Klaus Klostermaier

Part Two
NB. The footnotes for this article are linked to a separate footnote page.

Mediaeval Visions of Soul and God
Beginning with Paul, Christianity relied on visions as an important and genuine me- dium of communication between God and humans. Since that time visionaries have described an "out-of-body-experience" as the initial phase of such a visionary event. The soul detaches itself from the body, often looking at the body as it were from a distance, always recognising the body as its own, whether being delighted by its con- templation as Alpais de Cudot (p.55),29 or horrified by it as Elsbeth Stagel (p.112), and beholding itself, before being immersed in the vision of God. The self-description of the soul is usually in terms of light and brightness:

She was a round, beautiful and illuminating light, like the sun, of a golden red hue, and that light was so immensely beautiful and pleas- ant that I cannot compare it with anything else. If all the stars in heaven were as large and beautiful as the sun and were combined into one splendour, it could not compare with the beauty in my soul. It appeared to me as if a light was issuing from me which illuminated the whole world, and the whole world enjoyed a glorious day. And in this light, which was my soul, I saw God whine blissfully, like a beau- tiful light in a beautiful lamp stand, and I saw that he so lovingly and graciously joined my soul that he became totally one with her. And in this union of love my soul received from God the assurance that all my sins were completely forgiven, and that she was so pure and clean as she was after baptism (Elsbeth Stagel, pp.111-2).

In a more abstract way, Alpais de Cudot described the soul as "simple, invisible, incorporeal, not divided into parts like the body, present as a whole in whatever she does..the soul is not in a particular place. As God is everywhere... so the soul is everywhere in the body, more powerfully in heart and brain, as one says that God is in a special way in heaven..." (pp.56-8).

While being in that condition, the soul is not making any distinctions between good and bad, noble or ignoble. As Angela da Foligno reports:

I perceive (God) present and recognise how He is present in all of nature, in everything that is, in the demon, the good angel, in hell, in paradise, in adultery and murder, in every good deed, in beautiful and ugly things. When I am in this truth I am as happy when I see God or an angel or a good deed or an evil one...when the soul sees that it cannot take offence at anything (p.142).

Mystics emphasise that in that vision everything belonging to the previous state of soul disappears and is transcended, including faith. As brother Aegidius said: "Whosoever has faith in the perfect way in which one ought to have it, God will take it from him". When asked what he would do in such a "faith-less" state if he had to celebrate Mass (which requires the priest to say "I believe In God..."), Brother Aegidius began singing with a strong voice: "I know One God, Father Almighty."

The Destiny of the Soul according to Michael Schmaus
Christian tradition has always affirmed the spirit-soul's substantiality, immortality and individuality. Its "destiny", then, was perceived as fulfilment of its natural longing for God. Popularly (and biblically) that fulfilment has been described as "heaven". The "joys of heaven" have been held up to Christians of all generations as compensation for the denial of earthly enjoyments and as an incentive to not only fulfil the commandments, but to exert themselves to the utmost in the service of God on earth. For many centuries "eschatology" has been a major part of systematic theology; and within eschatology the heavenly existence of the soul has been dealt with quite extensively. Due to the speculative nature of the subject, individual presentations by different theologians widely diverge. It is also here that the factional feuds and prejudices of denominationally-defined Christianity become painfully apparent: the qualifications for entering "heaven" are usually the same as those required for joining a particular church or sect.

In the following I am summarising the views of the well-known twentieth century theologian Michael Schmaus (1883-97), whose Katholische Dogmatik, appearing in many editions during his lifetime, has been quite influential. It also is expansive and detailed. According to Schmaus "with death begins a kind of existence that lies beyond all experience-it is the authentic form of existence, intended by God from eternity. Its perfect form is only gained in the resurrection."30

The "separated soul" leads a kind of in-between existence: "Human spirit is intended for an existence in, with and through a body". For Schmaus "the belief that death liberates spirit from the body is a romantic-idealistic misunderstanding" whose "historic roots are to be found in platonic/neo-platonic anthropology". He asserts, however, that "according to Catholic doctrine the spirit-soul is alive and awake in the period between death and resurrection."

Referring to official Church pronouncements, such as the 1336 papal bull "Benedictus Deus" by Benedict XII, he tells us that the following souls are already living in paradise: the saints deceased before the coming of Jesus Christ, the apostles, martyrs, faithful who have been baptised (both those who did not need cleansing and those who were cleansed), and baptised children. (The fateful statement "Extra ecclesiam nully salus" was usually understood to mean that nobody who had not been baptised after the coming of Christ could go to heaven; at best a kind of "limbo" could be reached, the same place where unbaptised infants were supposed to dwell.)

The souls in heaven "have an immediate vision of the divine essence, face to face"; they are blissful. Heaven not only is the ultimate "destiny of the soul", but also the "completion of God's reign in individual humans". Schmaus speaks of it as "a de- fined area" and "a form of existence". "Heaven as "home" was meant as the soul's ultimate destiny from the very beginning. There is no way beyond it..."

Heaven also is a "living in Christ and Christ in us", a "conscious direct beholding of Christ". According to the Council of Florence "the blessed see the Triune God as He is without image and mediation". Schmaus amplifies: "The blessed soul sees the glory of the Being of God and the life-exchange of the three divine persons. He sees in God and through God also the world in the right light." The blessed takes delight in contemplating the qualities of God and participates in the conversation between the three divine persons: "In this conversation the perfect comes to know the secret of God and world. The Father explains to him everything that He tells the Son..."

The distinction, however, between God and humans is not obliterated. "God remains superior to humans in a non-sublateable way... They remain different as creator and creature. Also, in heaven, God remains for humans an impenetrable mystery.Humans cannot understand everything that the Father tells the Son..."

Schmaus emphasises both the individuality of the perfect, and the community character of heaven. But, "everybody remains a mystery for everybody."

 "Uninterruptedly the blessed gain new, delightful insights into the wonderworks of creation from the vision of God... fulfilment of every genuine desire for knowledge, love and happiness." And, "the dominion which has been promised by Christ to the blessed, which is a participation in his own dominion, comprises all of creation. Everybody is Lord of the entire world."

Reflections on Christian Perspectives on the Soul and Its Destiny
Christianity did not begin as a coherent philosophical system, but as a branch ("fulfilment") of Judaism, which itself had no clear-cut and agreed upon teaching on the nature of the soul. Some of its schools did not accept the notion of an individual life eternal others maintained conflicting views on life after death. The Christian New Testament, as specialists like; the scholars of the "Jesus-Seminar" tell us, is largely the creation of the Christian Church(es) of the first two centuries: only about 15% of the sayings attributed to Jesus are today considered authentic Jesus-words. The constant divisions within the Christian Church-virtually from beginning-lead eventually to the establishment of several thousand Christian Churches which maintained their own sets of beliefs and practices and did not encourage the development of a systematic, commonly accepted, philosophy of "soul".

Sayings attributed to Jesus use the word psyche in a colloquial, popular sense. It does not emerge clearly whether an eternal soul was ascribed to each and every individual human being, or only to the "elect". (That Christianity had a problem in this area emerges from the mediaeval discussion "whether women have souls", and from the early modern issue of not ascribing souls to the "savages" of newly discovered America.) Paul seems to not only maintain the existence of a "spirit" (pneuma) over and above psyche (and sarx), but also to assume that only those who had the pneuma possessed immortality.

The early Christian preachers did not win adherents by effectively arguing for a convincing philosophy of the soul but by telling the Jews that their hope for a Messiah had been fulfilled, and by telling non-Jews that Jesus was "Lord". Eventually it was the military victory of Constantine which gave Christianity the status of a state religion. The first step taken by Christians in power was not the establishment of theological centres, but the assumption of secular offices and the displacement of pre-Christian religion and its officials; philosophical schools and institutions of learning were closed down without replacement. A strong anti-intellectual and anti-philosophical strain has characterised much of Christianity throughout its history.

Initially it was only individual Christians who had had the benefit of a "pagan" education (like Basil or Augustine) who made an effort to philosophically digest Christian teaching in order to formulate a "Christian philosophy". Even they, when facing real philosophical problems, quickly resorted to "revelation", and denounced secular philosophers as being in error.

A major boost in the direction of developing a soul-philosophy came in the early Middle Ages when, due to the appropriation and utilisation of Greek philosophy by the early Muslims, a challenge was thrown at Christianity in the very heartland of Europe. Christian teachers seriously attempted to cast their teaching in a philosophical systematic mould. Neither did this happen without major opposition from within the Church, nor did it result in a definite and universally accepted doc- trinal position on such crucial questions as the nature and the destiny of the soul. While some principles of Aristotelian philosophical psychology-like the axiom of the soul being the forma corporis-became official Church teaching (established at some minor Councils), the resistance against the attempt to make Christianity a more philosophical religion grew inside the Church, and became a major factor in the major break-up of Western Christianity, called the "Reformation". Luther, for instance, had nothing but contempt for the "pagan philosophers" and for those who tried to bring their teachings into the Christian faith. Sola fide became the watchword the "whore reason" was to be driven away from God's temple.

It is accepted as a matter of course today that each Christian denomination has its own theology and its own doctrines concerning such matters as the nature and destiny of the soul. It is also accepted that within each denomination every major theologian would have their own version and interpretation of such doctrines. Some contemporary theologians interpret (or reinterpret) traditional teachings on the soul in a Freudian or Jungian perspective, without expressing clearly whether they accept the reality of what they talk about. Most pastors would squirm when confronted with the question of whether they really believed what their Churches officially teach about the soul and its destiny. "Post-modernism" in a variety of ways has made in- roads into the thinking even of non-intellectuals. It is no longer politically correct to assert the unqualified reality of anything, or to assume that one can know truth. It is telling that "soul" does not appear in the index of as influential a popular theological work as Matthew Fox's Original Blessing (Sigmund Freud, Erik Fromm, Carl Gustav Jung, besides Thomas Aquinas and Meister Eckhart do appear, however!).

While "officially" nothing has been taken back from the late mediaeval Church teaching on "soul", in practice not much of it seems to matter. Since the eighteenth century the West has gone through an anti-metaphysical phase, and "soul" (in the sense understood by the scholastics) is no longer the subject matter of serious scientific / philosophical investigation. The "psychological" notion of human nature seems to have penetrated fairly deeply. One consults a psychologist when in "psychological" trouble; one trains "specialists" to deal with "psychic trauma"; but one hardly recognises a need for a "curate of the soul" in the literal (Socratic) sense.

Concerning the destiny of the soul, for most contemporary Christians "heaven" is not much of an attraction, nor is "hell" much of a deterrent in the pursuit of their "legitimate interests". The main, if not exclusive concern is with a good life here and now, with health (physical and mental) and with security (job and financial). Those who assume a life after death do not argue along dogmatic / metaphysical lines, but refer to "near-death-experiences", mostly enjoyable, and purely on the level of individual experience. The contemporary euthanasia debate does not contain references to the fate of the eternal soul, but has an exclusive foreground ethical concern arising largely from the fear that euthanasia may be misused.

As far as the dialogue of Christianity with Vaishnavism is concerned, it will be indispensable to openly face the present situation as described. Both Vaishnavas and Christians have to rethink their traditional teachings on the background of contemporary psychology and neuro-science, and have to restate their metaphysics in a contemporary idiom. They must recognise the historico-cultural conditioning of traditional teaching without giving up the timeless insights expressed in them. Vaishnavism was always perceived to be close to Christianity in its theology and its ritual practices. It may be possible to find a common language to speak about the soul and its destiny that could religiously inspire late-20th-century women and men.

Part One

Vaishnava Perspectives