well with St. Thomas’s views about punishment and about persons. Keywords

Aquinas · Soul · Person · Death

There is an important debate underway regarding St. Thomas Aquinas’s view on whether human persons survive their deaths. Everyone agrees that St. Thomas thinks humans will one day be resurrected from the dead, and hence will exist from that time on. The debate has to do with the interim state—the time in between our deaths and the general resurrection. Do we humans exist then? I will refer to the view that persons cease to exist at their deaths as the corruptionist account, and the view that persons survive their deaths as the survivalist account. The debate I’m concerned with here is over whether the corruptionist or the survivalist account is correct.1 Because my

1 On the survivalist side, see, for example, Stump (2003, pp. 51–54; 2006), Brown (2005, pp. 120–124;

2007, pp. 655–668), Eberl (2009), and, for contemporary hylemorphic views that involve the survivalist view see Oderberg (2008,Chap. 10), Moreland and Rae (2000, p. 201), and Hershenov (2008). (The authors of these last three works do not claim to be doing Aquinas exegesis, but rather to be presenting philosophically defensible views of their own. Oderberg, Rae and Moreland seem to believe St. Thomas is P. Toner (B) Department of Philosophy, Wake Forest University, Winston Salem, NC 27109, USA e-mail: [email protected]

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focus in this paper is on this contemporary dispute, I will not be attempting to give a systematic account of St. Thomas’s views on the immateriality or immortality or substantiality of the soul, nor will I be attempting to give a thorough treatment of St. Thomas’s views on the nature of the human person. My goal is more limited: I intend to undermine a crucial argument (or, more correctly, family of arguments) against corruptionism. Many defenders of the survivalist account hold that corruptionism has a problematical entailment. Or rather, when the corruptionist account is combined with another claim that St. Thomas undoubtedly does hold, there is a problematical entailment. For if St. Thomas held that persons cease to exist at death, and that some souls suffer punishment in hell or purgatory during the interim state, then he would be committed to the view that the soul is punished for the sins of something else—namely, the person to whom that soul once belonged.2 To be sure I am not misunderstood here, I should stress that when I say that the soul is being punished for the sins of something else, I do not mean that in such a case one person—the soul (or a person that is composed of or constituted by the soul)—is being punished for the sins of another person—the deceased person who, according to the corruptionist, no longer exists. It is fundamental to the corruptionist reading of St. Thomas that the soul is not a person (nor does it compose or constitute or in any other way bear a current relation to a human person). The corruptionist says that the soul is being punished, not the person: this is what the survivalist objects to. That is, many survivalists find it unbelievable that St. Thomas could have held it just for a soul to be punished for something else’s sins.3 And hence they avoid that entailment by rejecting the first conjunct of the antecedent: they claim that we human persons do not cease to exist at our death. I myself will survive my death. If something is punished for my sins after I die, that something will be me. So there’s a modus tollens here: if Aquinas holds A (the conjunction of the claims that persons cease to exist at their deaths, and that some separated souls suffer punishment), then he must—assuming he’s considered the matter with sufficient care, and assuming he recognizes the obvious entailment—hold B (God punishes souls for someone else’s sins). But he didn’t hold B. So he didn’t hold A. I will call this argument AMR—the argument from moral repugnance. Footnote 1 continued a survivalist. Hershenov does not.) On the corruptionist side, see Kenny (1993, p. 138), Pasnau (1992, pp. 380–393), Lee and George (2008, pp. 66–81), Davies (1992, pp. 215–220), Elders (1997, pp. 274–284), and author’s papers. 2 The second conjunct is beyond dispute, though it must be parsed carefully: St. Thomas is very clear that

the souls of the deceased go immediately either to heaven, hell or purgatory. Cf. ST Suppl. 69, 2. According to the corruptionist, the soul, prior to the resurrection, is the only thing that goes, while according to the survivalist, both the soul and the person go. On the latter view, I take it that the soul’s punishment would be more indirect: it would suffer because the person is suffering. On the corruptionist view, however, the soul itself would be the thing that directly underwent punishment. 3 Some might find it unbelievable that a separated soul—a thing which, as this paper’s line of argument will make clear, has a human will and intellect—is not a person. Isn’t that just nonsense? How can a thing with a human intellect not be a person? This is a worthwhile question, but not one I can deal with here. It’s one of the many things that “falls outside the scope of this paper.” Fortunately, I’ve addressed the metaphysics of the human person at length elsewhere. See author’s papers.

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There is a distinct, but related, line of argument against corruptionism. One might argue that corruptionism conflicts with (other) clearly stated thomistic doctrines. For example, St. Thomas holds that immediately following our deaths, our souls face a particular judgment. One might think that it has to be us—these persons who are now meriting reward or punishment—that face this judgment, for if it is not us, then something else is being judged for our sins or merits. Another example: one might think that the Church’s custom of praying for the dead entails that dead persons exist—for otherwise, our prayers could hardly be of any help to them. Or one might think that Purgatory couldn’t do us any good if we weren’t there to experience it. All of these kinds of considerations provide lines of argument quite similar to AMR. They suggest that St. Thomas must have rejected corruptionism. I’ll call this the argument from conflicting doctrines (ACD). Like AMR, ACD would be compelling if the conflict could be decisively shown. I don’t believe that anyone accepts survivalism solely on the basis of AMR or ACD, but such arguments do seem to be important considerations for many survivalists.4 In this paper, I will undermine the appeal of AMR and ACD. First, I will discuss two texts that seem to give the survivalist everything she needs to get AMR to go through. I show that the texts do nothing of the sort: in fact, there do not seem to be any texts that unambiguously support AMR. Second, I consider ACD, and argue that the reply to AMR gives us all the materials we need to reply to it, as well. Before turning to the main task of the paper, I need to say just a little bit more about the survivalist view. As I’ve said, survivalists hold that human beings survive their death. So the survivalist believes that St. Thomas himself is now in heaven. One might think this is plainly incompatible with St. Thomas’s hylemorphic anthropology, according to which human beings are composites of form and matter. Moreover, St. Thomas famously says that humans are not identical with their souls. Given these obvious points, it’s hard to see how survivalism has any plausibility. But the defenders of survivalism, of course, have replies. Eleonore Stump, for example, argues that St. Thomas believes human beings are normally “constituted” by form and matter, but that after death they come to be constituted solely by their soul.5 This is an unnatural and temporary arrangement. But crucially, humans are not ever identical with the soul (for constitution is not identity): humans are always identical with rational animals. (Sometimes human animals are immaterial.) Other survivalists have slightly different ways of cashing out the relation between the deceased human being and the separated soul. 4 Such points have been raised in print by Stump (2006). Arguments resembling AMR and ACD have also

been mentioned to me in personal correspondence by several philosophers. Similar arguments have been pressed by Hershenov and Hershenov (2006). They believe St. Thomas was a corruptionist, so they take their version of ACD to raise trouble for his view, rather than taking it to show he was a survivalist. James Ross has made just the same argumentative move, pressing ACD against St. Thomas while nevertheless taking him to be a corruptionist. Cf. Ross (2001). 5 The notion of constitution she has in mind is something like the picture defended by Lewis (1991), although as I say above, she rejects the idea that constitution is identity: indeed, she takes that rejection to be absolutely vital. Consequently, she considers Lynne Rudder Baker’s version of constitution as a better model than Lewis’s, for Baker also denies that constitution is identity. Cf. Baker (2000). As I’ve argued in author’s paper, however, Stump’s version of the view is mereological, and hence comes closer to Lewis’s than Baker’s in important ways.

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These survivalist views are not, in my opinion, ultimately sustainable, but none is easily dismissible on the basis of simple mistakes about St. Thomas’s anthropology. The defenders of survivalism are gifted philosophers and careful readers of St. Thomas: it is not a view that will be defeated simply by pointing to the doctrine of hylemorphism or citing texts where St. Thomas says I am not my soul.6 Much more needs to be done: hence, this paper. (And even this paper is but one engagement in a conflict with many fronts.) I St. Thomas believes that when we die, our souls immediately enter one of three states: heaven, hell or purgatory.7 If the soul enters heaven, it beholds God in his essence: pure bliss. If, however, the soul enters hell or purgatory, it endures tremendous suffering. In both cases, the suffering is a punishment. In the case of hell, the suffering is purely penal. In the case of purgatory, there’s purification, as well. The point of going to purgatory is not merely to undergo punishment for the temporal effects of one’s sins, but also to be made worthy to behold God in heaven. Assume for argument that the corruptionist view is correct. Now, consider St. Benedict. His soul is in heaven, but he is not. His soul is enjoying beatitude, even though the soul of St. Benedict is not the thing that lived such a holy life. St. Benedict did that. So why is his soul reaping St. Benedict’s reward? That doesn’t seem quite fair. But St. Thomas tells us that there’s nothing at all worrisome about such a situation. He writes, “it is … becoming … that one should acquire some advantage from deeds of another.”8 So even if the soul of St. Benedict is enjoying beatitude for the actions of St. Benedict, there’s nothing unjust about that: it is becoming that the soul should acquire advantage from the deeds of another. Bear in mind that the soul of St. Benedict is not unjustly taking what belongs to another. St. Benedict isn’t there at all right now, but when he makes his return, then he’ll definitely receive his wholly undiminished reward. In short, the above text shows that heaven isn’t a problem for the corruptionist view. But the same text—when purged of the ellipses—does suggest that hell and purgatory are problems for corruptionists. Here is the full quotation: It is directly contrary to justice to take away from a person that which is his due: but to give a person what is not his due is not contrary to justice, but surpasses 6 There are texts available which undermine the survivalist account, but this paper is not the place to go into that matter. Nor is it the place to try to defuse the many other objections to corruptionism that have been raised by survivalists. Thus, it should be clear to the reader that I am not trying to show that corruptionism is true: merely that AMR and ACD are not good reasons to reject it. 7 I ignore the issue of Limbo here, since it doesn’t have any bearing on the discussion, and trying to take it into account would just unnecessarily complicate matters. 8 ST Suppl 71, 1 and 4. Citations from the Supplement may not carry quite the same weight as citations from the earlier portions of the Summa, but despite coming from an earlier time in his career (the Commentary on the Sentences), the material is still Thomas’s.

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the bounds of justice, for it is liberality. Now a person cannot be hurt by the ills of another, unless he be deprived of something of his own. Consequently it is not becoming that one should be punished for another’s sins, as it is that one should acquire some advantage from deeds of another. One might think this text gives support to the contention of AMR: here we have a clear declaration from St. Thomas that it’s unjust for one thing (say, a soul) to be punished for the sins of another (a person). And hence—since God, obviously, wouldn’t establish unjust arrangements in the afterlife—St. Thomas wouldn’t have been a corruptionist. Another text makes things look even bleaker for the corruptionist. For St. Thomas writes: If we speak of that satisfactory punishment, which one takes upon oneself voluntarily, one may bear another’s punishment, in so far as they are, in some way, one, as stated above. If, however, we speak of punishment inflicted on account of sin, inasmuch as it is penal, then each one is punished for his own sin only, because the sinful act is something personal.9 The claim that “each one is punished for his own sin only” might be taken as a nail in the coffin of the corruptionist view. However, once again, we mustn’t be hasty. There is a very straightforward textual argument that can be developed to show that these texts do not cut against corruptionism. The argument makes use of a distinction that St. Thomas puts to use in his account of original sin.

II My point in the next few pages will be to show hat St. Thomas definitely thinks that one thing may be justly punished for the sins of another thing, provided a certain condition is met. That condition is developed by St. Thomas in his discussion of original sin. Hence, I will have to talk a fair amount in what follows about original sin. I do not claim that the case of original sin (where I, for example, am punished for the sin of Adam) is exactly similar to the case of my soul’s suffering in Purgatory. It is very obviously not the same. I’m not comparing the cases. I’m showing, rather, that the incontrovertible presence of this “condition” in St. Thomas’s thought—discovered in his account of original sin, but by no means necessarily limited in its application to the doctrine of original sin—provides the corruptionist with the resources to answer AMR. St. Thomas believed that when Adam sinned, original justice was lost, and we humans fell into the state of original sin. God cursed us: there were punishments that accompanied the first sin, and which still afflict us today: we bring forth our children in pain, and we earn our bread in the sweat of our brow, and so forth. These punishments are inflicted on us for something we didn’t do. Perhaps we find this situation 9 ST I–II, 87, 8.

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unjust, but St. Thomas certainly didn’t. In fact, he raises the matter of original sin in his discussion of punishment. He writes: If, however, we speak of punishment simply, in respect of its being something penal, it has always a relation to a sin in the one punished. Sometimes this is a relation to actual sin, as when a man is punished by God or man for a sin committed by him. Sometimes it is a relation to original sin: and this, either principally or consequently—principally, the punishment of original sin is that human nature is left to itself, and deprived of original justice: and consequently, all the penalties which result from this defect in human nature.10 Here, St. Thomas claims that penal punishment always has a relation to sin in the one punished: that sin in us may be either actual or original. So when we are punished as a result of original sin, we are being punished for sin in us. So original sin isn’t solely in Adam, but it all his progeny as well. But—and here’s my point—when we are punished as a result of original sin, we are not being punished for sin committed by us. This is the condition that I mentioned earlier: it is just to punish one thing for sins committed by another thing, provided the sins are in the one punished. Note well that what is at issue here is penal punishment. St. Thomas divides punishment into two overlapping categories: punishment simply, and satisfactory punishment. That distinction is drawn roughly as follows. It is essential to punishment to be against the will.11 However, one may will to accept a certain instance of suffering. When one wills to accept it, then the suffering attains the status of satisfactory punishment. St. Thomas says that even when it is accepted, an instance of suffering is against the will absolutely speaking, though in that particular case it is voluntary.12 On the other hand, an instance of suffering that is not accepted by the sufferer is penal. St. Thomas thinks the punishment due to us as a result of original sin is penal punishment (refer again to the quotation directly above: he is there speaking explicitly of penal punishment). When we consider an unbaptized person condemned to hell due strictly to original sin, his separation from God is penal punishment. Such a person does not suffer additional penal punishment, such as fire and the worm of conscience. 10 ST I–II, 87, 7. The Latin reads: “Si vero loquamur de poena simpliciter, secundum quod habet rationem poenae, sic semper habet ordinem ad culpam propriam, sed quandoque quidem ad culpam actualem, puta quando aliquis vel a Deo vel ab homine pro peccato commisso punitur; quandoque vero ad culpam originalem. Et hoc quidem vel principaliter, vel consequenter. Principaliter quidem poena originalis peccati est quod natura humana sibi relinquitur, destituta auxilio originalis iustitiae, sed ad hoc consequuntur omnes poenalitates quae ex defectu naturae in hominibus contingunt.” I reproduce this here because the point I’m about to go on to make might seem to take the English translation rather too seriously: I will be pressing the distinction between sin in us, and sin committed by us. But the Latin here doesn’t use “in.” Rather, it says “…sic semper habet ordinem ad culpam propriam…” Fortunately, this is not a difficulty for my reading, since my point is that there is a clear distinction in St. Thomas between sins that we ourselves commit on the one hand, and sin that we can justly be punished for, despite not having committed it ourselves. And the distinction between these two kinds of sin is nicely captured by the English translation which speaks of the second sort of sin as sin in us. 11 ST I–II, 87, 6; I, 48, 5; SCG III, 141. 12 Here is a central passage: “when punishment is satisfactory, it loses somewhat of the nature of punish-

ment: for the nature of punishment is to be against the will; and although satisfactory punishment, absolutely speaking, is against the will, nevertheless in this particular case and for this particular purpose, it is voluntary. Consequently it is voluntary simply, but involuntary in a certain respect…” ST I, 87, 6.

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But he does suffer the penal punishment of separation from God. In short, he receives the pain of loss, but not the pain of sense.13 But the pain of loss is penal punishment. Moreover, death and all other such sufferings we endure in this life are penal punishments due to original sin.14 (Except in the case of strictly medicinal punishments.15 ) St. Thomas’s views on this matter are clear: we can and do receive penal punishment because of original sin. With this point in hand, we can return to the crucial parts of the passages I presented in section I. First: “[I]t is not becoming that one should be punished for another’s sins…” Second: “If, however, we speak of punishment inflicted on account of sin, inasmuch as it is penal, then each one is punished for his own sin only…” Now, note that when St. Thomas says in the second text that we are punished for our own sins only, this is quite consistent with our being punished for someone else’s (actual) sin: as long as that sin is in us, it is our own, and we can justly be punished for it. Similarly, when he says it is not becoming that we be punished for someone else’s sins, this is clearly consistent with our being punished for Adam’s sin, since that sin is in us. St. Thomas’s teaching on original sin shows that the two problem texts above cannot be read flat-footedly. These texts are consistent with our being punished for someone else’s sins, at least in the special case of original sin. I think this much should be

13 The most thorough discussion of punishment for original sin in St. Thomas is found in the De Malo, 5.

The distinction between pain of sense and pain of loss is covered in 5, 2. That the loss of the vision of God is a punishment due to original sin is argued in 5, 1. Note that this punishment must be penal, since it is clearly not satisfactory or medicinal. 14 De Malo 5, 4. 15 I have so far ignored the further complication of medicinal punishments, but I need to include a brief

word about them for completeness’ sake. Here is the most relevant passage from the ST: “(s)ometimes a thing seems penal, and yet is not so simply. Because punishment is a species of evil, as stated in I, 48, 5. Now evil is privation of good. And since man’s good is manifold, viz. good of the soul, good of the body, and external goods, it happens sometimes that man suffers the loss of a lesser good, that he may profit in a greater good, as when he suffers loss of money for the sake of bodily health, or loss of both of these, for the sake of his soul’s health and the glory of God. In such cases the loss is an evil to man, not simply but relatively; wherefore it does not answer to the name of punishment simply, but of medicinal punishment, because a medical man prescribes bitter potions to his patients, that he may restore them to health. And since such like are not punishments properly speaking, they are not referred to sin as their cause, except in a restricted sense: because the very fact that human nature needs a treatment of penal medicines, is due to the corruption of nature which is itself the punishment of original sin. For there was no need, in the state of innocence, for penal exercises in order to make progress in virtue; so that whatever is penal in the exercise of virtue, is reduced to original sin as its cause.” ST I, 87, 8. It’s crucial to see that not all of the physical suffering we undergo as a result of the Fall can be reduced to medicinal suffering. For here St. Thomas distinguishes between punishment appointed for sin, and concomitant punishment. A human judge might sentence a criminal to blindness. The criminal’s blindness is the punishment appointed for his crime. But many concomitant sufferings will come along with it, such as beggary. That we die is punishment appointed for sin. (See the De Malo passage cited above, whose respondeo begins: “According to the Catholic Faith we must hold without any doubt whatsoever that death and all such ills of the present life are a punishment of original sin.”) But that we are in a condition to need to undergo the sort of medicinal suffering discussed above is concomitant: “…the very fact that man is in such a condition that he must be helped, either to avoid sin, or to advance in virtue, by means of these misfortunes or defects, pertains to the weakness of human nature, which derives from the sin of our first parents, just as the fact that the body of man is so disposed that it needs surgery to cure it, pertains to its weakness. And therefore all these ills correspond to original sin as a concomitant punishment.”

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uncontroversial. But, of course, it doesn’t solve the problem for the corruptionist yet, for that is an entirely different situation. So the crucial question here is whether there’s any way for something else’s actual sin to be in another thing other than through original sin. In other words: are there other contexts where this distinction of “sin in/sin committed by” can sensibly be seen in St. Thomas? I contend that there is at least one other such context: the sins I commit in this life are in my soul after I die (indeed, these sins are in my soul even before I die), and my soul can then be justly punished for them even though I’m not present, and even though the sins were not, strictly speaking, committed by my soul. We’ll examine that contention in the following section.

III A quick recap: there are some texts in St. Thomas that seem at first glance to help AMR go through. But they do so only if there’s no sensible way in which we can say that once I die, my sins will be in my soul, making it just for God to punish my soul for them. And I contend that it is eminently sensible to think that, according to St. Thomas, our sins will indeed be in our souls. At this point, then, we need to look at some more texts. We can begin with a line of thought that must be recognized as foundational for all discussions regarding the soul in St. Thomas. He writes: …it is clear from what we have said above, that some operations of the soul are performed without a corporeal organ, as understanding and will. Hence the powers of these operations are in the soul as their subject. But some operations of the soul are performed by means of corporeal organs; as sight by the eye, and hearing by the ear. And so it is with all the other operations of the nutritive and sensitive parts. Therefore the powers which are the principles of these operations have their subject in the composite, and not in the soul alone.16 It is the second sentence that must be highlighted. The subject of intellect and will is the soul, not the composite. There are some powers which have the composite as their subject: all the sensory powers, for example. But the intellect and will are in the soul as their subject. Now this fundamental claim has some important results. Consider this: Of actions done by man those alone are properly called “human,” which are proper to man as man. Now man differs from irrational animals in this, that he is master of his actions. Wherefore those actions alone are properly called human, of which man is master. Now man is master of his actions through his reason and will; whence, too, the free-will is defined as “the faculty and will of reason.” Therefore those actions are properly called human which proceed from a deliberate will.17 16 ST I, 77, 5. 17 ST I–II, 1, 1.

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When we couple this claim about our human acts—the acts for which we merit praise or blame, reward or punishment—with the earlier text, we can see that the human acts proceed from the soul, for they proceed from the will, which has the soul as its subject. Our human acts include all of our sins. So we can infer that our sins proceed from our souls: our sins have the soul as their subject. Here is another way of putting it: …the proper subject of sin must needs be the power which is the principle of the act. Now since it is proper to moral acts that they are voluntary, as stated above, it follows that the will, which is the principle of voluntary acts, both of good acts, and of evil acts or sins, is the principle of sins. Therefore it follows that sin is in the will as its subject.18 Sin is in the will as its subject. But the will is in the soul as its subject. Hence, sin is in the soul. But not just actual sin: original sin also has the soul as subject: …since the soul can be the subject of guilt, while the flesh, of itself, cannot be the subject of guilt; whatever accrues to the soul from the corruption of the first sin, has the character of guilt, while whatever accrues to the flesh, has the character, not of guilt but of punishment: so that, therefore, the soul is the subject of original sin, and not the flesh.19 All of this material shows that it is St. Thomas’s view that sin is in the soul. But if our sin is in our soul, then it is just to punish our soul for our sin, exactly as Adam’s sin in us makes it is just to punish us for Adam’s sin. This follows pretty obviously from St. Thomas’s doctrine of punishment. As we saw earlier, punishment is contrary to the will. More, “it is the nature of fault to be according to the will, but of the nature of punishment to be contrary to the will.”20 Fault and punishment are linked by the will. And the same will exists in our disembodied soul that exists in us. When we die, our souls survive, and go immediately to a place of reward or punishment for the acts we have committed. But the acts for which they are being rewarded or punished are the acts of which they themselves are the subject of the guilt or merit; acts of which they themselves are the source. In fact, St. Thomas implicitly makes just such a point here: Now the soul united to a mortal body is in the state of meriting, while the soul separated from the body is in the state of receiving good or evil for its merits; so that after death it is either in the state of receiving its final reward, or in the state of being hindered from receiving it.21 The soul when united to the body is in the state of meriting, while the soul separated from the body is in the state of receiving. This doesn’t mean that it’s not the person, ultimately, who merits. Of course it is, just as ultimately—eternally—it will be the

18 ST I–II, 74, 1. 19 ST I–II, 83, 1. 20 De Malo, 1, 4. 21 ST Suppl, 69, 7.

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person who suffers or glories. But the person and the soul are so tightly linked—via the will—that the scruple at punishing or rewarding the soul for the acts of the person is simply a kind of category mistake. It is to confuse the disembodied soul with something wholly other from the person. Like God punishing me with the pain of sense because you beat up your grandmother. That’s just not the model to have in mind here. In fact, it seems as though there is a text available that summarizes everything I’ve just said and ties it up in a neat little package. St. Thomas writes: There is, moreover, in the order of fault and merit a harmony with the order of punishment and reward. But merit and reward 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.22 Think about the kind of worry that would have prompted St. Thomas to write such a passage. The worry is exactly what we’ve been talking about: “isn’t it somehow unfitting for the soul to immediately receive reward or punishment, when the thing that deserves the reward or punishment isn’t there yet?” And St. Thomas’s answer is: no, it’s not unfitting. Indeed, it’s wholly fitting, for the soul is the source of the acts that merit reward or punishment. As such, we can take AMR to have been rebutted. (In fact, I think this text all on its own is a fairly compelling argument in favor of the corruptionist view, but I will not press that point here.23 )

IV Before I move on to my treatment of ACD, I need to discuss an objection. (I suppose this objection might be viewed as an instance of ACD. To me, it seems more like an objection internal to the discussion of the last section, since it suggests, as you will soon see, that I have misapplied St. Thomas’s doctrine of punishment. But I don’t want to worry too much about how to categorize the objection: I’d rather just rebut it.) As we saw earlier, St. Thomas argues that the pain of sense is reserved only for those who have committed actual sin: one who has committed no actual sin will not

22 SCG 4, 91. 23 One could take an opposing look at the texts of this section, and argue that if the intellect and will are so

intimately linked to my human acts, then their persistence must guarantee my persistence. That is, one might infer that if my intellect and will survive, then I must survive. This is a mistake, which as I noted earlier I cannot address here, though I’ve discussed it at length in author’s paper. But more directly relevantly, the fact is that such a line of argument would be an entirely distinct objection against corruptionism from the objections I’m dealing with in this paper. It would constitute an argument from the metaphysics of human organisms, not an argument from moral repugnance. I’m only dealing with the latter here. I must beg leave to treat objections to my view one at a time, rather than all at once.

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endure pain of sense, but only pain of loss.24 Prima facie, this seems to generate an objection against the move I made in the previous section. For in a case where a soul is condemned to hell due to the actual sins committed by a person, that soul will suffer pain of sense, despite not itself having committed actual sin. But the soul’s suffering the pain of sense in that way would contradict the claim that we suffer pain of sense only for actual sins. This objection, if it works, cuts the heart out of my argument. But it doesn’t work. In the relevant passage, St. Thomas gives three arguments in support of the contention that those who die in original sin only, do not suffer pain of sense but only pain of loss. I will have to present the three arguments to make clear to the reader the grounds of St. Thomas’s view regarding punishments of sense being reserved for those who have committed actual sin. When those grounds are clear, it will also be clear that they do not rule out the kind of move I make here, but are entirely consistent with it. The first argument points out that human beings are individual substances of a certain nature. Now the person has a dual ordering: per se to the things that pertain to its nature, and through its nature to things that are above the nature. (That sounds a little odd, but the idea is that as a person I am ordered towards a certain human life, but as a human being—as an instance of human—I am ordered, by God’s choice, towards a supernatural destiny.) But original sin is a fault of the nature, not of the person. So it is appropriate for a human to be stripped, as a result of original sin, of things that lie above human nature, such as the vision of God. But punishment of sense is opposed to the integrity of my human nature, and thus interferes with my per se ordering. Hence, pain of sense is not appropriate to one who has not himself merited such punishment.25 The second argument distinguishes between mortal sin and original sin (as it exists in me, not as it was committed by Adam) in the following way: in a mortal sin one both turns away from God and turns towards a creature in an inappropriate way. But in original sin, I am turned away from God, but not turned towards a transitory good. The pain of loss is directed at the turning away, but the pain of sense is directed at the turning towards. So it is not appropriate for those who die in original sin only, to suffer pain of sense. Third, St. Thomas argues that punishment of sense is not attributable to habitual disposition, but rather to acts. (One is not punished for being disposed to steal, but rather for stealing.) Some loss is appropriate, however, to those who have habitual dispositions of certain sorts. For example, one who lacks knowledge of letters (a habitual state: that of privation of the grammatical arts) is not worthy of episcopal office. Similarly, one with a habitual disposition that prompts inordinate concupiscence (e.g. an unbaptized child) is not worthy to be in God’s presence, but nevertheless has not merited pain of sense because his disposition to inordinate concupiscence is quite a different thing than the actual concupiscence of an adult. 24 De Malo 5, 2. 25 It has been pointed out to me that this argument seems unconvincing: why shouldn’t the nature be pun-

ished in ways that interfere with its per se ordering even if the person hasn’t merited this punishment? This strikes me as a good question, and I don’t have a good answer. However, my point in describing St. Thomas’s argument here is not so much to endorse it, as to show how St. Thomas does, in fact, derive his view that it is wrong to punish with pain of sense someone who dies in original sin only.

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Now, the first thing to notice about St. Thomas’s treatment of the question at hand is that he does not assert as a principle (as though it were self-evident) that it is wrong to punish with pain of sense someone who has died with original sin only. Rather, that position is a conclusion: and I’ve given you his arguments for it. Here, however, is a much simpler argument for that conclusion: “For all x and for all y, where x and y are numerically distinct, it is wrong to punish x with the pain of sense for a sin committed by y. Original sin was committed by Adam, and not by this baby who has died with original sin only. Hence, it is wrong to punish this baby with the pain of sense. (And the conclusion, of course, generalizes to any who die in original sin only.)” This argument is a pretty bad one, for it surely has the stink of circularity about it. (Who would endorse that first premise who wouldn’t already endorse the conclusion?) But put that aside. What matters for our purposes is this: the first premise in this argument could easily figure in an argument from moral repugnance against corruptionism. Simply substitute a new second premise, such as “P committed some actual sin, but P’s separated soul did not.” Then, we could infer that it would be wrong to punish P’s separated soul with the pain of sense, and corruptionism would be on the ropes. So if we have good reason to attribute that first premise to St. Thomas, corruptionism is indeed in trouble. But there’s no reason to think that St. Thomas accepted the first premise. For he doesn’t give the simple argument above. Nor does he assert the simple argument’s first premise in the course of the three arguments he actually gave. Nor does he assume that premise anywhere. Nor does he infer it anywhere. It simply doesn’t show up at all. No doubt he accepts some claim that is a lot like the first premise in that simple argument. For example, it seems to me that he must accept this: “For all x and for all y, where x and y are numerically distinct and do not share a will, it is wrong to punish x with the pain of sense for a sin committed by y.” This premise will still yield the conclusion that it is wrong to punish with the pain of sense a baby who died with original sin only. But it will not yield the survivalist conclusion that it is wrong to punish with pain of sense my soul, which died with the guilt of my actual sins, for my soul and I share a will. The premises, in other words, are importantly different, and we can’t simply jump to attributing the first to St. Thomas when the second is all that’s needed. One can say more, for the corruptionist’s case is stronger than I have so far shown. The centerpiece of my argument in this paper is the recognition of the possibility of there being sin in us that is not sin committed by us. But because of what actual sin is, it cannot be in me if it was committed by you. Original sin is quite different. Because of what it is, it can be in me despite having been committed by Adam. But actual sin doesn’t transfer in that way because of its necessary connection to the will of the sinner. I emphasize in that way, because section III showed that actual sin does transfer in a different way. It transfers from the person to his detached soul by way of one and the same will being found in the person and the detached soul. Because of the necessary connection of the will and the guilt and punishment of sin, the guilt goes where the will goes, and the punishment for that sin (i.e. the pain of sense) is appropriate wherever that will is found. And this is sufficient to show that the current objection fails. Yes, St. Thomas argues that pain of sense is not rightly inflicted on

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one person for the sins of another person. But contrary to initial appearance, that’s not any reason to doubt this paper’s main thesis, for the situations in question are simply not comparable. V The preceding material gives us everything we need to respond to ACD. ACD can take various forms. I listed three versions of it in the introduction. One might say that St. Thomas is committed to survivalism because corruptionism conflicts with the doctrine of the particular judgment; or because it conflicts with the practice of prayers for the dead (or, alternatively, the belief that the saints intercede for us); or because it conflicts with the doctrine that we are purged of our sins in Purgatory (or for any of a number of other reasons). Let’s look at one particular version of ACD. I will take the argument from Hershenov and Hershenov (although, as I pointed out above, they do not take it as an argument for survivalism, but rather as an argument against St. Thomas’s corruptionism). They write: …[I]f Purgatory happens after death and prior to resurrection, it will not be you being purged…. Given that it is just a part of you that undergoes a process of purification or purgation for the sins committed by you, a human being, one question that arises is what good is it that a soul with which you are not identical is purged? …[H]ow are you benefited by what happens to a soul with which you are not identical? Anything the soul goes through in purgatory, you do not.26 The material covered in the last sections provides a full response to this. It is good that a soul with which I am not identical is purged because the soul is the subject of my intellect and will: my sins are present in it. These sins can be purged such that when I am resurrected, they will not come to be present in me again. Similar responses can be made regarding prayers for the dead or the particular judgment. ACD, as we’ve seen it, no more compelling than AMR. Of course, I have left a host of things unaddressed here. One must keep in mind the scope of this paper: I have tried to remove a certain family of objections to corruptionism. I have not tried to rebut every objection to corruptionism. Nor have I given any arguments in favor of corruptionism. (Such rebuttals and arguments are available, but this is not the place to rehearse them.27 ) But since the objections I have addressed in this paper strike many as being the most serious reasons for rejecting corruptionism, this paper’s task is very much worth having been done. References Baker, L. R. (2000). Persons and bodies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Brown, C. (2005). Aquinas and the ship of Theseus. London: Continuum. 26 Hershenov and Hershenov (2006, p. 441). 27 See author’s papers.

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Brown, C. (2007). Souls, ships, and substances. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly, 81, 655–668. Davies, B. (1992). The thought of Thomas Aquinas. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Eberl, J. (2009). Do human persons persist between death and resurrection. In K. Timpe (Ed.), Metaphysics and God: Essays in honor of Eleonore Stump. London: Routledge. Elders, L. (1997). The philosophy of nature of St. Thomas Aquinas. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang. Hershenov, D. (2008). A hylomorphic account of personal identity thought experiments. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly, 82, 481–502. Hershenov, D., & Hershenov, R. K. (2006). Personal identity and purgatory. Religious Studies, 42, 439–451. Kenny, A. (1993). Aquinas on mind. London: Routledge. Lee, P., & George, R. P. (2008). Body-self dualism in contemporary ethics and politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lewis, D. (1991). Parts of classes. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell. Moreland, J. P., & Rae, S. (2000). Body and soul. Downer’s Grove, IL: Intervarsity Press. Oderberg, D. S. (2008). Real essentialism. London: Routledge. Pasnau, R. (1992). Thomas Aquinas on human nature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ross, J. (2001). Together with the body I love. Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association, 75, 1–18. Stump, E. (2003). Aquinas. London: Routledge. Stump, E. (2006). Resurrection, reassembly, and reconstitution: Aquinas on the soul. In B. Niederberger & E. Runggaldier (Eds.), Die menschliche Seele: Brauchen wir den Dualismus?. Frankfurt am Main: Ontos Verlag.

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