Hayagrīva: This is a point where Catholic doctrine seems to differ. Aquinas did not believe in a soul per say, or pure soul per say, as divorced from a particular form. God did not simply create a soul. He created an angelic soul, or the soul of a demigod, a human soul, an animal soul, a plant soul, etc. He believed that simply to create a pure soul, a being, would be almost the same as creating God Himself.
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Hayagrīva: So again we see the Christian conception that God created the soul out of nothing.
Prabhupāda: No. The soul is created and... Actually not created. Soul is existing along with God, just like the sparks of fire is existing with the fire. But the difference between the two fire is that the sparks may be separated from the big fire, and when it is separated, is loses its illumination. Similarly, an individual soul is already there. The master is there and the servants are there, eternally. Just like the body is there, the parts of the body are also there. We cannot say that the parts of the body is separately created. As soon as the body is there, the fingers of the body are there, the other limbs and parts of the body are all there. The soul is never created or never dead. It is explained in the Bhāgavata, na jāyate vā mriyate vā. Soul has neither creation nor death. It appears, because the soul has accepted this material body, with the end of this material body it appears that somebody is dead. But he is not dead. He simply transfers from this body to another body, and when he is liberated, then he hasn't got to accept any more material body. Then in his original, spiritual body he goes back to home, back to Godhead. So actually the soul is never created. It is always existing with God, and this is nice that if it is accepted the soul is created, then God is also Supreme Soul—the question may be raised that He is also created. So that is not the fact. God is eternal, and His part and parcels are also eternal. The only difference is that God never accepts this material body, but the individual soul, being small particle, it may be sometimes he succumbs by the material energy.
Hayagrīva: So..., but the soul is eternally existing with God in some form?
Prabhupāda: Yes.
Hayagrīva: Well that..., well then maybe this is saying the same thing. "By its nature the form of the soul is the form of the body. It is that form incorruptible."
Prabhupāda: No. The form..., material body is imitation, is false. Real body is the spiritual body. Because the spiritual body has form, the coating of the spiritual body by matter takes a form, as I have already explained, that the shirt and coat originally has no form, but when the shirt and coat is cut by the tailor according the form of the man, it takes a form. So actually this material form is illusion. It is not form. It, it takes the form, and when it is old enough, no more use, it again comes to the original position, earth. "Dust thou art, dust thou beist." This form is made by the material nature. It is just like a machine. Kṛṣṇa says in the Bhagavad-gītā, bhrāmayan sarva-bhūtāni yantrārūḍhāni māyayā (BG 18.61). The soul has its own form, but he is given a machine, a particular machine, which is this body, and therefore he enjoys by wandering throughout the whole universe in different conditions of life.