The soul of heaven (Anima coeli)

(1) Does it exist?

We ask: does heaven have a soul, or not?
And we want to prove with ten reasons that heaven has a soul. Because if we ask what heaven is and what it consists of, we will see indications of the existence or non existence of its soul, and by asking why heaven exists, and the other questions, we will see indications of the right and wrong answers and whether the things investigated exist or not.

Heaven is the body that is more extended in size than any other body, and consists of goodness, greatness and the other principles as we have proved; and heaven exists so that natural purposes could be accomplished in things below that otherwise could not be accomplished, and it has the greatest quantity of natural corporeal goodness etc. than any other body and the same applies to its movement and other qualities. And the movement of heaven is the source of time within which all bodies are located; and its mode is the cause of the modes in corporeal things below, and the same with its instruments. And all these things are true, as we have proved above.

Considering the loftiness of heaven and of its natural parts, we see the indication that it has a soul because just as the Sun causes daylight with its brightness, so  does heaven with its soul cause the vegetative and sensitive souls to exist in things below. Because just as the Sun cannot cause daylight without sunlight, likewise heaven cannot cause souls to exist below if it does not have a soul, since the soul is the form and perfection of the body and a cause without any intrinsic perfection cannot cause any perfection its effect. Therefore heaven has a soul with which it causes perfection in the vegetative and sensitive souls in humans, trees and irrational animals.

A tree is a body and this body consists of form and matter; and the vegetative soul that is the soul of this tree, informs and completes the body's matter and thus the vegetative soul is the purpose and complement of the tree giving every part of the tree an appetite to vegetate. Similarly, heaven is a body composed of form and matter, because without form and matter it can neither be a body nor can it move. And if  heaven had no form to perfect the form of its body, a tree would be rated as more noble than heaven, or its own natural cause which is an impossibility. Therefore, heaven has a soul.

A tree is produced by its form acting on its matter and neither its form nor its matter have any other appetite than to effect the tree's substance. And in a dry tree with no vegetative power left, form no longer has any other appetite than to remain as it is in a body; but when a tree has vegetative power, it induces the tree's appetite to seek the purpose for which it exists and to multiply its natural likeness. Likewise, without a soul, heavenly form and matter would have no appetite other than to constitute a body. And heaven's goodness, magnitude, and other constituent parts would be defective, empty and idle without any natural appetite to act and bring things to completion; and heaven would have no natural movement per se and thus it would be an instrument devoid of any appetite while being used for the purpose of things below, just like a hammer is an instrument for making a nail and yet devoid of any movement or appetite of its own for striking the nail. Heaven must therefore have a soul that informs its bodily form to follow the purpose of its own parts and that of substances below.

There is a difference between essence and nature, because essence is involved in constituting being, as humanity constitutes human being; and the essence of the lion species constitutes leonine being; and igneity or essential fire constitutes fiery being. Nature, on the other hand, is involved in acting naturally, as human nature gives people an appetite to reproduce the human species, and leonine nature gives lions an appetite for reproducing their own species, and the nature of fire gives fire an appetite for heating things, and fire has no soul. And if heaven, as it moves fire to naturally heat things had no soul, it would be naturally unable to move fire in its natural course of action because the form and matter of heaven would simply have no other function than to constitute the body of heaven. But as heaven has a soul, it moves fire to express its nature by heating things and forming elemental compounds, and without the soul of heaven, fire could not naturally form a stone, or gold or other things like these, because its entire appetite would be confined to its own being and essence and would seek nothing else than just to be what it is.

Having proven that heaven has a soul, we now want to investigate and see what its soul is and what kind of soul it has. And first we want to prove that heaven has neither a vegetative, nor a sensitive, nor a rational soul.

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