Question Nine
Whether demons and spiritual souls can suffer and be tormented by infernal and corporeal fire
It is asked whether demons and separated spiritual souls can suffer and be tormented by corporeal infernal fire, and how.
To this it first seems that a negative answer should be given, from Augustine in Book XII On Genesis, chapter 42: “The agent ought to be nobler than the patient.” Corporeal fire is not more excellent than a spirit.
Likewise, Aristotle says in Book I On Generation that a body does not act except through contact. But a body cannot touch a spirit, because those things touch one another whose outermost parts are together, according to Book V of the Physics. A spirit, however, is indivisible and does not have an outermost part.
Likewise, according to Book I On Generation and Boethius in the book On the Two Natures, only those things act upon and suffer from one another which share in matter. But the soul and corporeal fire do not share in matter, because corporeal and spiritual things do not have a common matter, according to Book XI of the Metaphysics.
Likewise, everything that suffers receives something from the agent. Therefore, if the soul should suffer from corporeal fire, it will receive something from it. But everything received in something exists there according to the mode of the recipient. Therefore fire will be received spiritually in the soul. But spiritual things received by the soul are perfections of the soul and not punishments. Therefore fire received in the soul will not be its punishment, but rather a perfection.
Likewise, a corporeal agent does not act upon remote things except by acting upon the intermediaries. But souls and demons are sometimes outside the place of hell, since they sometimes appear to human beings in this world, and yet they are not immune from punishment. Nevertheless, we see that not all the things intermediate between them and the fire of hell suffer from it. Therefore it seems that the souls of the damned do not suffer from the corporeal fire of hell.
The same is proved by authority from Tertullian in the Apology, a book of defense, chapter 46, who says: “Therefore at the judgment bodies too will be presented again, because the soul alone cannot suffer anything without stable matter, that is, flesh; and all things ought to suffer from the judgment of God, souls not without flesh, because not without flesh did they merit, since they carried out all things within it.” Thus he.
And Lactantius says in Book VII, chapter 21: “Since souls have in themselves nothing solid and tangible, they cannot suffer force from solid and corporeal things. But because they live in spirits alone, they are tractable by God alone, whose power and substance are spiritual. Yet the sacred writings teach us how the impious will undergo punishments; for because they contracted sins in bodies, they will again be clothed in flesh, so that in bodies they may pay the penalty.” Thus he.
On the opposite side are the faith and Luke 16, speaking of the rich banqueter, of whom it is said that he was tormented by the fire of hell.
It seems that this question should be answered under this conclusion: a separated soul can suffer from corporeal fire and be tormented by it.
This is proved first by reason. The same account applies to separated souls as to demons. But demons suffer from corporeal fire, as is evident in Matthew 25: “Go, accursed ones, into the eternal fire that has been prepared for the devil and his angels.” Therefore separated souls too can suffer from corporeal fire.
Likewise, punishment ought to correspond to fault. But through fault and depraved concupiscence the soul subjected itself to the body. Therefore it is also just that in punishment it be subjected through sufferings to a corporeal nature.
Hence Gregory says in Book IV of the Dialogues: “If the devil and his angels, although they are incorporeal, are to be tormented by corporeal fire, what wonder is it if souls, before they receive their bodies, can be tormented by corporeal fire?” It is as though he said that it is no wonder.
It must therefore be held firmly that a separated soul can suffer, be afflicted, and be tormented by corporeal fire. But concerning the mode by which it can suffer, diverse persons have thought diverse things.
For some said that the soul suffers from the fire solely by seeing the fire. But this is false, because sight, as sight, is a perfection of the one seeing.
Others said that the soul suffers from the fire by imagining it as harmful to itself. But to hold this is heretical, because then the punishment of the fire of hell would not be real according to truth but apparent and imaginary.
Others said that the soul suffers from the fire by being altered - for example, by receiving from the fire heat, burning heat, dryness, or scorching. This is false, because such sufferings are sufferings of a body and not of a spirit.
Therefore Thomas, explaining the matter in Book IV, distinction 44, says that although the fire of hell is truly a corporeal fire, it nevertheless does not afflict souls corporeally - that is, so as to burn them after the manner of a body - but spiritually. It does so in four ways: by detaining, impeding, subjugating, and acting as an enemy.
First, by detaining or binding, and this is granted to the fire supernaturally. For although a corporeal thing can delimit an incorporeal spirit in place, and a spirit can be united to a body as a mover to the mobile or as that which is located to a place - for a spiritual creature is delimited in place in this way, namely by existing and operating in one place and not in another, in the manner in which incorporeal things are said to be in place - nevertheless a corporeal thing, and consequently the fire of hell, cannot naturally and by its own power detain circumscriptively an incorporeal spirit delimited in place, bound in one place so that it cannot turn itself toward other places.
For that which is of lesser power, such as a body of fire, cannot by its own power bind or hold that which is of greater power, namely a spirit and a soul. But the fire of hell has the power to hold and bind a soul and evil spirits insofar as it is an instrument of vindicating divine justice, so that it holds the spirit and soul bound in a certain manner. In this respect that fire is truly harmful to a spirit.
This is evident from an example. For we see that, by the power of certain words and with God permitting it, demons are bound to certain bodies, are driven down, and thus suffer. Therefore much more will the soul be driven down, bound, and made to suffer by corporeal fire as the instrument of vindicating divine justice.
In the second way, corporeal fire inflicts punishment upon the soul by delaying it or impeding it from the execution of its own will. For a stone is said to suffer when it is prevented from tending downward, and a human being is said to suffer when he is detained or bound so that he cannot go where he wishes. Thus the fire of hell as the instrument of divine justice, by delaying or impeding the soul from the execution of its own will - namely, so that the soul cannot operate where it wishes and according to what it wishes - is made exceedingly penal to the soul or spirit.
Thomas gives the example of blessed Augustine in Book XXI of The City of God, who says that just as the spiritual soul naturally conceives and receives the greatest love from conjunction with the body, so the soul bound to fire and detained by it conceives the greatest horror and pain from that detention.
Third, the fire of hell inflicts punishment upon the soul by subjugating it. For just as the soul or spirit is rewarded essentially by being joined to the superior God, so through being deprived of the divine vision it is joined and subjected to the lowest things, namely fire and the lowest and most abject place of the earth, and is constrained there. From this it is exceedingly afflicted, suffers, and is anguished.
Fourth, fire inflicts punishment upon souls and spirits by acting as an enemy. For when the soul sees and apprehends that harmful fire as an instrument of vindicating divine justice, and consequently as harmful and hostile to itself, it is afflicted and tormented by inward sadness. This is not because that fire harms the soul by the very fact that it is seen intellectually, since nothing is contrary and saddening to the intellect insofar as something is understood by it. Rather, it becomes saddening insofar as it is seen as repugnant to the will.
These matters are touched upon by Gregory in Book IV of the Dialogues, and by Thomas in Book IV of the Summa contra Gentiles, chapter 90, in Quodlibets II and III, and in the disputed questions On the Soul, question 21.
Now a response is given to the arguments on the opposite side.
To the first it is answered that although a spiritual soul is more noble absolutely than the corporeal fire of hell, nevertheless insofar as that fire is an instrument of divine justice by whose power it operates, it can be said, and can be made, more noble than the soul itself.
To the second it is said that although there is no corporeal or physical contact between the soul and a body, there is nevertheless between them a certain spiritual contact and contact of power. Thus the mover of the heaven, although spiritual, touches the heaven with spiritual contact by moving it. It touches also in the manner in which one who saddens is said to touch, as is said in Book I On the Heavens. This mode suffices for action.
To the third it is answered by denying the consequence and saying that the Philosopher and Boethius speak of that action through which the patient is transformed into the nature of the agent. The action of fire upon the soul, however, is not such an action.
To the fourth it is answered by denying the consequence. The reason is that the assumption is true of that which suffers from an agent by way of influx. But fire does not act upon the soul by way of influx, but by way of detaining, as has been said.
To the fifth it is answered that damned spirits are never now outside hell except by divine dispensation, either for the instruction or for the exercise of the elect. But wherever they may be outside hell, they nevertheless always see the fire of hell as prepared for them as punishment. Since that vision is immediately afflicting, as has been said, damned spirits are therefore afflicted by the fire of hell wherever they are, just as prisoners who are outside a prison are in a certain way afflicted by the prison when they see that they are condemned to it.
Hence, just as the glory of the elect is in no way diminished, either with respect to essential reward or with respect to accidental reward, even if some are outside the Empyrean Heaven - which in some way contributes to their glory - so the punishment of the damned is in no way diminished if any are placed outside hell for a time by divine dispensation.
And this is what the gloss says on James 3, “It sets on fire the wheel of birth”: “Wherever the devil may be, whether beneath the air or beneath the earth, he carries with him the torments of his flames.”
The objection proceeds, however, as if corporeal fire afflicted spirits immediately in the same way that it afflicts bodies.
The authorities are answered thus. First, in reply to Tertullian, it is denied that demons and souls without bodies cannot suffer from corporeal fire. For the power of God is so great that it can affect and chastise incorporeal things in whatever way he wills, either by himself or in fire, in a manner imperceptible and inexpressible to us.
And when it is said that souls merited nothing without the body and therefore ought to be tormented and punished in their own bodies, this is likewise denied. For, as has been said according to the mind of Thomas in the First Part of the Second Part, question 7, acts of the soul in merit or demerit precede the acts of bodies in two ways: with respect to time and with respect to value. With respect to time, the intention of doing good or doing evil is held before it is put into execution; and all the goodness ascribed to the exterior acts of bodies previously had its origin and form from the will.
To the statement of Lactantius it is also answered by denying Lactantius on this point, just as he is also denied in his other errors.