Death
as the Separation of Body and Soul
The dogma of the universality of
death (prescinding for the moment from the reason assigned for this universality)
describes the phenomenon of death from the outside, as it was, specifying
merely the extent of the occurrence. A second proposition of faith, however,
comes closer to the essence of death, even if it still considers human death
from the point of view of his character as an organic being, and not from his
specifically human, that is, personal essence. From this point of view, the
traditional Catholic formula of preaching describes death as the separation of
body and soul. This description is not as a matter of fact explicitly contained
in Scripture itself. When, for example, the Old Testament (which, of course,
knows of human survival after death), speaks of the return of the spirit in
death to God (Eccl. 12:7) and of the return of the body to the earth, it
actually affirms explicitly nothing more than that God withdraws his
life-giving power, and man descends into the grave. IT does not formally state
(nor, of course, does it deny) that the individual spiritual soul is separate
from its body. The biblical expression, “to be dissolved” resounds in our ears,
yet it should be recalled that this phrase does not actually translate the
original with complete fidelity. The word used in the passages referred to
(Phil 1:23; 2 Tim 4:6), in fact means “to set forth.” (Karl Rahner, On the
Theology of Death [2d ed.; trans. WH. Henkey: New York: Herder and Herder,
1965], 16)
