Socrates In Purgatory?

A couple of days ago I posted a philosophical question: Is Socrates in Purgatory? The post had some good comments and I argued one way, but now I would like to recant that argument.

Let me explain.

You see, my Philosophy of the Human Person professor, (Dr. Roberts) teaches the class in a very frustrating way. He tells us something and then builds upon it for a couple of days and then tells us that it is the wrong position. After that he gives us the correct position. Needless to say, this not only causes much confusion, but it means I have to go back through all my notes and cross out a lot of presuppositions that aren’t valid.

That being said…

Socrates COULD be in Purgatory. Saying that he wasn’t and that it would have to be Socrates’ soul that is in Purgatory because Socrates names the union of the body and soul and when Socrates dies the soul separates from the body, is based on the presupposition that a human being is a rational animal. However, saying that a human being is a rational animal is false.

A human being is an incarnate spirit.

Animals consist of only a body and soul. Humans have more than just a body and soul. We also have a spirit!

The spirit names the capacity and activity of conforming what we do to un-natural principles. The spirit is the non-natural side of human.

By natural, we mean things having to do with matter/body and psychology/mind.

A human can’t be defined by only natural terms (or laws). A human is supernatural (above nature).

“Nature is what we are put in the world to rise above.”
-Katherine Hepburn in The African Queen.

You see, the body isn’t required for us to be a person. It is required for us, however, to be a complete person.

Persons have a self. Animals don’t!

By “self” we mean: the “me” or “I” I’ve always understood myself to be. The central part of being a person is to have an “I”. Non-persons do not have an “I”.

So I (myself, Danny, Socrates [himself]) can in fact be in Purgatory!