Dialogue on the soul

irichc · Intern Joined: 16 May 2004 Posts: 53 Local time: 9:11 PM

G: Tell me in which way something can be a unity and divisible at the same time.

B: That's easy. I'm one and also divisible, since I am subject to physical and biological laws that effect me.

G: When you say "I am divisible", do you mean that many "I" belonging to you are divisible, or that you, the only "I", are divisible?

B: Obviously I stand for the second assumption. I am an indivisible entity, but I have a divisible body. Both things are true, despite of your attempts of sophistry.

G: Let's examine who is making a less appropriate use of words, me or you. You have stated in the first place that you were divisible. Do you retract from that position?

B: No.

G: But now, in order to clarify your declaration, you add that you have something which is divisible, as far as this posession is singularly yours and, so, it doesn't belong to an indefinite number of "you".

B: Well...

G: And don't we use the verb "to have" for showing accessory qualities, that is, neither essential nor stable ones? For instance, when I say "I have a stomach ache" or "I have something in my hand".

B: Certainly, but... wait a minute.

G: Then, choose: you either have something divisible or you are something divisible. What do you say to it?

B: I admit that what I really wanted to say is that I have something divisible, without being myself a divisible entity.

G: Therefore, you are not your body.

B: How could I accept this?

G: If we refuse the opposite statement, we will be forced to accept the previous proposition. Can you conceive yourself as being indivisible and also being formed by divisible parts?

B: I can't.

G: Will you say, then, that you are formed by indivisible parts?

B: This is nonsensical.

G: You realize the contradiction. You are confusing your subjectivity, your soul, your monad, with the instrument that you use ordinarily when you want to designate it, which is your full person, that is, the metaphysical union between your body and your soul. This is the entity to which we normally refer metonymically as our body (as we point to our chest with the thumbs or with a similar gesture), avoiding futile abstractions.

B: I wouldn't have said it better. But, if we are not lost in our research, why did we get such a strange conclusion, falling away from common sense? Since from your reasoning it follows that my body is mine just like my sandals are mine, without presupposing any intrinsic relationship with my being. Nevertheless, I wouldn't be able to exist if I lacked a body.

G: I have a solution for this mystery. You are right when you say that your body doesn't belong to you in a stronger sense than your sandals. For it is in your individual notion to wear sandals eventually, and also to be united to a body. But being united doesn't mean being a unity. The kind of unity formed by your sandals and you is called a simple predicative unity, whilst the one formed by your body and you is an infinite complex predicative unity. The first conjunction is an artificial machine, an aggregate, but the second one is a natural machine, made by God, assembled since time began and for all the eternity, comprising everything that happened and will happen to you.

B: Are you implying that God works for me when I think that I'm acting according to my free will?

G: No, indeed. I state that your soul acts freely, through its actions, and your body necessarily, through its passions. However, both are perfectly armonized by the first cause, which is God, for whatever that happens in one of them is immediately reflected in the other one; and, by the way, that shouldn't make us think that they exert a mutual influence upon each other. This is also valid for every substance in the present universe.

B: How can it be possible that my body cannot effect my soul, or vice versa?

G: Not effectively, but concomitantly, like two clocks set to run together.

B: And which is the efficient cause for my arm to move when I want, if it is not me?

G: Imputation of causes is metaphysician's duty. A physicist can explain movement in many ways, depending on how he imagines the mobile, either moving by itself or being moved by its environment, that changes with it along with its movement.

B: So, does this mean that physicists and materialists cannot explain us anything useful about our free will?

G: They cannot at all.

B: In this case, we will have to discard Spinoza's system, which claims that everything can be reduced geometrically to physical causes, that is, to the ones produced by a change in the figure, weight and size of the objects. And we will also reject that, anyway, no one really acts, but the addition of causes and effects in the whole universe, which he called God.

G: Absolutely, my dearest friend.

moog · Posted: Sun Apr 27, 2008 9:08 am Post subject:

Is this a real conversation?
It reads more like a chick tract.

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