6 The Nature of Human Beings

Eleonore Stump

introduction
On Aquinas’s view, a human being is a material object, a hylo-
morphic compound of prime matter and the substantial form of a
human being. That form is capable of existing on its own, apart from
matter; and it does so in the period between the death of a human
being and the resurrection of his body, when that form configures
matter again. The resurrection of the body is not a reassembly of
bodily bits that had previously composed the body; it is more nearly
a reconstitution of the substantial form with prime matter. Finally,
after death some human beings go to heaven. In heaven, a human
being is perfected, so that the true nature of a human being is
revealed best in the condition of human beings in heaven.
A human being in heaven sees God and is united in loving relation-
ship with God and with all others who are also united to God. In this
vision and union, she has the full perfection of her human nature and
also her complete beatitude.
Densely compressed, this is Aquinas’s view of the nature of
human beings. It can conveniently be divided into four parts:

(1) A human being as a material object

(2) The soul of a human being
(3) The separated soul and the resurrection of the body
(4) The perfection of a human being

In what follows, I will consider each part in turn.1

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a human being as a material object

Aquinas’s view of the nature of human beings is situated within his
general metaphysics, about which a little needs to be said here,
although earlier chapters in this volume explore some of the relevant
issues in more depth.
Aquinas’s metaphysics is in many respects Aristotelian. For
Aquinas, some things are made out of matter and other things (such
as angels) are not. Like Aristotle, Aquinas thinks that a macro-level
material thing is matter organized or configured in some way, where
the organization or configuration is dynamic rather than static. That
is, the organization of the matter includes causal relations among the
material components of the thing as well as such static features as
shape and spatial location. This dynamic configuration or organiza-
tion, which unifies the whole composite, is what Aquinas calls ‘form.’
Also like Aristotle, Aquinas recognizes levels of organization.
What counts as matter for a macro-level object may itself be organized
or configured in a certain way. A material object may also have
integral parts, which are themselves constituted of matter and form.2
But if we conceptually strip away every form or configuration of a
material substance, all that remains is prime matter, matter which
cannot itself be decomposed further into matter and form.
Prime matter is thus matter without any form at all, “material-
ity” apart from configuration. When it is a component in a matter
form composite, prime matter is the component of the configured
composite which makes it the case that the configured thing is
extended in three dimensions and occupies a particular place at a
particular time.3 But by itself, apart from form, prime matter exists
just potentially; it exists in actuality only as an ingredient in some-
thing configured.4 So we can remove form from prime matter only in
thought; everything which exists in reality is configured in some way.
Configuration or organization is necessary for the existence of any-
thing at all; without form, nothing is actual.
This last point holds also for immaterial things. For Aquinas,
there are things that exist and are organized in a certain way, but the
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organization is not an organization of matter. An angel that is, a

certain kind of subsistent immaterial intelligence is an example. An
angel has no matter to configure, but it is nonetheless configured in a
certain way; that is, it has certain characteristics and not others,
certain capacities and not others, and so on. Consequently, although
matter is not necessary for the existence of a thing, on Aquinas’s view
form is. For Aquinas, to be is to be configured.
The metaphysical parts of a material thing therefore include
form as well as matter. It is not true on Aquinas’s account that a
material whole is nothing but its material parts or is identical to its
material components.5 The highlighting of the role of the form or
configuration of a whole gives Aquinas’s metaphysics one of its dis-
tinctive characteristics and makes it anti-reductionistic.6 So, for
example, expounding a view of Aristotle’s, Aquinas says,

sometimes a composite takes its species from something one,

which is a form . . . or a composition . . . or an organization . . . In all
such cases, it cannot be that the composite itself is those things out
of which it is composed . . . And [Aristotle] proves this in the
following way. If those things out of which the composition is
formed are dissociated or separated from one another . . . the whole
does not remain after the dissolution, just as flesh does not remain
once [its] elements are separated [from each other] . . . [But] fire and
earth remain after the dissolution of the flesh.7

Aquinas takes it that the forms of material objects can be

divided into two sorts: substantial forms and accidental forms. One
way of distinguishing the two is by what they configure. A substantial
form of a material substance configures prime matter, and it is the
form in virtue of which the composite whole is a member of the
species to which it belongs. By contrast, an accidental form configures
something which is an actually existing matter form composite; it is
the form in virtue of whose advent the composite whole comes to be
altered in some way.8 The complete form (that is, the substantial and
accidental forms taken together) of a material substance is the
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organization of the matter of that object in such a way that it is

constituted as that object rather than some other one and has the
causal powers it does. For my purposes here, we can leave accidental
forms to one side and concentrate just on substantial forms.
No material thing has more than one substantial form, on
Aquinas’s view.9 A composite that consists of prime matter config-
ured by a substantial form could not itself be one component among
others of a larger whole configured by yet another substantial form.
That is because if a substantial form were to configure what is already
configured by a substantial form, then it would be configuring a
matter form composite, not prime matter.
Elements earth, air, fire, and water are substances,10 and
different elements can combine to form a compound which is itself a
substance.11 But the constituent things that existed earlier cease to
exist as the things that they were when they become part of the
substance configured by the substantial form of the whole.12
Instead, a new substance is generated. So, for example, earth and fire
can combine to form flesh. But they can do so only in case the
substantial form of each combining element is lost in the compos-
ite13 and is replaced by the one substantial form of the whole com-
posite.14 On Aquinas’s view, the parts of a whole are actual (rather
than potential) things existing in their own right, as independent
substances, only when the composite of which they are parts is
decomposed and the substantial form of the whole is lost.15 The
difference between a substance and an artifact for Aquinas is pre-
cisely that in an artifact the components retain the configuration
they had in isolation. Bread is a substance for Aquinas, rather than an
artifact, because the configuration of the components of bread do not
remain, as the things they were, when they are mixed together and
baked into bread.16
On Aquinas’s view, the substantial form of a whole confers
causal powers on the whole; and the characteristic operations and
functions of a substance derive from the substantial form configuring
the whole.17 In fact, Aquinas supposes, as we increase complexity in
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systems, even systems of inanimate things, properties arise that are

properties of the whole system but not properties of the material parts
of the system. For example, Aquinas says,

to the extent to which a form is more perfect, to that extent it

surpasses [its] corporeal matter . . . For the form of an element does
not have any operation except that which arises by means of the
active and passive qualities which are the dispositions of the
corporeal matter [it informs]. But the form of a mineral body has an
operation that exceeds the active and passive qualities . . . as, for
example, that a magnet attracts iron.18

On Aquinas’s account of form, then, even inanimate material

objects can have systems-level properties; and these systems-level
properties bring with them causal powers that belong to the whole
but not to its parts. Aquinas is committed to the existence of top-
down causation, even for inanimate objects. From his point of view, a
mineral such as a magnet has a property and a causal power (to attract
iron) conferred on it only by the form of the whole. None of the
components of the magnet taken singillatim and apart from the con-
figuration of the whole have this property or the causal power of this
whole. On Aquinas’s metaphysics, where the bits of iron move is
determined by a causal power vested in the magnet as a whole.
This general metaphysical account of matter and form applies to
human beings also. The matter of a human being is configured by the
substantial form of a human being, which is the soul. The soul confers
the systems-level properties, such as mental properties, on a human
being. These systems-level properties are not ontologically basic; they
are realized in the lower-level properties of the components of the
system. Nonetheless, they emerge only at the level of the whole
system, and they are or confer causal powers on the system as a whole.
On Aquinas’s views, although the existence of a particular sub-
stantial form is necessary for the existence of an individual material
substance, that substance is not identical to its substantial form
alone. A substantial form is only one constituent of a material
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substance; the matter configured by the form is also a constituent.19

Insofar as all these constituents compose a particular substance, that
substance is not identical to any one of its constituents or even to the
set of them. For Aquinas, constitution is not identity. He says, “a
composite is not those things out of which it is composed . . . [as, for
example,] flesh is not identical to fire and earth [the elements of
which it is composed].”20 This part of his metaphysics makes a differ-
ence to the interpretation of his account of a human being in the
period after death.

the soul of a human being

Many philosophers suppose that the major monotheisms, and
Christianity in particular, are committed to substance dualism of a
Cartesian sort. On the Cartesian view, a human being may have a
body, but he is neither identical with it nor composed of it.21 In
addition, there will be causal interactions between a human being
and the body that he has. Cognitive processes will have effects on the
body, and bodily processes will have effects on the soul. But intellec-
tual cognitive functions are not exercised in or by the body; they take
place only in the soul that is distinct from the body. For these and
other reasons, on the Cartesian view, a human being just is his soul.
As a matter of historical fact, however, Aquinas, whose views
surely represent one major strand of one major monotheism, is famil-
iar with an account very like that of Cartesian dualism, which he
associates with Plato; and he rejects it emphatically.22
On Aquinas’s own view, a human being is a material substance
and so is composed of prime matter and a substantial form, which is
the soul of that human being. The Latin translated ‘soul’ is Aquinas’s
generic term for the substantial form of any material object that is
living. On his use of the term, then, plants have souls, too; not in the
sense that they enjoy being talked to, but only in the sense that plants
are living things. On his view, a plant has a soul in virtue of the fact
that it has a configuration of matter which allows for nutrition,
growth, reproduction, and the other sorts of activities common to
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living things. Non-human animals have souls, too, since they are
living things; but the configuration of their matter allows them an
operation not possible for plants namely, perception. For human
beings, the substantial form is the intellective soul, because it confers
intellective powers on the whole composite.
Since he takes the soul to be a form, Aquinas holds that the soul
is immaterial.23 But because Aquinas sees the soul as the configuring
form of prime matter, so that soul and matter together are the meta-
physical constituents of a human body, he says, “[A]lthough the soul
is incorruptible, it is nonetheless in no genus other than [the genus]
body, because since it is part of human nature, it does not belong to
the soul itself to be in a genus or a species.”24
Unlike human souls, the souls of plants and non-human
animals are what Aquinas thinks of as material forms. A material
form is a form that goes out of existence when the material composite
it configures goes out of existence.25 By contrast, the substantial form
that is the soul of a human being can exist apart from matter and does
so after the death of the body. So, on the one hand, like an angel, the
substantial form of a human being is able to exist and function on its
own, apart from matter.26 On the other hand, the human soul is not,
as Plato thought, a spiritual substance moving a body which is also a
substance in its own right. Rather, the human soul is the substantial
form constituting the material substance that a human being is; and it
configures prime matter, as all other substantial forms of material
objects do.27
Aquinas takes the forms of material objects generally to come
into existence with the existence of their composites; and although
God is the ultimate or remote cause of the existence of non-human
forms of material objects, the proximate cause is just the cause that
brings about the existence of the composite that is the material object.
After canvassing various opinions that he takes to be mistaken about
the forms of non-human material objects, Aquinas summarizes the
flaws of those opinions in this way: “All these [mistaken] opinions
seem to have developed from a common root, because they were all
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seeking a cause for forms as if the forms themselves came into being
in their own right. But, as Aristotle shows . . . what comes into being,
properly speaking, is the composite.”28
Nonetheless, on Aquinas’s view, in this regard the human soul
is different from all other forms that configure matter. Each substan-
tial form of a human being is created directly by God and imposed on
matter.29 This is what we might expect Aquinas to hold once we
recognize that for him the soul is a subsistent form, as the angels
are; the angels, too, are created directly by God. No immaterial sub-
sistent forms can be generated by the sort of natural generation that
material objects are capable of, according to Aquinas; immaterial
subsistent forms can come into existence only by being handmade,
as it were, by God.30
On the other hand, however, Aquinas rejects vehemently the
notion that the soul can be created before the body and then infused
into an already existent body.31 He says,

[I]f the soul is united to the body as its form and is naturally part of
human nature, then it is completely impossible [for the soul to be
created before the body] . . . Since the soul is a part of human nature,
it does not have its natural perfection unless it is united to the body.
And so it would not have been fitting to create the soul without the
body.32

Consequently, because the form that is the human soul is a

subsistent form able to exist apart from matter but also able to con-
figure matter, the soul has a double aspect. On the one hand, unlike
the forms of other material objects, every human soul is directly
created by God as an individual thing in its own right. On the other
hand, like the form of any material object, the human soul exists in
the composite it configures; and it comes into existence only with
that composite, not before it.
On Cartesian dualism, as it is generally understood, (1) both the
human soul and the body are substances in their own right. Each can
engage in acts independently of the other, and each can causally affect
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the other. Soul and body are somehow joined together in a human
being; but (2) a human being is identical with his soul, and intellective
functions take place in the soul rather than the body. On Aquinas’s
account, both (1) and (2) are false. Although for Aquinas the separated
human soul can exist on its own after death, it nonetheless is not a
substance in its own right but only a metaphysical part of a sub-
stance.33 And so Aquinas says, “[B]ody and soul are not two actually
existing substances, but instead one actually existing substance arises
from these two.”34 In addition, as a metaphysical part of the substance
it brings into existence by configuring prime matter, the soul could
not interact causally with the prime matter it informs. Prime matter
is not able to exert causal influence on anything, in virtue of having no
form of its own; and for the same reason it cannot receive the causal
influence of anything else either.
On Aquinas’s account, the substantial form that configures a
human being allows for sets of operations not possible for non-human
animals namely, intellective and volitional processes. Because the
human soul has this distinctive set of capacities, Aquinas tends to call
it ‘the intellective soul,’ or ‘the rational soul,’ to distinguish it from
the nutritive soul of plants and the sensitive (i.e., capable of percep-
tion) soul of animals generally. The intellective soul is thus that same
configuration of prime matter on the basis of which something exists
as a living human body. There is not one configuration of matter that
makes the body a human body and then another configuration that is
the intellective soul.35 As Aquinas says: “There is no other substan-
tial form in human beings apart from the intellective soul.”36 In virtue
of this one form, a human being exists as an actual being, as a material
object, as a living thing, as an animal, and as a human being with
intellective cognitive capacities.37 Even intellective function, then, is
implemented in the body, on Aquinas’s account.38
In fact, Aquinas thinks that there is something misleading
about attributing cognitive functions just to the soul itself. Rather,
even such higher cognitive functions as understanding are to be
attributed to the whole composite that is the human being. So, for
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example, he says, “We can say that the soul understands in the same
way that we can say that the eye sees; but it would be more appropri-
ate to say that a human being understands by means of the soul.”39
And he specifically identifies the intellect itself with the form of the
body: “[T]he intellect, which is the source of intellective function, is
the form of the human body.”40
One way to sum up the differences between Cartesian dualism
and Aquinas’s account is by noting that on Cartesian dualism, but not
on Aquinas’s account, the soul is only a configured subsistent form
and not also a configurer of matter. In consequence of this difference,
Aquinas’s account is not vulnerable to the two main problems
thought to afflict Cartesian dualism; namely, that it cannot explain
the nature of the causal interaction between soul and body and that it
attributes cognitive functions only to the soul. On Aquinas’s account,
there is no efficient causal interaction between the soul and the
matter it informs, and all human cognitive functions can be imple-
mented in the body.
That constitution is not identity on Aquinas’s account helps to
clarify his view that the soul can persist in a disembodied condition.
Since a material substance is composed of matter and form as its
constituents, if constitution were identity, then the loss of either
matter or form would be enough to entail the loss of the whole
substance. In that case, any substance would cease to exist when it
lost either its substantial form or the matter configured by that form.
But because constitution is not identity for Aquinas, it is possible for
him to suppose that a substance can survive the loss of some of its
constituents, provided that the remaining constituents can exist on
their own and are sufficient for the existence of the substance.

the separated soul and the resurrection of

the body
Since Aquinas thinks of a human being as a composite of matter and
soul and since he recognizes that dead human bodies do not engage in
the operations conferred by the soul, he does accept that a human
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being falls apart at death. On his view, the disembodied soul persists
after death, but it is not the complete human being who was the
composite; it is only an enduring metaphysical part of that human
being. It remains in a disembodied condition until the resurrection of
the body, when it will once again be part of a complete human being.
Even given Aquinas’s view that there can be subsistent imma-
terial forms, this part of Aquinas’s account has been thought to pose
three major puzzles.41
First, what persists is the substantial form of a human being, but
it seems that every human being has the same substantial form,
because the substantial form is what configures matter into a human
being. How, then, is the separated soul of Dominic, say, to be distin-
guished from the separated soul of Francis?
Second, it seems as if one and the same body of a human being
could not be brought back into existence after a period of non-
existence. To take just one perplexity, the atoms that composed that
body will have been dispersed, if they even still exist and have not
been transmuted into energy. But if the atoms that compose the
resurrected body are not the same atoms as those that originally
composed the body of the human being in question, then in what
sense is the new body the same as the pre-mortem body of that
human being?
Third, since Aquinas denies that a human being is identical to
his soul, it can seem as if the separated soul is not the human being
who existed before death. Rather, it can seem that a human being
ceases to exist at death and does not exist again until the resurrection
of the body. But is this truly Aquinas’s position? As I will show below,
this position has seriously problematic theological and philosophical
consequences.
In what follows, I will say something very briefly about each of
the first two problems in turn and then concentrate on the third.
As regards the first problem, on Aquinas’s view the separated
soul of a human being such as Dominic will differ from the separated
soul of another human being such as Francis in multiple ways. To
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begin with historical differences, the soul of Dominic will have con-
figured the body of Dominic rather than the body of Francis. Then
there will also be intrinsic differences. The separated soul of Dominic
will have the mind of Dominic, not the mind of Francis. That is, the
intellectual faculties of the separated soul of Dominic are the intel-
lectual faculties Dominic had during his lifetime; the intellective
memories of the separated soul of Dominic are those that Dominic
laid down during his earthly life, and so on. Finally, on Aquinas’s view
of the generation of human souls, each soul is an individual particular
in virtue of being created directly by God.42 There are, then, multiple
ways in which the separated soul of one human being is distinct from
that of another.
As regards the second problem, for Aquinas the individuation
and identity of any substance is provided by its substantial form.
Consequently, it is in fact the soul that constitutes matter into this
human body. In the resurrection of the body, the substantial form that
is the human soul is imposed again on prime matter; and so it makes
that matter be this human being again. The constituents of Dominic
in his resurrected state are therefore the same as those of Dominic
during his earthly life: this substantial form the soul of Dominic,
which has been continually in existence in the period between
Dominic’s death and his resurrection and the prime matter which
is configured by the soul of Dominic into the body of Dominic. The
matter of Dominic’s resurrected body is the same as the matter of
Dominic’s earthly body not because it is composed of numerically the
same atoms as it had before death, but rather because it is configured
by the one individual substantial form which is the soul of Dominic.
As regards the third problem, some scholars take it as evident
that for Aquinas the separated soul is not the same human being as
the human being whose soul it was during the pre-mortem period.43
On their interpretation of Aquinas, Aquinas thinks that the soul of
Dominic, separated from the body of Dominic, is not a human being
at all and that, for this reason, the soul of Dominic is not Dominic. On
this interpretation, for Aquinas Dominic goes out of existence at his
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death and comes back into existence only at the resurrection of

his body.
This interpretation of Aquinas’s view is plausible because
Aquinas emphasizes that, in his view, a human being is not identical
to his soul.44 The problem with this interpretation, however, is not
only that it leaves Aquinas contradicting himself, but also that it has
to attribute to Aquinas theological positions that are bizarre or
even heretical.
So, for example, it is Christian doctrine, explicitly accepted by
Aquinas, that before the last judgment and the resurrection of the
body, Christ harrowed hell. On this doctrine, the souls of those believ-
ing Jews who lived before the time of Christ and were waiting for the
Messiah were sent to a particular part of hell in which there was no
torment of any kind; and, in the harrowing of hell, Christ brought
them out of that part of hell into heaven. But on the interpretation of
Aquinas according to which the separated soul of Abraham is not
Abraham, Aquinas would have to hold that Abraham himself was
not in that part of hell when the separated soul of Abraham was in
hell. Instead, on this interpretation of Aquinas’s position, Aquinas
would have to say that Abraham went out of existence with his death
and that he will return to existence only when he is resurrected, at
which time he will be in heaven with all the redeemed. On this
interpretation, Aquinas would have to say that Christ never took
Abraham from hell; in fact, Christ never took any human beings
from hell.
These claims are not only heretical, so that it is historically
implausible to attribute them to Aquinas, but they are also contra-
dicted by explicit claims of Aquinas’s. For example, Aquinas says,

[T]he holy Fathers were held in hell because access to the life of
glory was not available to them on account of the sin of our first
parent . . . When Christ descended into hell, he freed the holy
Fathers from hell . . . [So] it is written that “despoiling the
principalities and powers”, namely, of hell, by taking out Isaac and
 the nature of human beings 139

Jacob and the other just souls, he brought them over, that is, he
brought them far from the kingdom of darkness into heaven, as the
gloss explains.45

Furthermore, Aquinas holds that Christ “is called a human

being univocally with other human beings.”46 So if Aquinas must be
interpreted as holding that a human being ceases to exist at death and
does not come into existence again until the resurrection of the body,
then for Aquinas this claim will have to apply also to Christ in his
human nature. In that case, on this interpretation, Aquinas would
have to hold that Christ was no longer human for the days between
his bodily death and resurrection. But Aquinas maintains the ortho-
dox doctrine that Christ is composite, fully human and fully divine.47
So, if in the period between Christ’s death and resurrection Christ was
no longer a human being, then in fact in that period Christ, the
composite, did not exist. Consequently, either in that period no one
harrowed hell, contrary to the orthodox doctrine that Aquinas expli-
citly espouses; or else someone harrowed hell, but it was only the
second person of the Trinity in his divine nature, a claim which is also
contrary to the orthodox doctrine that Aquinas explicitly accepts. For
example, in answer to the question whether the whole Christ was in
hell during the days between Christ’s death and resurrection, Aquinas
says, “[T]he whole [Christ] was in hell because the whole person of
Christ was there in virtue of the [human] soul united to him.”48 So
although Aquinas accepts the truth of the claims that Christ died and
that a human being is not identical to his soul, nonetheless he says,
“[I]t is said of him [the composite Christ] that he descended into hell
because his soul, separated from the body, descended into hell.”49
Finally, to take one more example, Aquinas says, “[W]hen the
body is destroyed, the soul is brought to an eternal and heavenly
home, which is nothing other than the enjoyment of the deity, as
the angels enjoy it in heaven . . . And so, immediately, when the holy
soul is separated from the body, it sees God by sight. And this is the
final beatitude.”50 But if the separated soul of Dominic is not
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Dominic, then that something-which-is-not-Dominic, with a mind

and a will, loves God in heaven and is loved by him but only for
the period between the death and the resurrection of Dominic. At the
point of the resurrection of Dominic, the place in the loving union
with God held by the separated soul of Dominic is taken by
Dominic himself.
Not only are these views theological gibberish, but they are
contradicted by Aquinas’s explicit claims about the nature of the
separated soul’s bliss. He says, for example, that

souls immediately after their separation from the body become

unchangeable as regards the will . . . [B]eatitude, which consists in
the vision of God, is everlasting . . . But it is not possible for a soul to
be blessed if its will did not have rectitude . . . And so it must be that
the rectitude of the will in the blessed soul is everlasting.51

So it is true that for Aquinas a human being Dominic is not

identical to his soul. Dominic is identical to an individual in the
species rational animal. But since what makes Dominic this individ-
ual is the substantial form which configures him, and since the sub-
stantial form can exist independently of the body, then for Aquinas
the existence of the separated substantial form of Dominic is suffi-
cient for the existence of Dominic whose substantial form it is.
Dominic can continue to exist when the only metaphysical constitu-
ent that remains of him is his separated soul. But it does not follow
that Dominic is identical to his soul, because for Aquinas constitution
is not identity.

the perfection of a human being

On Aquinas’s views, the nature of a thing that is, the nature the
thing has as a member of a particular species includes the power to
engage in an operation determinative of that thing as a member of that
species. So, for example, on the definition of human being that
Aquinas inherited as part of the old logic deriving from Aristotle’s
 the nature of human beings 141

work, a human being is a rational animal. On this definition, the

differentia for the species human being is rational, and the intellect-
ive power conferred by the form of a human being is the species-
specific potentiality of a human being.52
The actuality of a thing can thus be understood in two ways,
according to Aquinas. On the one hand, there is the actuality which a
substance has just in virtue of existing as an individual member of a
species, with a particular substantial form that confers on it the
species-specific potentiality characteristic of its species. On the other
hand, that species-specific potentiality is part of the essence of the
thing in question; and so, as that potentiality becomes actualized,
there is a sense in which the thing in question becomes additionally
actualized, because a part of its nature that was only potential
becomes actual.
For Aquinas, being and goodness are correlative; consequently,
the perfection of a thing and the actualization of its species-specific
potentiality are also correlative.53 On this way of thinking about the
perfection of a substance, it is perfected when and to the extent to
which it performs instances of its species-specific operation and
thereby actualizes its species-specific potentiality. In the case of
human beings, the perfection of a human being is also the ultimate
happiness for that human being. On Aquinas’s view, human beings in
heaven are in a state of both perfection and beatitude.
When he is describing human happiness in heaven, in some
places Aquinas seems to manifest an adherence to an apparently
Aristotelian understanding of the perfection of a human being and to
emphasize the impersonal and self-contained character of that condi-
tion. So, for example, he says, “the ultimate happiness of a human being
consists in the contemplation of truth” in the vision of God’s essence;
and Aquinas seems to take it as an advantage of this view of human
happiness that “for this work a human being is more self-sufficient
insofar as he has little need of help from any external things for it.”54
But if we took this picture as the complete description of
Aquinas’s view of perfection and beatitude in heaven, it would be a
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misimpression. Another side of Aquinas’s position can be seen readily

in his biblical commentaries. For example, when Aquinas is com-
menting on Christ’s saying to the Father, “This is eternal life, that
they may know you, the only true God” (John 17:3), he says,

[O]ur Lord says that eternal life lies in vision, in seeing; that is,
basically, in its whole substance, it consists in this. But it is love
that moves to this vision and is in a certain way its fulfillment: for
the fulfillment and ornament of beatitude is the delight experienced
in the enjoyment of God, and this is caused by love. Still, the
substance of beatitude consists in vision . . . [as it says in] 1 John 3.2:
we will see him as he is.55

Here, beatitude, which is also the fulfillment of human nature, con-

sists in seeing God as God is. But the God who is seen is properly
referred to by a personal pronoun: We will see him as he is. And this
vision of God will unite a human being to God in love with delight.
Elsewhere in his commentary on the Gospel of John, when he is
describing the perfection of human nature in its connection to truth,
Aquinas’s emphasis is decidedly on the second-personal relationships
among persons. There he says, “If you ask where to go, cling to Christ,
for he is the truth, which we desire to reach.”56 Here, Aquinas is
identifying the perfection of human beings in the contemplation of
truth with a personal relationship to Christ; and he is emphasizing a
human being’s need for that relationship by exhorting him to cling to
Christ. And in the same commentary, expounding Christ’s prayer in
the Gospel of John that his disciples might be one as he and the Father
are one, Aquinas says,

[W]e read: God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God,
and God abides in him . . . God loves absolutely those to whom he
wills all good, that is, that they have God himself. And to have God
is to have truth, for God is truth. But truth is had or possessed when
it is known. So God, who is truth, truly and absolutely loves those
to whom he manifests himself.57
 the nature of human beings 143

In his commentary on Galatians, in the context of a discussion

of the fruits of the Holy Spirit, Aquinas describes the perfection of a
human being not only as a matter of a first-personal experience of a
vision of God’s essence, but also as a decidedly second-personal rela-
tionship with God. He says,

[T]he ultimate perfection, by which a person is made perfect

inwardly, is joy, which stems from the presence of what is
loved. Whoever has the love of God, however, already has what he
loves, as is said in 1 John 4:16: “whoever abides in the love of God
abides in God, and God abides in him.” And joy wells up from
this.58

In fact, on Aquinas’s view, the Holy Spirit unites a human being

in grace with God in a relationship personal enough to count as
friendship with God. Aquinas says,

In the first place, it is proper to friendship to converse with one’s

friend . . . It is also a property of friendship that one take delight in a
friend’s presence, that one rejoice in his words and deeds . . . and it is
especially in our sorrows that we hasten to our friends for
consolation. Since then the Holy Spirit constitutes us God’s friends
and makes God dwell in us and us dwell in God, it follows that
through the Holy Spirit we have joy in God.59

And when in connection with the fruits of the Holy Spirit Aquinas
describes the fulfillment of human nature, he also emphasizes the
second-personal character of that fulfillment. He says,

[God] himself is love. Hence it is written (Rom. v.5): “The love of

God is poured forth in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who is given to
us.” The necessary result of this love is joy, because every lover
rejoices at being united to the beloved. Now love has always the
actual presence of God whom it loves. So the consequence of this
love is joy. And the perfection of joy is peace . . . because our desires
rest altogether in [God].60
144 eleonore stump

Aquinas generalizes this account of human perfection and beati-

tude in his view of the nature of all created things. For Aquinas, the
perfection of any created thing is a matter of relationship to the
creator. He says, “[T]he perfection of each thing is nothing but sharing
a likeness to God; for we are good to the extent that we resemble
God.”61 For human beings, a resemblance to God in fact amounts to
an image of God; and, on Aquinas’s account of human nature, that
image includes the intellective capacities that are distinctive of
human nature.
As the preceding texts show, for Aquinas the actualization of
these capacities fulfills the image of God in human beings in two
ways, both by facilitating the fulfillment of human intellective
capacities in the vision of the divine essence and by enabling
second-personal relationship with God in love with joy. As
Aquinas puts it, in a line that combines both ways into one:
“Perfect beatitude requires that the intellect attains the very
essence of the first cause, and so it will have its perfection through
union with God as the object in which alone the beatitude of a
human being consists.”62
It makes a difference here that on Christian doctrine God is
triune: one and only one God in three persons. For Aquinas, a human
being in heaven sees the one divine essence as it is but is also united
with the three divine persons in the love they share with each other.
The fulfillment of the image of God in human beings and the perfec-
tion of a human being in heaven therefore brings a human being to
resemble the triune God. The pure esse that is the deity and the three
divine persons who are united in mutual love in the Trinity are
mirrored in the condition of a human being who sees God in heaven
and is united to God in mutual indwelling and love.
For Aquinas, then, the ultimate perfection of any human being
is her union with God. That is because in being united to God in love
she both actualizes the species-specific potentiality for human beings
and also most fulfills the image of God in human nature.
 the nature of human beings 145

conclusion
Clearly, Aquinas’s account of the nature of a human being appropri-
ates a great deal that is recognizably Aristotelian: A human being is a
rational animal, a material substance composed of substantial form
and prime matter, with a species-specific capacity for reason whose
actualization perfects a human being. But it should also be clear that
in the end there is a significant difference between an Aristotelian
understanding of human nature and Aquinas’s Christian account.
As Aquinas’s account of the perfection of a human being shows,
for Aquinas a human being is a relational entity: the creature of a
creator. Although Aquinas does espouse the categorization of a
human being as a rational animal, still there is a way in which his
account of human nature is understood more aptly if we think of the
genus for human beings on Aquinas’s account as subsistent creature.
For Aquinas, a creature that is both subsistent and also relational is a
creaturely image of the subsistent relation that a divine person of the
Trinity is. Aquinas’s account of human nature thus in effect fleshes
out Augustine’s famous line: Augustine says to God, “You have made
us for yourself, and our hearts are restless till they rest in you.”63
It remains true that, on the Thomistic account, a human being
is a rational animal; the soul of a human being is the intellective form
conferring the power of rationality. But the pagan taxonomy of
Aristotle does not exhaust the Thomistic account of the nature of a
human being. For Aquinas, as for Aristotle, the rational functions of
mind and will are the species-specific capacity of a human being. But,
unlike Aristotle, Aquinas thought that the human species-specific
capacity is that capacity of intellect and will whose ultimate actual-
ization is the intellect’s vision of the essence of God and the joy of the
will in union with God.
That union in effect deifies a human being but by perfecting
human nature and not by destroying it. That is why, although the
separated soul is subsistent and capable of union with God, Aquinas
espouses the Christian doctrine that the body of a human being must
146 eleonore stump

be resurrected for the final perfection of a human being. On his view,

although the soul is a subsistent form, and Dominic continues to exist
even if only his soul persists after death, nonetheless a human being is
a material substance. Unlike Plato, Aquinas did not think that the
body is a hindrance to the perfection of a human being. For Aquinas, a
human being has her final perfection and full beatitude in union with
God in heaven when the body is resurrected.
Finally, for Aquinas, a human being in perfection is not solitary
or self-sufficient. On the contrary, in the perfected state, each human
being in heaven will also be united with each of the others united with
God, not because a perfected human being has need of those others
but because there is more joy in union that is shared. This shared love
and joy is itself the fulfillment of the image of God that is imprinted in
the nature of human beings.64

notes
1 For detailed discussions of some of these topics, see E. Stump, Aquinas
(New York and London: Routledge, 2003), chs. 1 and 6; E. Stump,
“Emergence, Causal Powers, and Aristotelianism in Metaphysics” in
R. Groff and J. Greco (eds.), Powers and Capacities in Philosophy: The
New Aristotelianism (New York and Oxford: Routledge, 2013), pp. 48 68;
E. Stump, “Resurrection, Reassembly, and Reconstitution: Aquinas on
the Soul” in B. Niederbacher and E. Runggaldier (eds.), Die menschliche
Seele: Brauchen wir den Dualismus? (Frankfurt: Ontos Verlag, 2006),
pp. 151 71. Some parts of this essay are taken from those texts. In the
interest of brevity, I will omit here some of the detailed discussion and
scholarly controversy surrounding some of the claims made in this
chapter, since they can be found in this previous work of mine.
2 See, for example, DPN 2 (346).
3 DPN 1 (340).
4 DPN 2 (349); see also In VII Meta 2.1289 92.
5 For a contemporary argument against the reduction of wholes to their
parts, see P. van Inwagen, “Composition as Identity” in J. Tomberlin (ed.),
Philosophical Perspectives 8 (Altascadero, CA: Ridgeview Publishing Co.,
1994), pp. 207 19.
 the nature of human beings 147

6 For discussion of the general problem of reductionism relevant to the

issues considered here, see A. Garfinkel, “Reductionism” in R. Boyd,
P. Gasper, and J. D. Trout (eds.), The Philosophy of Science (Cambridge,
MA: MIT Press, 1993), pp. 443 59. See also P. Kitcher, “1953 and All
That: A Tale of Two Sciences,” The Philosophical Review 93 (1984):
335 73.
7 In VII Meta 17.1673 4. (Although I regularly consult already available
translations of the works of Aquinas, which influence my translations to a
greater or lesser degree, the translation in this and the other quotations
from Aquinas in this chapter are my own.) Someone might suppose that
on this argument a heap is something more than the sum of its parts. For a
detailed explanation of the parts of Aquinas’s metaphysics that block this
apparent implication, see Stump, Aquinas, ch. 1.
8 For the claims about what substantial and accidental forms configure, see,
for example, DPN 1 (339).
9 To avoid confusion, it might be helpful here to emphasize that
Aquinas’s point is a point about substances. Statues are not substances
but artifacts; for Aquinas there can be more than one substantial form in
an artifact.
10 Cf. DPN 3 (354), where Aquinas talks about water being divided into
water until it is divided into the smallest bits that are still water namely,
the element water.
11 See, for example, CT 211 (410), where Aquinas discusses the case in which
the combination of elements constitutes a complete inanimate thing
which is an individual in the genus of substance.
12 The point of saying that they go out of existence as things in their own
right is to preclude the misunderstanding that these things cease to exist
simpliciter. They continue to exist as components of the whole.
13 On Aquinas’s view, flesh existing on its own does not have the same form
as flesh in an animal. That is because the proper function of flesh (or any
other constituent of the whole) is given by the substantial form of the
whole. When it exists on its own, without being configured by the form of
the whole, no part of the whole functions as it does when it is in the
whole. See, for example, ST III q.5 a.3, where Aquinas explains that flesh
which is not informed by the substantial form of a human being is called
‘flesh’ only equivocally, and ST III q.5 a.4, where he makes the more
general claim that there is no true human flesh which is not completed by
148 eleonore stump

a human soul. (Cf. In II DA 1.226 and In VII Meta 9.1519.) See also In VII
Meta 11.1519 and SCG IV.36 (3740), where Aquinas explains that the
substantial form of a thing confers on that thing operations proper to it.
14 SCG IV.35 (3732); cf. also In VII Meta 17.1680; In VII Meta 16.1633.
15 In VII Meta 16.1633.
16 For an excellent paper discussing this difference, see M. Rota, “Substance
and Artifact in Thomas Aquinas,” History of Philosophy Quarterly 21
(2004): 241 59.
17 See, for example, SCG IV.36 (3740).
18 QDSC un.2.
19 See, for example, QDUVI 1, where Aquinas says that a suppositum will
not be the same as a nature in anything in which there is either accident
or individual matter, because in that case the suppositum is related to the
nature by means of an addition. See also SCG IV.40 (3781).
20 In VII Meta 17.1673 4.
21 Meditation VI, in The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, translated by
J. Cottingham, R. Stoothoff, and D. Murdoch (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1984), vol. II, p. 54. In other places, Descartes seems to
hold that a complete human being is a compound of body and soul; see, for
example, his reply to objections, in The Philosophical Writings of
Descartes, vol. II, pp. 299 300. How this position is to be reconciled with
the position in the quotation from Meditation VI is not entirely clear; but
my interest in this chapter is only in the dualism commonly associated
with Descartes, regardless of whether or not Descartes himself actually
held it.
22 See, for example, SCG II.57.
23 ST I q.75 a.5.
24 QDSC un.2 ad 16.
25 Cf., for example, ST I q.75 a.3.
26 Cf., for example, ST I a.75 a.6.
27 Cf., for example, ST I q.76 a.1.
28 ST I q.65 a.4.
29 See, for example, ST I q.90 a.2.
30 See, for example, ST I q.118 a.2.
31 ST I q.118 aa.2 3.
32 ST I q.90 a.4.
33 QDSC un.2 ad 16.
 the nature of human beings 149

34 SCG II.69.
35 See, for example, QDSC un.4.
36 ST I q.76 a.4.
37 ST I q.76 a.6 ad 1.
38 ST I q.75 a.1.
39 ST I q.75 a.2 ad 2, emphasis added.
40 ST I q.76 a.1.
41 For some discussion of the literature on these problems, see Stump,
“Resurrection, Reassembly, and Reconstitution.”
42 See, for example, QDA un.1 ad 2.
43 To take just one example, see P. van Inwagen, “Resurrection” in E. Craig
(ed.), Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy 8 (London: Routledge, 1998).
For some recent discussion of the issue in contemporary philosophy, see
P. Toner, “Personhood and Death in St. Thomas Aquinas,” History of
Philosophy Quarterly 26 (2009): 121 38. For some discussion of the issue
in recent Catholic theology, see A. Hofer, “Balthasar’s Eschatology on the
Intermediate State: The Question of Knowability,” Logos: A Journal of
Catholic Thought and Culture 12 (2009): 148 72. (I am grateful to Thomas
Joseph White for calling this paper to my attention.)
44 See, for example, In I Cor c.15, l.2.
45 ST III q.52 a.5.
46 ST III q.2 a.5.
47 See, for example, ST III q.2 a.4.
48 ST III q.52 a.2.
49 ST III q.50 a.3.
50 SCG IV.91.
51 SCG IV.92.
52 See, for example, SCG I.42 n.343: “The differentia that specifies a genus
does not complete the nature (rationem) of the genus; instead, it is
through the differentia that the genus acquires its being in actuality. For
there is a complete nature of animal before the addition of rational, but an
animal cannot be in actuality unless it is rational or irrational.”
53 See, for example, ST I q.48 a.5.
54 SCG III.37.
55 Super Johan, c.17 l.1.
56 Super Johan, c.14 l.2.
57 Super Johan, c.14 l.5.
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58 In Gal, c.5, l.6.

59 SCG IV c.23.
60 ST I II q.70 a.3.
61 Super Johan, c.17 l.3.
62 ST I II q.3 a.8.
63 Augustine, Confessions I.1.
64 I am grateful to Thomas Joseph White for very helpful comments on an
earlier draft of this paper.