Can We Know the Immortality of the Human Soul by Natural Reason?

For Lent, Larry and I are reading Bishop Schneider's Credo: Compendium of the Catholic Faith. Since Septuagesima Sunday is the beginning of Lenten preparation, we began last Sunday with the Preface, Introduction, and the beginning of Part I on Faith. Today we were discussing some of the questions and one presented a bit of a challenge. Part 1 #8 asks, "What are the truths of the natural order?" The answer: "Truths that human reason can discover and demonstrate without the help of 'grace, e.g., the existence of God, His providence, and the immortality of the soul."

We're both familiar with Aquinas and his proofs for the existence of God and God's providence flows naturally from that. But we wondered if someone asked us, how we could demonstrate by natural reason the immortality of the human soul. 

Interestingly, that is not merely a Christian question. Plato in Phaedo expressed his belief in the immortality of the human soul and gave five proofs. So a pagan living thousands of years ago was already defending this truth using natural reason. 

I admit that philosophy gives me a headache, so I probably won't delve too deeply into this. Thomas Aquinas discusses it and I found an interesting article by Tim Staples at Catholic.com offers proofs if you're interested.

He gives seven proof for the immortality of the soul. Here they are:

1. The Intellect Possesses the Power of Abstraction

2. The Soul Forms Ideas of Realities That Are Immaterial

3. The Will Strives for Immaterial Goods

4. The Intellect Can Reflect Upon Its Own Act of Knowledge

5. Man Has a Natural Desire to Live Forever

6. The Testimony of Mankind Over the Centuries and Millenia

7. The Existence of the Moral Law

I gather from a philosophical standpoint that once you prove that man has a soul that's immaterial, its immortality follows. Staples sums up the proofs in his last paragraph with a testimony from Plato:

Necessarily rooted in the reality of the justice and wisdom of God who created us and created this that we call “Natural Law,” Plato said without the immortality of the soul there is no justice, which would be absurd. If there is a God who is just, then there must be final justice. Since final justice so often does not occur in this life, there must be a next life in which justice will be served.

That makes sense to me! And there certainly is little justice in this valley of tears.

Before I did further research, the one proof I mentioned to Larry was the natural law imprinted in the heart of man. The other that make total sense to me is that if man were nothing but a material being worried about survival, how could he have the ability to reason about immaterial goods like truth and beauty? How could he appreciate music and art and other immaterial things. How could he love?

It has never occurred to me to question the immortality of the soul. I absorbed that truth from the cradle nurtured by the faith of my Catholic parents. But pondering and discussing this with Larry yesterday illustrated just how interesting this Lent will be as we study the doctrine of the Church and try to understand it more fully. What a great debt of gratitude we owe to Bishop Schneider for this wonderful resource. Shame on us if we fail to use it.

Want to join us on this journey? You can get Credo and the accompanying study guide here. I'd love you to share your experiences from reading and studying the truths of the faith. 

Our Lady, Seat of Wisdom, pray for us.