These revision notes for the new OCR Religious Studies A level cover ideas about the soul. They cover ancient, Christian and modern beliefs about the soul as well as as well as evaluation of the scholars ideas. They are detailed and are to an A* standard
Dualism The belief that we have 2 elements - body and soul
Monism The belief we are 1 substance, not 2
Materialism The belief that there is only material substance
Substance The belief that the mind and the body are wholly different substances
Dualism
Plato's beliefs Dualist. Believed there must be something permanent i.e. the soul. He believed the soul
was more important than the body as it is not subject to change/decay. The body is
needed to understand the world a posteriori, the soul allows us the knowledge of the
forms a priori. The soul is simple, eternal, unchanging and capable of pure
thoughts/ideas. Believed the soul has 3 parts: spirit (enthusiasm); appetite (needs) and
reason (logic). A good person is one who is controlled purely by reason. Reason allows
us to gain knowledge, distinguish right and wrong and to understand the forms.
Spirit/emotion allows us to love and inspire courage but can become reckless and
conceited. Appetite encouraged us to look after our physical needs but we could drift
into lives of hedonism and be little better than animals. The soul ultimately desires to get
out of the inferior body in which it is trapped - death is, therefore, nothing to fear. Plato
was uninterested in establishing the link between soul and body.
Plato's beliefs Plato's soul is without beginning whereas Christian's believe it was created by God. Plato
and also believed that the soul cannot be destroyed, whereas for a Christian this undermines
Christianity the omnipotence of God.
Plato He disregards the importance of the body in shaping who you are which is perhaps too
Evaluation dismissive, but also perhaps recognises that the person is more important than the body
which might be a comfort for some people e.g. people in a wheelchair or transgender
people. There are gaps in his theory, he doesn't explain the link between soul and body
which means the theory is incomplete and unsatisfactory. His views about people
needing to be led by reason are based on sound premises and have coherent
conclusions that fit with the way we see the world.
Aristotle's Monist. Believed the soul is the formal cause of the person - it animated your body.
Belief's Without the soul, we are just matter or material cause. Thought the soul has 3 elements:
Vegetative - which is shared with all living things; Appetitive - in which we find passions
and appetited as well as emotion, found in animals and the Intellectual - rational and
directive with the power of memory and reflection, only found in humans. Believed that
when your body dies your soul dies too. Just as an imprint cannot be separated from
wax, the soul cannot be separated from the body. He believed that they are linked and
equal. He considered that something like reason may live on but there is no personal
survival after death. Believed the soul is not material and can be understood as the
mind. Influenced Aquinas
St Paul's beliefs St. Paul distinguishes between the earthly body and the resurrected body. Earthly:
perishable, weak, natural, dishonourable. Resurrected: imperishable, strong, spiritual,
perfect. Paul's description concerns God's resurrection of the human psychophysical
individual, not as the organism which dies.
Aquinas' Believed the soul is incorruptible and capable of existing apart from the body after
beliefs death but before that, the soul and the body are as one. The principle of intellectual
operation (the soul) is a principle of both incorporeal (not material) and subsistence
(can exist alone). The soul is the first principle of life.
Descartes' A rationalist and substance dualist. He believed the soul is simple and will last forever. 'I
beliefs think therefore I am'. He believed that senses could be deceived. He could doubt the
existence of the mind but could doubt the existence of the body. He believed the soul
resides in the pineal gland in the brain where imagination and common sense comes
from, there is no scientific bases to this and is therefore weak.
Gilbert Ryle's Believed the mind/body were intrinsically linked and believed dualists had made a
beliefs category mistake. The example of the university - it is a category mistake to assume the
university is something separate from the individual buildings. Ryle used the terms 'ghost
in a machine' to criticise Descartes view of the mind.
Critics of Ryle Critics argue that the whole is more than the sum of the parts - there is often something
intangible in things e.g. community spirit or history of a village
Elizabeth Doesn't believe in the immortality of the soul outside of the resurrection and
Anscombe's heaven/hell. She values the physical and nonphysical equally. A full human is 'man qua
beliefs spirit' - man as relation to spirit. Used the example of pointing- it is a gesture with
meaning.
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