The Bible and the Church on Ensoulment and the Immortality of the Soul

There is great debate in the contemporary world whether life exists after death. Influential secular ‘thinkers’ such as Stephen Hawking¹ or Richard Dawkins² assert that no such thing is possible and lead masses to a pessimistic view of their lives. In fact, it can lead one to despair because if there is nothingness after physical death, what is the meaning of life and what point is there to all our endeavours and sufferings? If, as Martin Heidegger says, man is only “existence towards death”³ then, according to Albert Camus, in the face of our search for meaning in the meaningless⁴ universe, man has two options: either to accept absurdity or commit suicide.⁵ The Church, thankfully, delivers a more hopeful message: that life is meaningful, that our existence is not fleeting, and that there is life after death.⁶ The teaching of life after death is based on the doctrine of our soul’s immortality.⁷

In this post I will present the doctrine of ensoulment and the immortality of the soul as presented in Catholic Church documents and the Bible. The purpose of this post is not to prove philosophically that the soul exists (this may come in a later post) nor to prove that the soul is immortal. I also am assuming here that the reader is Catholic and is happy to take the Church’s or Bible’s teachings as authoritative as they stand.

The post will be broken down into two sections:

• The first section will discuss what a soul is, present excerpts of the soul in the Old and New Testaments and discuss what the Church teaches and has taught on ensoulment.
• The second section will present the historical development of the doctrine of the immortality of the soul and will then discuss excerpts pertaining to the immortality of the soul in the Old and New Testaments and in official Church documents. 

Since this is a very long post, I’ll provide here a table of contents so that you can jump to a particular section as you see fit. Also, every footnote can be hovered over to view its contents so you don’t have to scroll to the bottom of the page each time you wish to read something additional.

The Soul in Church Documents and the Bible

The Catholic Church teaches that the human person is both corporeal and spiritual.⁸ The corporeal part of the human person is referred to as his body; the incorporeal part is referred to as his soul. The soul is “the innermost aspect of man, that which is of greatest value in him, that by which he is most especially in God’s image: “soul” signifies the spiritual principle in man” (CCC 363). 

The Church also teaches that “though made of body and soul, man is one”.⁹ This quote from Gaudium et Spes has its roots in Genesis 2:7 where it is described how God forms man out of dust (symbol for the body), He breathes the breath of life into him (symbol for the soul) so that he becomes a living being (i.e. is one).¹⁰

In line with the teaching that the soul signifies the spiritual principle in man, the Church through the Council of Vienne, in underlining the profoundness of the unity of soul and body, also declared that the soul is the “form” of the body.¹¹ That is, the soul animates the body made of matter and thus “causes” it to become a living human body.¹² The soul raises the human person above “elements of the material world”¹³ to the state where it can be said that man “by his intellect… surpasses the material universe”.¹⁴

The soul is furthermore not “produced” by the parents but created by God: “the Catholic faith obliges us to hold that souls are immediately created by God”¹⁵; and that at the time of death, the soul will separate from the body with which it will be reunited at the final Resurrection.¹⁶

The Soul in the Bible

It has already been stated that Genesis 2:7 is referring to the soul when speaking about God’s breathing into Adam. There are, however, many more references in the Bible mentioning this immaterial aspect of man. 

In the Old Testament the Hebrew word nephesh is traditionally translated as “soul”.¹⁷ A closer meaning for this Hebrew word, however, is “a living being”.¹⁸ This term is used over 750 times in the Old Testament.¹⁹ Genesis has a number of these mentions. For example, Genesis 35:18 shows that the nephesh is seen as the life possessing quality of humans.²⁰ The same is true of animals as is shown in Genesis 1:20 and Genesis 1:24.²¹ Another depiction of the nephesh as giving life to being is in Deuteronomy 12:23: “Take care, however, not to eat the blood, since blood is life [nephesh], and you must not eat the life with the meat”.

In Numbers 35:11,15 nephesh is used as another word for person;²² as is also the case in Habakkuk 2:10: “You have conspired to bring shame on your house: by overthrowing many peoples [nephesh] you have worked your own ruin”.

The “soul” can also be something that is saved and redeemed: “I called on the name of Yahweh. Deliver me [nephesh], Yahweh, I beg you” (Ps 116:4).²³

In the New Testament, the Greek word used for “soul” is psuche. Just like in the Old Testament, a number of passages use this term to mean either human life of the entire human person (e.g. Mt 16:25-26, Jn 15:13, Acts 2:41) but there are some passages that speak of psuche as something that is of the greatest value inside man: “Then he said to them, ‘My soul is sorrowful to the point of death. Wait here and stay awake with me’” (Mt 26:38).²⁴

When Does Man Acquire a Soul (Ensoulment)

It has been stated that the Church teaches that the human person is a unity of both body and soul. There has, however, been great debate in the past as to the actual moment when the soul unites itself to the body, which is known as ‘ensoulment’. This is an important question for this doctrinal theme because the implicit teaching of the doctrine of the immortality of the soul is that there is an afterlife; but if human beings do not receive a soul until a certain time after their existence, this doctrine would not pertain to those to whom ensoulment has not occurred yet. The question is paramount, for example, in the debate on abortion.

On the topic of ensoulment, declarations by popes and theologians have varied. The early Christians from the time of Tertullian adopted the Pythagorean view that the soul is infused at the moment of conception: “we allow that life begins with conception, because we contend that the soul also begins from conception; life taking its commencement at the same moment and place that the soul does”.²⁵

Although St Gregory of Nyssa also supported this view,²⁶ an Aristotelian epigenetic view of successive souls in a developing human embryo began to circulate in medieval times;²⁷ that is, a distinction was begun to be made between an unformed and formed foetus – the destruction of the latter would only, therefore, be considered as murder. Pope Gregory XVI²⁸ and St Thomas Aquinas²⁹ are examples of prominent Catholic persons who adopted this view. Since then, the Church has avoided declaring a philosophical position on ensoulment: “The Magisterium has not expressly committed itself to an affirmation of a philosophical nature”.³⁰ It has, however, declared a teaching that human life (and therefore ensoulment) does come into existence at the moment of conception.³¹

Although the Church’s views on the moment of ensoulment have changed throughout history, it needs to be mentioned that the Church has always condemned abortion: “Even scientific and philosophical discussions about the precise moment of the infusion of the spiritual soul have never given rise to any hesitation about the moral condemnation of abortion”.³² The reasons stated for condemning abortion and the classification in canon law of the sin of abortion have changed over time.

History of the Doctrine of the Immortality of the Soul

As with all other doctrines, the doctrine of the immortality of the soul went through a process of development over the centuries. It is argued by modern scholars³³ that prior to the Babylonian exile the Ancient Israelites, despite speaking about the soul (nephesh) in the Old Testament, did not believe in the immortality of a part of the human being that was distinct from its body. A number of biblical passages appear to attest to this, such as: “For dust you are and to dust you shall return” (Gen 3:19) and “The one [nephesh] who has sinned is the one to die” (Ez 18:4). This view is contested by M. Maher in his article on “Immortality” (of 1910) in The Catholic Encyclopedia³⁴ on account of the strong belief in the afterlife of the Israelite’s Egyptian and Chaldean neighbours with whom they had intimate relations and biblical passages such as Wisdom 2:22-23 and Ecclesiastes 12:7.³⁵ Therefore, excerpts such as Gen 3:19 and Ez 18:4 quoted above, would need to be interpreted in a different light. Regardless of this discussion, the belief in the immortality of the soul became prominent in Israelite thought after contact with the Persian and Hellenistic philosophies. 

The Ancient Greeks were the first to attempt systematic philosophical treatment of the question of immortality. This doctrine appears to have achieved maturity in Plato’s elaborate philosophical expositions.³⁶ Plato saw the soul as the pilot of the body existing prior to ensoulment. After separation from the body (and perhaps after more reincarnations in other bodies),³⁷ the soul could return to the world of Forms where it would contemplate the pure intelligibles – in this way achieving immortality. The Hellenistic view of the body and soul influenced Patristic thought and understanding of the Septuagint’s translation of the word nephesh into pseche. Origen in his work De Principiis followed Plato’s theory of the immortality of the soul: “[The soul] shall after its departure from the world… obtain either an inheritance of eternal life and blessedness… or be delivered up to eternal fire and punishments, if the guilt of its crimes shall have brought it down to this”.³⁸ Other Early Church Fathers followed suit (although with some ‘minor’ differences): Tertullian, Cyprian of Carthage, Ambrose of Milan and St Augustine: “Therefore the soul is immortal; believe in the truth; it cries out with a loud voice that it abides in you, that it is immortal, and that, whatever the death of the body might mean, her dwelling (the soul’s) cannot be separated from you”.³⁹

The doctrine of the immortality of the soul was crystalised after the great philosophical elaborations of St Thomas Aquinas. Aquinas, on taking Aristotle’s metaphysical system and Christianising it, taught that the immortality of the soul is personal, natural and rationally demonstrable. The immortality of the soul is personal in the sense that each soul continues its subsistent existence after separating from the body and does not absorb into a greater form as is, for example, taught by monism or pantheism. The immortality of the soul is natural in the sense that the soul continues its existence after death as dictated by its nature and not due to a gift bestowed upon it by God. This contrasts with the teachings of some Protestant theologians (e.g. Oscar Cullman) who believed that after death a new creative life-giving act was necessary from God for the person to return back to life.⁴⁰ The immortality of the soul is rationally demonstrable in the sense that it is possible to reach the conclusion of (i.e. prove) the soul’s immortality through pure reason alone.⁴¹ Duns Scotus, William of Occam and Immanuel Kant would argue otherwise. 

Modern thought has not contributed a lot to the philosophy of the immortality of the soul. Spinoza propagates a pantheistic view of the world that does away with personal immortality.⁴² Descartes’ view of the soul is comparable to that of Plato’s.⁴³ With Hume⁴⁴ and the Sensationists, metaphysics is disregarded, so there is not even a basis for considering immortality – the exception to this is John Stuart Mill⁴⁵ who finds a way to espouse this philosophy with immortality by saying that there is a possibility of an endless series of empirical or positivistic mental states.⁴⁶

The Bible on the Immortality of the Soul

Since the afterlife is part of the core message of Christianity, the immortality of man and his soul is mentioned numerous times in the Bible. In Second Maccabees we find a story of a family being faithful to the Law of Moses and thus not wishing to participate in pagan rituals during the feast of Dionysus. The family members were killed for their disobedience. With his last breath, one of those executed exclaimed: “‘Cruel brute, you may discharge us from this present life, but the King of the world will raise us up, since we die for his laws, to live again for ever.’” (2 Macc 7:9). 

In Isaiah we find a clear indication that the dead are conscious: “’On your account, Sheol⁴⁷ below is astir to greet your arrival. He has roused the ghosts to greet you… They will all greet you with the words, “… You, too, have become like us.”” (Is 14:9-10). 

In the last part of the Book of Daniel, Daniel has a long vision regarding the conflicts between two kingdoms. An angel tells him that despite the surrounding conflicts, Michael the Archangel will protect them.⁴⁸ The angel also makes a mention of the afterlife: “’Of those who are sleeping in the Land of Dust, many will awaken, some to everlasting life, some to shame and everlasting disgrace.” (Dan 12:2).⁴⁹

In the New Testament, with respect to the resurrection of the dead, we have the disputes between Jesus and the Sadducees and Pharisees. Jesus’ response to the question posed by some Sadducees in Mk 12:18, implicitly teaches of the afterlife.⁵⁰ 

In 1 Peter 3:19, the apostle talks about how Jesus, after his death, “went to preach to the spirits in prison”, indicating that the dead are conscious. The classic story of the rich man and Lazarus in Lk 16:19-31 also attest to the immortality of man. In these passages we hear of a complacent man and a beggar both dying and both continuing their existence after this event, albeit in different places.⁵¹

Church Documents on the Immortality of the Soul

The theologians and philosophers in the history of the Church laid foundations for the Church to make declarations on the doctrine of the immortality of the soul. This doctrine has proven to be immensely influential in other teachings of the Church such as the dogma of the Fall, the Christian conception of sin and the Incarnation of the Son of God. This doctrine was also instrumental in the fight for the equality of man and liberation of slave.⁵²

The first official statement from the Church concerning the immortality of the soul came in 1336 with Benedict XII’s Constitution Benedictus Deus: “the souls of all the saints who departed from this world [and those souls who have left purgatory]… have been, are and will be with Christ in heaven… The souls of those who die in actual mortal sin go down into hell immediately (mox) after death and there suffer the pain of hell”.⁵³ Benedict XII devoted a lot of time to questions of theology and this Constitution on “The Destiny of Man after Death” was a summary and completion of his earlier extensive work, De statu animarum sanctarum ante generale idicium, that he composed as a cardinal prior to being elected pope. 

Following Benedict’s Constitution came the Fifth Lateran Council and Pope Leo X’s Bull of 1513, Apostolici regiminis: “with the approval of the council We condemn and reprove all those who assert that the intellectual soul is mortal”.⁵⁴ This Bull on “The Doctrine of the Human Soul against the Neo-Aristotelians” is believed to have been chiefly directed against Pietro Pomponazzi and his treatise of 1516, De immortalitate animae, in which he rejects the idea that the immortality of the soul is rationally demonstrable. 

Next, in 1844, Loius-Eugene Bautain by Order of the Sacred Congregation of Bishops and Regulars wrote: “We promise…: never to teach that by reason alone one could not demonstrate the spirituality and the immortality of the soul”. 

In Pius XI’s encyclical Divini Redemptoris, 1937, we read a short statement pertaining to this doctrine: “[Man] has a spiritual and immortal soul”; and then in Paul VI’s, Piam et constantem, 1963, we have a longer statement mentioning the immortality of the soul in the context of cremation: “The Church has so acted especially when… motives hostile to Christian practice and ecclesiastical traditions… were trying to establish cremation in the place of burial as a sign of violent denial of Christian dogmas, especially those of the resurrection of the dead and the immortality of the soul”.⁵⁵ 

Most recently, Vatican II in its “Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World”, Gaudium et Spes, wrote: “Thus when [man] recognizes in himself a spiritual and immortal soul, he is not being mocked by a fantasy born only of physical or social influences, but is rather laying hold of the deep truth of the matter”.⁵⁶

Conclusion

The doctrine of the immortality of the soul has many references in Church documents and in Scripture. It has developed through the centuries from the Ancient Israelite tradition, Hellenistic thought, and Early Church Fathers until its crystalisation with the great philosophical elaborations of St Thomas Aquinas. It has proven influential in matters such as the fight for the equality of man and it laid the foundations for the dogma of the Fall, the Christian conception of sin and the Incarnation of the Son of God. For the everyday person, it is a teaching that can be fallen back on to remember that life has meaning, that there is a sense to our hardships and that an afterlife awaits us of unity with pure Love.

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Footnotes

1. “There is no heaven or afterlife… that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark” (Stephen Hawking in an interview with the Guardian on 15 May 2011, available: http://www.theguardian.com/science/2011/may/15/stephen-hawking-interview-there-is-no-heaven [viewed 21/05/2023). He has asserted, however, that some form of afterlife (reincarnation would perhaps be a better term to use here) is possible by believing that the brain is like a computer program inside the mind. He believes this brain can be copied onto a computer to provide some form of life after death.
2. “But to maintain such a belief [in the afterlife] in the face of all the evidence to the contrary is truly bewildering” (Richard Dawkins in an interview with the Guardian on 10 January 2006, available online: http://www.theguardian.com/education/2006/jan/10/highereducationprofile.academicexperts [viewed 21/05/2023]).
3. Martin Heidegger, Sein und Ziet, Tubingen: Neomarius, 1949, p. 234.
4. “I continue to believe that this world has no ultimate meaning” (Albert Camus, Resistance, Rebellion, and Death: Essays, New York: Knopf, 1961, p. 28).
5. See A. Camus’ work, The Myth of Sisyphus. See also Søren Kierkegaard’s work The Sickness Unto Death for a similar (although Theistic) deliberation on this topic.
6. See Benedict XII, Benedictus Deus, 1336.
7. Immortality in this document refers to “the endless conscious existence of the individual soul. It implies that the being which survives shall preserve its personal identity and be connected by conscious memory with the previous life” (Maher, M. “Immortality” in The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1910).
8. See Vatican I, Dei Filius, 1870, Ch. 1; Fourth Lateran Council, 1215, Ch. 1; Council of Vienne, 1312, Fidei catholicae; Vatican II, Gaudium et Spes, 1965, 14; CCC 362.
9. Vatican II, Gaudium et Spes, 14. See also John Paul II, Veritatis Splendor, 1993, 48.
10. “Yahweh God shaped man from the soil of the ground and blew the breath of life into his nostrils, and man became a living being.” (Gen 2:7)
11. See also Pius IX’s Apostolic Letter Dolore haud mediocri, 1860; Pius IX’s Eximiam tuam, 1857; Leo X’s Bull Apostolici regiminis, 1513
12. “Moreover, with the approval of the said council, we reject as erroneous and contrary to the truth of the catholic faith every doctrine or proposition rashly asserting that the substance of the rational or intellectual soul is not of itself and essentially the form of the human body, or casting doubt on this matter. In order that all may know the truth of the faith in its purity and all error may be excluded, we define that anyone who presumes henceforth to assert defend or hold stubbornly that the rational or intellectual soul is not the form of the human body of itself and essentially, is to be considered a heretic.” (Council of Vienne, 1312)
13. Vatican II, Gaudium et Spes,14.
14. Ibid. 15.
15. Pius XII, Humani Generis, Rome: Holy See, 1950, 36. The doctrine of the immediate creation of the soul taught by Pope Pius has a long history. Antiquity opined that the soul pre-existed or emanated from the divine substance or that the soul was generated by means of “semen spirituale” by the child’s parents. Scholastics drew from Aristotelian hylomorphism to teach that the soul was created by God immediately on unification with the body. Pope Pius wrote paragraph 36 of the encyclical in response to the theory of evolutions’ polygenic supposition that each child has more than two “first parents”. It should be noted that Pius XII’s teaching was not a dogmatic recognition of the Scholastic attitude (see Ludwig Ott, Fundamentals of Catholic Doctrine, Illinois: Tan Books and Publishers Inc., 1974, p. 97). For the Church’s teaching on the immediate creation of the soul by God, see also Paul VI, Credo of the People of God, 8; Lateran Council V (1513): DS 1440 and CCC 366 and 382.
16. A good summary of what the soul is can be found in the glossary at the back of the U.S. version of the CCC. It defines the “soul” as: “The spiritual principle of human beings. The soul is the subject of human consciousness and freedom; soul and body together form one unique human nature. Each human soul is individual and immortal, immediately created by God. The soul does not die with the body, from which it is separated by death, and with which it will be reunited in the final resurrection.”
17. Nephesh was translated as psuche, the Greek word for soul, in the Septuagint.
18. It should be noted here that scholars believe that the Ancient Israelites did not have the traditional concept of immortality for the soul. This is discussed in more detail in the latter part of this document.
19. W. E. Staples, The “Soul” in the Old Testament, in The American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures, vol. XLIV, no. 3, 1928, pp. 145-176.
20. “At the moment when she breathed her last, for she was dying, she named him Ben-Oni. His father, however, named him Benjamin” (Gen 35:18).
21. “God said, ‘Let the waters be alive with a swarm of living creatures [nephesh], and let birds wing their way above the earth across the vault of heaven.’ And so it was” (Gen 1:20). “God said, ‘Let the earth produce every kind of living creature [nephesh] in its own species: cattle, creeping things and wild animals of all kinds.’ And so it was” (Gen 1:24). See also Gen 1:30 and Ezekiel 47:9.
22. “you will find towns, some of which you will make into cities of refuge where those who have accidentally committed manslaughter [killed someone – nephesh] can take sanctuary” (Num 35:11).
23. See also Ps 86:13 and 2 Sam 4:9.
24. “’Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul [psuche]; fear him rather who can destroy both body and soul [psuche] in hell” (Mt 10:28), 
    “Now my soul [psuche] is troubled. What shall I say: Father, save me from this hour? But it is for this very reason that I have come to this hour” (Jn 12:27).
    See also Jn 12:27.
25. Tertullian, “A Treatise on the Soul,” in The Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 3, edited by A. Roberts, J. Donaldson, and A.C. Coxe (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1980, 27).
    “He is a man, who is to be a man; the fruit is always present in the seed.”, Tertullian, Apologetics, Ch. 9.
26. “There is no question about that which is bred in the uterus, both growing, and moving from place to place. It remains, therefore, that we must think that the point of commencement of existence is one and the same for body and soul” (St. Gregory of Nyssa, On the Soul and the Resurrection).
27. Aristotle, and then later St Thomas Aquinas, saw there to be three types of souls: vegetative, sensitive animal and intellective. Aristotle viewed the development of a human embryo to attain each of the souls in order before becoming a full human being with an intellective soul. See Aristotle’s On the Generation of Animals.
28. See Pope Gregory XVI’s Bull of 1591, Sedes Apostolica. In this bull, the pope limits the penalty of excommunication to the abortion of a formed foetus. The destruction of an unformed foetus was, hence, seen as a lesser sin.
29. See St T. Aquinas’ Summa Theologiae I, q. 118 a. 2 ad 2 and  De potentia, q. 3 a. 9 ad 9 (reply to the ninth objection).
30. Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith, Donum Vitae, Vatican: Holy See, 1987.
31. “the conclusions of science regarding the human embryo provide a valuable indication for discerning by the use of reason a personal presence at the moment of this first appearance of a human life: how could a human individual not be a human person?” (Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith, Donum Vitae, Vatican: Holy See, 1987). See also Pope John Paul II, Evangelium Vitae, 60.
32. Pope John Paul II, Evangelium Vitae, 61.
33. For e.g. see The Eerdmans Bible Dictionary, Eerdmans Pub Co., 1987, p. 518; Tyndale Bible Dictionary, Tyndale Reference Library, 2001, p. 1216; The Encyclopedia of Judaism, New York: Brill, vol. 1, 2000, p. 176; etc.
34. Available online: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07687a.htm [viewed 21/05/2023].
35. And also Proverbs 15:24; Isaiah 35:10; 51:6; Daniel 12:2.
36. See his works Meno, Phædrus, Gorgias, Timæus, Republic and especially Phædo.
37. Due to Plato’s use of allegories and images, it is at times difficult to ascertain his exact teachings on this matter, so many variations of it this exist.
38. Origen, De Principiis, Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 4, 1995, p. 240.
39. See also St Augustine’s The City of God.
40. See O. Cullman, Immortality of the Soul or Resurrection of the Dead?, 1956.
41. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles, 79.
42. See Baruch Spinoza’s Ethics.
43. See Rene Descarte’s Meditations.
44. See David Hume’s The Immortality of the Soul.
45. See John Stuart Mill’s Three Essays on Religion: Nature, the Utility of Religion, Theism.
46. M. Maher, “Immortality” in The Catholic Encyclopedia, New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1910.
47. Sheol is a Hebrew word translated as “grave”, “pit” or “place of the dead”. It is the underworld, a place of darkness cut off from God, in the Old Testament to which all the dead go, righteous and unrighteous alike.
48. See Dan 10:21 and 12:1.
49. Other mentions of the immortality of the soul or the afterlife in the Old Testament include:
    “For God created human beings to be immortal, he made them as an image of his own nature” (Wis 2:23).
    “the dust returns to the earth from which it came, and the spirit returns to God who gave it” (Ecc 12:7).
    “For the prudent, the path of life leads upwards thus avoiding Sheol below” (Prov 15:24).
50. “Now about the dead rising again, have you never read in the Book of Moses, in the passage about the bush, how God spoke to him and said: I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob? He is God, not of the dead, but of the living. You are very much mistaken.’” (Mk 12:26-27).
51. The New Testament abounds in teachings of the afterlife and man’s immortality. There are too many to list all here, but a few others include:
    “we are full of confidence, then, and long instead to be exiled from the body and to be at home with the Lord” (2 Cor 5:8)
    “Then he will say to those on his left hand, “Go away from me, with your curse upon you, to the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels… And they will go away to eternal punishment, and the upright to eternal life.’” (Mt 25:41, 46).
    “When he broke the fifth seal, I saw underneath the altar the souls of all the people who had been killed on account of the Word of God, for witnessing to it.” (Rev 6:9).
    “your gain will be sanctification and the end will be eternal life” (Rom 6:22).
    See also: Jn 3:16 and 36; Jn 4:14 and 36; Jn 6:27, 40, 47, and 54; Jn 10:28; Jn 12:25; Acts 13:48; Gal 6:8; Tit 3:7; Mt 19:16 and 29; Rev 5:8; Rev 14:13; etc.
52. M. Maher, “Immortality” in The Catholic Encyclopedia, New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1910.
    Other influences of this doctrine exist as well, of course. For example, some Christian denominations (e.g. Pentecostal) believe that God chooses who lives after their death, so only those deemed worthy of heaven participate in an afterlife.
53. A less abridged version of the Constitution issued by Benedict XII in 1336 is as follows: “By this Constitution which is to remain in force for ever, we, with apostolic authority, define the following: the souls of all the saints who departed from this world… immediately (mox) after death and, in the case of those in need of purification, after the purification mentioned above… have been, are and will be with Christ in heaven, in the heavenly kingdom and paradise, joined to the company of the holy angels… Moreover we define that according to the general disposition of God, the souls of those who die in actual mortal sin go down into hell immediately (mox) after death and there suffer the pain of hell”.
54. A less abridged version of this quote is: “Whereas some have dared to assert concerning the nature of the reasonable soul that it is mortal, we, with the approbation of the sacred council do condemn and reprobate all those who assert that the intellectual soul is mortal… and we decree that all who adhere to like erroneous assertions shall be shunned and punished as heretics” (Pope Leo X, Apostolici regiminis, 1513).
55. A less abridged version of this quote is: “The Church has so acted especially when the opposition to burial sprang from motives hostile to Christian practice and ecclesiastical traditions on the part of those who, in a sectarian spirit, were trying to establish cremation in the place of burial as a sign of violent denial of Christian dogmas, especially those of the resurrection of the dead and the immortality of the soul” (Pope Paul VI, Piam et constantem, 1963).
56. GS 14.