Question:

I would like to know what the soul is and what is the difference between it and life, if there is any.

Response:

The rational soul is the substantial form of the body. The word soul comes from the Latin anima, the same root as the Greek ánemos (wind). By soul, and with the same signification that spiritus (in Greek, psikhé, breath, life), what is commonly understood as the vital principle of the body, or the immaterial principle, which is considered origin of the material life, of sensibility, and of the psyche of man. This name is sometimes given to the human mind, or it is also called spirit.

Aristotle defines it as the “first perfection (act) of a physical bodily organism” (De Anima, II, 1); and also “the principle by which we live, feel, move ourselves and think” (II, 2)

Life is the fruit of the act of a formal structuring principle of matter, that is, of the soul.

Fr. Miguel A. Fuentes, IVE.

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