Sermons on the Song of Songs

Furthermore, none of those things whose being is not identical with life can ever advance or attain to a virtuous or to a happy life, for the reason that they are even incapable of rising to this lower degree. The human soul only, which is known to stand upon this eminence, has been created thereon, as life from Life, as simple from the Simple, as immortal from the Immortal, so that she is not far below that supreme degree, that, namely, where being is identical with blessedness of life, in which He alone stands “Who is the Blessed and the only Mighty, the King of kings, and the Lord of lords.” The rational soul, accordingly, has received at her creation, if not the actuality, at any rate the possibility of happiness; and she therefore approaches as near as is possible to the highest degree, which, however, she can never attain to. For, as I have already remarked, not even then, when she is actually happy, will it be the same thing for her to be and to be happy. I acknowledge her likeness to the Divinity, but I deny her equality. For instance, God is Life, and the soul is life: here we have similarity, yet also disparity. The soul resembles God in that, like Him, she is life, in that, like Him, she lives by her own essence, and in that, like Him, she not only has life in herself, but communicates it also externally. She differs from Him, on the other hand, by as much as the creature differs from the Creator. She differs from Him in that whereas He is self-sufficing, she would have no life at all unless vivified by Him, just as she would have no being at all unless created by Him. When I say she would have no life unless vivified by God, I am speaking, not of her natural, but of her supernatural life. For all human souls, even such as have no supernatural life, are in their natural life necessarily immortal. But what manner of life is that which it would be better to end by dying than to continue? It is rather death than life, and a death the more awful because it is due not to nature but to sin. “The death of the wicked is very evil,” says the Psalmist. Thus, therefore, the soul that “liveth according to the flesh is dead” even while she lives, because it were better for her not to live at all than so to live. And from this kind of living death there shall be no resurrection for her except through the Word of life, or rather through the Word who is Life Itself, living and vivifying.

But otherwise the rational soul is truly immortal, and in this respect also has affinity, yet not equality, with the Word. For the Creator’s immortality so far transcends the creature’s that the Apostle says of God, “Who only hath immortality.” By these words, as I think, he meant to convey to us that God alone is immutable in His Nature, Who has Himself declared by His Prophet Malachy, “I am the Lord and I change not.” For true and complete immortality excludes as well change as termination of life, since all change is an image of death. Indeed, everything which undergoes change, whilst it passes from one state of being to another, must necessarily die, in a certain sense, with regard to what it is, so that it may begin to be what it is not. But how can you have immortality there where you have as many deaths as changes? And, in the words of the Apostle, “The creature was made subject to (this) vanity, not willingly, but by reason of Him That made it subject in hope.” Nevertheless the soul possesses a true if imperfect immortality, because as she is the principle of life to herself, she can as little fall from life as she can fall from herself. At the same time, since it is evident that she changes in her thoughts and affections, let her glory in her resemblance to the divine immortality, in such a way as not to forget that she is wanting in an important part of perfect immortality: let her acknowledge that immortality absolute and adequate belongs to Him alone “with whom there is no change nor shadow of alteration.” Yet what has been said in the present discourse has enabled us to understand how exalted is the dignity of the human soul, which appears to approximate to the Word of God by a twofold affinity of nature, namely, by simplicity of essence and immortality of life.

Yet another point of relationship now occurs to me which I must by no means pass over; because no less than those already mentioned, and perhaps even in a greater degree, it renders the soul glorious in herself and like to the Word. I refer to the faculty of free-will, which shines in the soul with a beauty all divine, as a gem set in gold. It is through this faculty that the mind possesses the power of judging and the liberty of choosing between good and evil, between life and death, between light and darkness. And if there be any other objects which, in the same manner, appear to stand in mutual opposition as regards the state of the soul, between these also this vigilant arbiter (which may be called the soul’s eye) judges and determines, as free in electing as it is peremptory in deciding. Hence it is called the faculty of free choice (liberum arbitrium) because, namely, it freely chooses between opposites according to the pleasure of the will. It is in virtue of the same faculty that man is capable of merit and demerit. For every act you perform, provided it was in your power to omit it, is justly reputed to you as merit or as demerit. And as praise is justly due not only to him “who could have transgressed and hath not transgressed, and could do evil things and hath not done them,” but to him also who could have omitted to do good and yet hath done it: similarly, demerit is not wanting either to him who could have omitted to do evil and yet hath done it, or to him who could have done good, yet hath not done it. But where there is no liberty, there can be neither merit nor demerit. Wherefore the brute beasts, which lack the light of reason, are incapable of meriting or demeriting, because being without the power of deliberation, they are likewise without liberty. They are governed by their senses, driven on by their impulses, carried away by their appetites. For they possess neither judgment whereby to direct and rule themselves, nor even the faculty of reason, which is the instrument of judgment. Hence it is that judgment is not exercised upon them, because they do not exercise judgment themselves. With what reason indeed could they be required to give a reason for their action since from them the gift of reason has been withheld?