An Apologetics Course… Does The Spiritual Soul Exist?
By RAYMOND DE SOUZA, KM
Part 7
Why is evolution of the species impossible?
It is amazing how bigotry can blind people, even those who call themselves “scientists.” It is genetically impossible for living beings to have offspring with qualities that were not transmitted by its parent beings. No one can give what it does not possess in the first place. Any idiot knows that. Socialists try to do it, but always fail. The reality of “genetic mutation” never happens in order to add a new quality, but to remove an existing one. Genetically modified beings have fewer genes, not more, in their pool than their parents have.
Therefore, for an animal to evolve into a sensitive man, be it a turtle, ape, or liberal politician, it would take a miracle. And miracles happen from outside of the being, not from the inside. The simple reality is that otherwise intelligent people refuse to see the abyss of difference between man and animals:
Man is rational, whereas animals are non-rational (even liberal politician can be included among the category of rational men, at least sometimes).
As a human being, you and every sane person have the faculty of reason, whereby you use the power of deduction, to find new truths from the ones you already know, whereas animals cannot do it. We are constantly increasing our knowledge, passing from the known to the unknown. From arithmetic to algebra, from algebra to geometry, from geometry to trigonometry, and on and on until we send probes to Pluto.
True scientists never claim to invent natural laws, they simply discover them and use them for the progress of science and the good of man.
From the telegraph to the email system, there has been more than a little progress, for sure!
The old printed road maps and the GPS show the power of the human mind to increase knowledge and ability to control nature.
But the lower animals — and here I do not include the liberal politicians out of charity — are confined to their same old ways, day in, day out, century in, century out, millennium in, millennium out.
Bees make honey today just as they did when Samson killed the lion, no change. Ravens fly today just as one flew from the Ark of Noah (the movie, by the way, in spite of great special effects, had nothing to do with reality). Horses run today just as they did to pull Pharaoh’s chariots into the Red Sea; and donkeys serve their masters today, just as one of them carried Jesus into Jerusalem.
You can apply your mind in a variety of ways: literature, music, dancing, computers. Your mind can pass from one topic to another, without your moving a finger or batting an eyelid. Your body does not participate in your thinking. Your child may decide to become a computer technician and end later in life as a U.S. Marine. A free choice. And so on, and so forth.
But animals do not do this, because they do not possess free will. Their behavior is characterized by uniformity, by doing the same things generation after generation. Variations are negligible in the main. But men’s behavior is characterized by diversity. This is so because man is rational and animals are non-rational.
One could object that some very primitive tribes also live a life of repetitive behavior, without any noticeable progress. Yes, it is true. But that is because they do not use their minds and wills as they could. As soon as they move to the city, their children go to school and begin to develop their thinking in more ways, they change and make choices based on a greater variety of options.
On the other hand, a hunting dog may hesitate between two trails to follow, but he is not thinking. He is trying to find the stronger scent. His choice is based on a material sense, not on an intellectual choice.
The conclusion is simple: Man’s soul is not material but spiritual, that is, the soul’s activities are independent of matter, and to some extent, of its operations. It is spiritual because some of its actions are independent of matter. For instance, when you think of concepts like truth and error, beauty and ugliness, order and disorder, good and evil, etc., etc., these concepts are in your mind, and you do not see, hear, taste, smell, or touch them.
If our souls were like the animals, say, we would form ideas only in pictures and sensations, with their color, taste, shape, etc. But never immaterial concepts. That why an animal does not believe in God — and in this atheists resemble them, as a matter of fact.
Animals have not shown the slightest progress on their own. Their only improvements come from the intervention of rational men. They are not inventive. They blindly follow their instincts, as in a groove, and by themselves they cannot escape from this situation.
This is evident, as far as the intellect in concerned. Now the will: Man has free will, he can choose to do this or that, to obey a law or to act against it; but animal do not have this faculty. Even party slaves among liberal politicians sometimes change their course.
The senses provide us with the materials to form ideas, which in turn will guide our will to make choices. Just like a painter who secures brushes and paints to paint a portrait. He depends on the items to paint, but the items did not paint the portrait by themselves. The mind of the painter guided his hands to use those items to do the work.
Likewise, a violin does not play by itself. The violinist uses it to play. If the violin is broken, the violinist cannot play, just as if the person suffers a concussion and is in a coma he cannot speak or act. While he is alive, the soul is there, but the medium of communication — the brain, the nervous system, etc., are out of order.
Superior To Matter
More: One can transcend the bond of visible reality and seek higher goods, like virtue, its knowledge and practice. Or one can choose a life of vice, totally against one’s upbringing. Animals cannot do that.
All of this shows that the life-principle of man, his soul, which can think and make free choices, is not something segregated by the pituitary or the pineal glands. If it were the case, all men would behave in the same way, thinking the same thoughts and making the same choices. Rather, man’s life-principle is independent of, and superior to, mere matter.
Hence the natural consequent conclusion that, since the soul exists and acts independently of matter, it can continue of exist and to act even when the body perishes. The human soul is, therefore, spiritual and immortal.
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(Raymond de Souza is an EWTN program host; regional coordinator for Portuguese-speaking countries for Human Life International [HLI]; president of the Sacred Heart Institute, and a member of the Sovereign, Military, and Hospitaller Order of the Knights of Malta. His website is: www.RaymonddeSouza.com.)
