How I Know I’m Not a Rock

Who am I? We find lots of ways of answering that question, by personality, by relations, by professions and memberships and passions. But foundationally, who I am is a material being. I physically exist, so I have matter. I physically exist in a certain way, so I have form. I am capable of specific actions, so I have potency. All material things have matter, form, and potency. Form is what actualizes the potency. A ring is a form. As it can be made of the material of silver or wood, it is separate from matter. Both silver and wood have the potency of being a ring; the ring could not be made of helium. A silver ring is the actualization of the silver’s potency of being a ring. The potential has been acted upon and taken form.

A body has the potential for life; anima is the principle for life and actualizes the body’s potency. In Latin, anima, or in Greek, psyche, means “elemental air, breath, life, spirit, or soul.” It is the form of being alive. It is immaterial, but it is what makes some material alive and others not. A toad has anima; a rock does not. A person has anima; a corpse does not.

A corpse is no longer a person. A person requires both a material body and a soul. I am an ensouled body. And I am an embodied spirit. If either are separated, I am not a human being. I cannot identify myself by just my body or just my soul. This will have ramifications on how I view personhood, my body (it’s not just a vessel of the soul), and my identity dually rooted in the material and immaterial.

So are human souls special, or are we just one among all living things? We certainly share something in common with all living things. But just as living bodies are different, so are souls. A human body is more complex than a moss body; a human soul is more complex than a moss soul. A plant soul as the capacity for nutrition, growth, and reproduction. An animal soul has that as well as capacity for sensation and motion. A human body has that as well as potential for consciousness.

Consciousness is awareness of oneself. It enables us to conceptualize individual, abstract, immaterial ideas. But what does it mean to have a potency beyond the material? It means our form, our anima, has an actuality that is separate from the material. This will have ramifications on my relationship to God and existence beyond the material. The soul can exist independent of the body; my soul is immortal and has knowledge of immaterial things.