Spirit forms matter, spirit forms spirit, spirit forms events.
Consider that anything that can be described in terms of logic, will, virtue, act, emotion, mathematics or physical law has these same immaterial spirits or qualities as its foundation. It is commonly known that energy and matter are the same substance in different configurations. Spirit, matter and events, likewise have an equivalence. Gospel accounts of this 212
equivalence are the episodes in which Jesus makes bread, arms, legs (Mt 15:31), from nothing but his will; even events may be formed, the many biblical prophecies by Jesus and others link moral action to distant future events. Immaterial acts are real, and have real effect in our world, beginning with ourselves. “Spiritual efficacy” is the principle of the real effect of spirit.157
Spirit by definition has no finite boundaries, will is the boundary for spirit—God’s will, man’s will.158 Because of moral free will, virtue may be corrupted into vice. God is not the
origin of evil; abuse of virtue by moral beings is the origin of
evil. Deviation from the original perfection of God’s moral design necessarily causes disorder in our world. Any deviation from perfection can only be degradation.
We might observe that the material world is the real and
normal order of creation, but before our material world existed, spirit alone was the medium of existence, (as with the community of the angels). This spiritual universe was no less real, and cause and effect were real within this spiritual realm.
Indeed the world of matter is more like an overlay for the world of spirit. Spirit is the unseen framework of the entire universe, and was created as such by God. The practical consequences 157 At a human societal level, most legal systems include the idea of moral infractions, (which are increasingly less enforced). The idea is that a person's character is the core from which his actions derive, it is his own personal spiritual framework, and no less real than body or property.
Therefore an attempt to corrupt a person’s morals is a type of assault on the real character, wil and soul of that person. Harming the character of a person will result in harmful acts in the future. Ancient Israel took severe steps to remove such immaterial threats to their society, as commanded in the Law of Moses.
158 In Mt 22:37 Christ teaches, "Love the Lord your God with al your heart, and with all your soul, and with al your mind.” One’s heart is one’s will, and as we turn our will away from sin and even legitimate discretionary activities, the deeper our sharing will be in Christ. Christ demands total commitment. This is the way of the saints.
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of this are that acts of patience, moderation, justice, generosity, chastity are real with real effects. The vices of these virtues are also real with real effect in our world. Spirit forms matter; spirit forms spirit; spirit forms events.
The idea that everything has a spirit is a necessary truth because everything has some immaterial qualities: logical or mathematical descriptions, willed moral virtues, time, emotion. Hundreds of years ago, St. Thomas Aquinas spoke of any thing having an underlying spirit that is mineral, vegetable or animal in nature. Disorder in our world is actually virtue which has become (partially) corrupted due to a lacking or misproportion. This corruption by misproportion comes about by willed mischoice by humanity.
We must give correct attention to God, ourselves and others in all our actions. If we fail in this, the resultant act is usually weighted towards self, at the expense of God or others.
Sin is a misproportion of virtue, leaving a relative lacking of some virtue.
To take the quality of respect for example; we observe that when we give undue effort to self, dignity is corrupted into arrogance. If we fail to give proper moral effort to God, then irreverence results. If we fail to give others their due, then disrespect results.
In this example, if the student increased awareness of his own dignity, he would do well. But if he fails to also increase his efforts toward God’s virtue of humility, then a relative lacking and resulting arrogance might result.
From this we see that moral corruption is a matter of lacking or deficit of what should be present. A lack of effort toward God leaves a relative predominance of self. The results are not theoretical, but take the forms of war, poverty, famine and disease.
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Spirit interacts directly with spirit according to common elements. The biblical ideas of a family or a nation sharing in the effects of virtue or vice are examples. If a virtue is corrupted by a person of ancient Israel (to take a common biblical example), then all who share common virtues will suffer to some degree. Persons who are of the same: family, tribe, nation, world will all feel the effects of another’s good of bad action.
This is the basis for the Biblical belief that children benefit or suffer from their parent’s virtue or sin. It was true for Adam and Eve, and it is still true today. This communal nature of spirit was created by God to benefit humanity, but with the advent of the disorder of sin, disorder was shared in addition to goodness. 159
God’s good judgment is also a factor by which spirit affects other spirit, matter or events. God is incapable of creating evil, but as our parent he does assign the evil of our sin to creation, according to his good judgment. In assigning the evil created by humanity, its disorder must be felt, but God could not assign evil with only an evil outcome possible.
A criticism of monotheism is that God seems to punish people by directing disorder (war, famine) upon them. In reality the evil of sin generated by humanity must be effected within creation (absolute divinity cannot be corrupted), God simply assigns our evil. God as our parent directs our evil according to his good judgment, for the highest goal ― the 159 A model showing the communal nature of spirit might be as follows.
God is love (love is commitment), and all of creation is necessarily derived from love. Outside of God, this love is created love and may be corrupted by sin.
All of creation is derived from God’s created and perfect love, but having this common and sustaining origin of created love, the parts affect the whole, which then affect the parts.
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salvation of souls. It is not a matter of God punishing our bad behavior, but of God assigning our disorder. This assignment may be made directly, or by extension, by the workings of nature for example. 1Cor 5:5 describes our evil being effected in this life, sparing condemnation in the next.
Just as goodness may be mediated into evil, evil may be
mediated into goodness. It is a matter of anger being morally mediated into patience, greed mediated into moderation and trust, indifference into piety. 160
The human soul is a spirit; the soul is a “form”, which gives function and purpose to one’s body and actions. A human person might be thought of as a soul to which the property of physicality had been added. One’s soul is the totality of one’s
immaterial attributes, and the operating principle of one’s
being.
Animals are considered to have a soul (though not
immortal as in humans), which governs their operations. The human soul has traditionally been partitioned into that part which governs moral activities (superior partition or spiritual soul), and that part which governs non-moral activities and the body, (inferior partition or material soul).
It is thought that the human soul is created by God using
both direct and indirect means. Those faculties of the soul which govern the body are created at conception by biological 160 The matter/energy equivalence is common science, with matter being a particular configuration of energy. Energy (gravity, light, etc), is immaterial and considered spirit, but not all spirit has a direct equivalence with matter. Moral spirit has an equivalence with virtue, action and events, not matter. Patience or anger has no direct physical form, but modifies the action of moral being (anything that has existence is being, and moral being is simply willed action). Moral being may also affect non-moral being. Irreverence may equate to drought, which is the degraded action of proper rain.
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means. Those faculties of the soul having a moral dimension are thought to be created directly by God. 161
The human soul is not static, but has the ability to “grow”, and change. We may know our soul by observing our will, which in turn governs our thoughts and actions. Intellect, will and memory are properties of our soul.
Injustice and suffering in our world may only be truly eradicated by restoring its damaged spiritual foundation, which is the cause of evil. To give assistance after the fact is good, but even better is to prevent the disorder by avoiding those moral acts that degrade the spiritual foundations of our world and its people. This prevention is difficult to observe, because we are attempting to observe that which is prevented.
There is not a lack of good ideas in our world, but these do not take root in hearts because of moral disorder (sin) which corrupts will, faith, brotherhood and reasoning. War, hatred, greed and even disease, catastrophe and natural disasters are caused by the ongoing damage to the spiritual foundation of our world.
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161 We mention multi-path metaphysics here. Metaphysics concerns itself with spiritual cause and effect. In proposing or defining the metaphysical path to an end, we too often assume only one path. For example we may say that God created Adam and Eve directly, or that God created Adam and Eve by way of evolution. The unlikely possibility exists that God used one method to create Adam and another to create Eve. It is possible that God will fulfil every good possibility during his eternal career, using every possible way, then create more projects.
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Appendix: Christology