Can a Human Soul–by Itself–Perceive Its Surroundings?

On its own, we know that a human soul does not receive information as it does when it is united to a human body. That’s why we speak of a human person as a body-soul composite.

How the soul is aware of its surroundings after death, or in an out-of-body, is somewhat speculative. However, that a soul is aware of its surroundings—or state of being—is affirmed by Scripture in particular and Church teaching otherwise.

Apart from Mary and Jesus, the God-man, there are no men or women in heaven who have bodies. And yet the Church says that those disembodied just souls in heaven enjoy the wonders of the beatific vision, of being united with God in heaven (CCC 1028; 1032; 1045). And we can be sure that such enjoyment involves a soul’s fundamental powers: knowing and loving, as the great lay apologist Frank Sheed would affirm.

In addition, the Letter to the Hebrews speaks of the souls of the just—the assembly of the first-born who are enrolled in heaven—as somehow aware of their heavenly surroundings, given their citizenship in heaven (Heb. 12:23-24), for what would heaven be if we couldn’t enjoy it?

Ditto with the elders who fall down before the Lamb in heaven (Rev. 5:8).