The human being is a soul within a body, the junction point of the two halves of divine creation, body and spirit. He is (in a true sense) the man in the middle. Aquinas’s vision of creation turned Aristotle’s ordered nature into a Neoplatonist hierarchy in which “a wondrous linkage of beings” connects each and every creature to its Divine Creator. For Aquinas, every link in the chain marks a distinct advance toward divine perfection over the one just below.
