Catholic Encyclopedia: Spiritualism

Spiritualism

The term "spiritualism" has been frequently used  to denote the belief in the possibility
of communication with disembodied spirits, and the various devices employed to
realize this belief in practice.  The term "Spiritism" (q. v.), which obtains in Italy,
France, and Germany, seems more apt to express this meaning.  Spiritualism, then,
suitable stands opposed to materialism.  We may say in general that Spiritualism is the
doctrine which denies that the contents of the universe are limited to matter and the
properties and operations of matter.  It maintains the existence of real being or beings
(minds, spirits) radically distinct in nature from matter.  It may take the form of
Spiritualistic Idealism, which denies the existence of any real material being outside of
the mind; or, whilst defending the reality of spiritual being, it may also allow the
separate existence of the material world.  Further, Idealistic Spiritualism may either
take the form of Monism (e.g., with Fichte), which teaches that there exists a single
universal mind or ego of which all finite minds are but transient moods or stages: or it
may adopt a pluralistic theory (e.g. with Berkeley), which resolves the universe into a
Divine Mind together with a multitude of finite minds into which the former infuses all
those experiences that generate the belief in an external, independent, material world.
The second or moderate form of Spiritualism, whilst maintaining the existence of spirit,
and in particular the human mind or soul, as a real being distinct from the body, does
not deny the reality of matter.  It is, in fact, the common doctrine of Dualism. However,
among the systems of philosophy which adhere to Dualism, some conceive the
separateness or mutual independence of soul and body to be greater and others less.
With some philosophers of the former class, soul and body seem to have been looked
upon as complete beings merely accidentally united.  For these a main difficulty is to
give a satisfactory account of the inter-action of two beings so radically opposed in
nature.

     Historically, we find the early Greek philosophers tending generally towards
Materialism.  Sense experience is more impressive than our higher, rational
consciousness, and sensation is essentially bound up with the bodily organism.
Anaxagoras was the first, apparently, among the Greeks to vindicate the predominance
of mind or reason in the universe.  It was, however, rather as a principle of order, to
account for the arrangement and design evident in nature as a whole, than to vindicate
the reality of individual minds distinct from the bodies which they animate.  Plato was
virtually the father of western spiritualistic philosophy.  He emphasized the distinction
between the irrational or sensuous and the rational functions of the soul.  He will not
allow the superior elements in knowledge or the higher "parts" of the soul to be
explained away in terms of the lower.  Both subsist in continuous independence and
opposition. Indeed, the rational soul is related to the body merely as the pilot to the
ship or the rider to his horse.  Aristotle fully recognized the spirituality of the higher
rational activity of thought, but his treatment of its precise relation to the individual
human soul is obscure.  On the other hand, his conception of the union of soul and
body, and of the unity of the human person, is much superior to that of Plato.  Though
the future life of the human soul, and consequently its capacity for an existence
separate from the body, was one of the most fundamental and important doctrines of
the Christian religion, yet ideas as to the precise meaning of spirituality were not at first
clear, and we find several of the earliest Christian writers (though maintaining the
future existence of the soul separate from the body), yet conceiving the soul in a more
or less materialistic way (cf. Justin, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Clement, etc.).  The Catholic
philosophic doctrine of Spiritualism received much of its development from St.
Augustine, the disciple of Platonic philosophy, and its completion from Albertus
Magnus and St. Thomas, who perfected the Aristotelian account of the union of soul
and body.

     Modern Spiritualism, especially of the more extreme type, has its origin in
Descartes.  Malebranche, and indirectly Berkeley, who contributed so much in the
sequel to Monistic Idealism, are indebted to Descartes, whilst every form of
exaggerated Dualism which set mind and body in isolation and contrast traces its
descent from him.  In spite of serious faults and defects in their systems, it should be
recognized that Descartes and Leibnitz contributed much of the most effective
resistance to the wave of Materialism which acquired such strength in Europe at the
end of the eighteenth and during the first half of the nineteenth centuries.  In particular,
Maine de Biran, who emphasized the inner activity and spirituality of the will,
followed by Jouffroy and Cousin, set up so vigorous an opposition to the current
Materialism as to win for their theories the distinctive title of "Spiritualism". In
Germany, in addition to Kant, Fichte, and other Monistic Idealists, we find Lotze and
Herbart advocating realistic forms of Spiritualism. In England, among the best-known
advocates of  Dualistic Spiritualism, were, in succession to the Scottish School,
Hamilton and Martineau; and of Catholic writers, Brownson in America, and W. G.
Ward in England.

EVIDENCE FOR THE DOCTRINE OF SPIRITUALISM

Whilst modern Idealists and writers advocating an extreme form of Spiritualism have
frequently fallen into grievous error in their own positive systems, their criticisms of
Materialism and their vindication of the reality of spiritual being seem to contain much
sound argument and some valuable contributions, as was indeed to be expected, to this
controversy.

(1) Epistemological Proof

The line of reasoning adopted by Berkeley against Materialism has never met with any
real answer from the latter.  If we were compelled to choose between the two, the most
extreme Idealistic Materialism would be incomparably the more logical creed to hold.
Mind is more intimately known than matter, ideas are more ultimate than molecules.
External bodies are only known in terms of consciousness.  To put forward as a final
explanation that thought is merely a motion or property of certain bodies, when all
bodies are, in the last resort, only revealed to us in terms of our thinking activity, is
justly stigmatized by all classes of Spiritualists as utterly irrational. When the
Materialist or Sensationist reasons out his doctrine, he is landed in hopeless absurdity.
Materialism is in fact the answer of the men who do not think, who are apparently
quite unaware of the presuppositions which underlie all science.

(2) Teleological Proof

The contention, old as Anaxagoras, that the order, adaptation, and design evidently
revealed in the universe postulate a principle distinct from matter for its explanation is
also a valid argument for Spiritualism.  Matter cannot arrange itself. Yet that there is
arrangement in the universe, an that this postulates the agency of a principle other than
matter, is continually more and more forced upon us by the utter failure of natural
selection to meet the demands made on it during the last half of the past century to
accomplish by the blind, fortuitous action of physical agents work demanding the
highest intelligence.

(3) Ethical Proof

The denial of spiritual beings distinct from, and in some sense independent of, matter
inexorably involves the annihilation of morality.  If the mechanical or materialistic
theory of the universe be true, every movement and change of each particle of matter is
the inevitable outcome of previous physical conditions.  There is no room anywhere for
effective human choice or purpose in the world. Consequently, all those notions which
form the constituent elements of man's moral creed--duty, obligation, responsibility,
merit, desert, and the rest--are illusions of the imagination.  Virtue and vice, fraud and
benevolence are alike the inevitable outcome of the individual's circumstances, and
ultimately as truly beyond his control as the movement of the piston is in regard to the
steam-engine.

(4) Inefficacy and Uselessness of Mind in the Materialist View

Again, unless the reality of spirit distinct from, and independent of, matter be
admitted, the still more incredible conclusion inexorably follows that mind, thought,
consciousness play no really operative part in the world's history.  If mind is not a real
distinct energy, capable of interfering with, guiding, and influencing the movements of
matter, then clearly it has played no real part in the creations of art, literature, or
science.  Consciousness is merely an inefficacious by-product, an epiphenomenon
which has never modified in any degree the movements of matter concerned in the
history of the human race.

(5) Psychological Proof

The outcome of all the main theses of psychology, empirical and rational, in Catholic
systems of philosophy is the establishment of a Spiritualistic Dualism, and the
determination of the relations of soul and body.  Analysis of the higher activities of the
soul, and especially of the operations of intellectual conception, judgment, reasoning,
and self-conscious reflection, proves the faculty of intellect and the soul to which it
belongs to be of a spiritual nature, distinct from matter, and not the outcome of a power
inherent in a bodily organ.  At the same time the Scholastic doctrine, better than any
other system, furnishes a conception of the union of soul and body which accounts for
the extrinsic dependence of the spiritual operations of the mind on the organism; whilst
maintaining the spiritual nature of the soul, it safeguards the union of soul and body in
a single person.

MICHAEL MAHER <AND> JOSEPH BOLLAND

Transcribed by Janet Grayson

Taken from the New Advent Web Page (www.knight.org/advent).

This article is part of the Catholic Encyclopedia Project, an effort aimed at placing the
entire Catholic Encyclopedia on the World Wide Web. The coordinator is Kevin Knight,
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