CLE 3RD MONTHLY REVIEWER
The Notion of Death
Death is defined as the separation of body and soul.
In Sacred Scripture, to die is “to depart” or to “be away from the body” (Phil 1:23; 2 Cor 5:8).
Death is the dissolution of the unity in man, or the moment in which the soul leaves the
body.
The Fifth Lateran Council (A.D. 1513) solemnly defined the spirituality and the immortality of the soul.
We can, of course, use death analogically to refer to sin, since it causes the loss of grace, and
therefore, the loss of supernatural life.
Common experience also shows that one dies only once. Moreover, the epistle to the Hebrews clearly
states that “it is appointed for men to die once” (Heb 9:27).
Cause and Origin of Death
Divine revelation teaches us in no uncertain terms that “God did not make death, and he does not
delight in the death of the living. For he created all things that they might exist, and the generative
forces [creatures] of the world are wholesome, and there is no destructive poison in them; and the
dominion of Hades is not on earth” (Wis 1:13–14).
Preternatural Gifts
The three gifts of bodily immortality, integrity and infused knowledge are
called preternatural because they are not strictly due to human nature but do not, of themselves,
surpass the capacities and exigencies of created nature as such. In other words, they are not
entitatively supernatural.
1. Bodily Immortality
Bodily immortality is the converse of mortality, i.e., the possibility of separation of soul from body.
Adam was therefore capable of not dying. Yet the gift was conditional, provided he did not sin; it
was gratuitous, since Adam's nature by itself did not postulate this prerogative but came from the
divine bounty; and it was participated, since only God enjoys essential immortality.
2. Integrity
The gift of integrity is equivalent to exemption from concupiscence. It is called "integrity" because it
effected a harmonious relation between flesh and spirit by completely subordinating man's lower
passions to his reason.
3. Infused knowledge was not acquired, in the sense of natural cognition derived from experience and
the reasoning process; nor was it intrinsically supernatural as giving a knowledge of the mysteries,
such as the souls enjoy in the beatific vision.
* The penal character of death is a dogma of faith that is solemnly defined by the Church when she
condemned the following proposition: “Adam, the first man, was created mortal so that, whether he
sinned or not, he would have died a bodily death, that is, he would have departed from the body, not as
a punishment for sin, but by the necessity of his nature.
The Universality of Death
Death is universal; all men die, since they are descendants of Adam and Eve and, therefore, heirs of
original sin.
The universal law of death—a consequence of original sin—does not have to be applied to the Blessed
Virgin, who was conceived Immaculate. The Church has always made an exception of Mary in the
Magisterium regarding the consequences of original sin.
Munificentissimus Deus, which defined the dogma of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary,
purposely left the question of her death unsolved. It affirms only that she was “immune to the corruption
CLE 3RD MONTHLY REVIEWER
of the sepulcher,” but it does not say whether she died or not. Some theologians focus on her Immaculate
Conception.
Since the Blessed Virgin had no original sin and was full of grace from the moment she was conceived, she
did not have to die. Others stress that, because of her singular union with Christ, she has an exceptional
role in the work of Redemption; she is often called co-redemptrix. That close union would call for her to
share also in Christ’s painful experience of death.
Reincarnation, after death, the soul can inform a new body, starting a new existence on earth.
It teaches that the soul, being the substantial form of the body, can be the substantial form of only one
subject.
This means that each person has his own soul, which does not exist prior to its informing the body.
Reincarnation or metempsychosis is an erroneous doctrine, since it maintains that a soul can successively
animate several bodies.
It also contradicts right reason, which shows the union between body and soul to be verifiable through
experience.
