Soul Power: Edith Stein’s Meta-Phenomenological Construction of the Human Soul

Abstract

This essay will elucidate briefly the primary hermeneutical channels through which Edith Stein presents the human soul: (1) the form of the body; (2) the inner life of the person; (3) the substantial image of God the Father; and (4) a spiritual vessel (vas spirituale). Her account of the soul will be traced through her hybrid methodology in order to examine the relevance of her conceptions for today. The brazened claims of the Neo-atheist camp, e.g., Dawkins, Hitchens and Harris, will be countered directly on grounds of intellectual insufficiency and a truncated anthropology. I argue that Stein submits an integral and holistic anatomy of the human person—body, soul, and spirit—which is formative for a contemporary interdisciplinary inquiry into the question, what is it to be human?