The Natural Metaphysical Structure of the Spiritual Soul

Our spiritual souls, which are the forms, or principles, by which we are what we are, have remarkable qualities. First and foremost they are spiritual, that is, they possess a certain intensity of being so that they can reflect upon themselves and know and love. But our human souls are profoundly united with our bodies, and through the bodies the entire universe. They also have an interior dynamism that draws them to be united with all other human souls, for they share the same form.

The deepest center of the soul, however, is the place where it receives its existence moment by moment from God. It is, we might imagine, the point of deepest ontological intensity in which the existence of the soul springs forth from God who is Existence, itself.

In our everyday existence we hardly avert to this center, but simply accept our existence as a fact. When our metaphysical insight matures, however, we see that all the things around us are, in fact, different limited modes of what it means to exist, and so they all point to the fullness of existence. If we could truly see into the depths of things, we could see that they are ablaze with existence, and our breath would be taken away by a glimpse of the very isness of things.

In certain Eastern forms of meditation men and women have been drawn into the depths of the spiritual soul and have encountered in dark and mysterious ways this center of existence of the soul, and have embraced it. The resulting experience, however, did not express itself in metaphysical concepts, but rather in a dark union with the existence of the soul which embraced at the same time the existence of all things and the source of existence. This union gives rise to a paradoxical language.

In death the spiritual soul becomes transparent to itself, and then we will see this center of existence. This seeing could be called a natural beatitude, or vision, of God which ought not to be confused with the union of God that takes place through grace, but a deep sense of God as the author and sustainer of being. In this natural beatitude we see God in and through the existence of the soul, and see the whole universe summed up in the soul, and see our fellow human beings from within.

The Trinitarian Structure of the Soul

The center of existence of the soul is the deepest center that human reason can fathom, but in the midst of that center there is a deeper center still which takes place by a gift of love. The human soul of Jesus makes him a genuine human being, and profoundly united to us. This human nature is a creation of God, and therefore can be seen as a work common to the three persons of the Trinity, but in the very act of creation by which it comes about, the human soul of Jesus becomes the human nature of the Word, and through the Word enters into the life of the Trinity. Therefore, the human soul of Jesus has as its deepest center a Trinitarian imprint. The human nature of Jesus takes on a new intensity because of its union with the Word, and this intensity makes it not only one with all other human beings in virtue of sharing the same form, but it makes the soul of Jesus the very center of the human race. Through the human nature of Jesus we are drawn to the Trinity that dwells in the center of our souls. In life this manifests itself as a call to contemplation which in its highest reaches begins to express our sharing in the Trinitarian life. In death when the spiritual soul becomes transparent to itself, we will see that the life of the Trinity is the very center of our souls. There is no opposition between the center of existence of the soul and the Trinitarian center of the soul because existence, itself, in its innermost depths is Trinitarian.