Am I an illusion?

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It’s something that bugs me. If the I that I know is but ephemeral organic material and has mind born of such, and the soul is spirit which belongs to The Creator, God, then am I not a temporary custodian and so ‘I’ an illusion?

(Any answers but ideally based on Catholic beliefs please.)
 
we are creations of the creator, God. we are real. we have a body and a soul

The Nicene creed and the Apostles creed teach us this
 
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Thank you. I’ll refer to those.

I am talking about my idea of self, I feel that individuality is prized by the ego, and as such pulls us toward the carnal, away from union with God. I’ve read of some saints who spoke in terms of wanting Our Lord to act within them in a way whereby they ceased to exist as a self. Is this desirable, necessary for oneness?
 
we are called to forget our own will and do the will of God in our lives.

Thats a hard ask, and can take a life time to perfect, unless you are a Saint. and even then…they struggle.
 
I understand the immensity of that task, but is it a useful ideal which would guide us helpfully? It sounds as though it is.
 
St Augustine taught us that we are good, but we have the potential to be corrupted to evil.

Thats human nature. So we can move away from the will of God and do our own will. Or we can move towards God and try to live according to God’s will.
God would love us all to allow Him to shine through us, to others. 🙂
 
Lee1 said:
Any answers but ideally based on Catholic beliefs please.)
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I hope you don’t mind a viewpoint from an Anglican theologian (Jane Williams). I once heard Jane Williams discussing a question of the ‘loss’ of a person to dementia - where a person’s memory is lost (to the point of not recognising spouse or children), their faith may be lost, and their behaviours might be significantly disturbed (a previously loving person becoming aggressive). We know, biologically, these changes are caused by substantial loss of brain matter. We physically lose large amount of brain that used to make us who we were. To see a person being lost in this way can be distressing for those that care for and love them.

Jane Williams response was that we are all a product of God - He is the creator of all. All that we are and were is known by God. And so God can restore us, after death, to the fullness of ourselves. God holds our essential being, even as it is being ravaged by dementia.

If we think in this way (and I am not saying you should), then being a product of the mind of God makes us less physically substantial, but more metaphysically substantial. Being an ‘illusion’ of the mind of God, rather than being a totally independent ‘I’, may actually be rather good.
 
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I have some experience of dementia since my mother had it slowly alter her mind too, though she had been fine until ninety! At the time I believed that her soul was intact, quietly, in the background and once death of the body occurred it was released in wholeness, destiny unknown since she was not religious. I actually placated someone recently whose elderly wife has dementia by suggesting that she would be made whole again by Our Lord.

I agree, oneness with God would I think be what Jesus was referring to when he said we would experience life and to the full. Imagine having been subsumed we would be in unity and be allowed to experience widely. But is that Catholic belief I wonder?
 
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I thought of this relinquishing of self and I must be honest I found it frightening. I think this fear is the selfs defence and it’s very powerful but then so it should be since it has formerly served us well in our survival. To let God shine through us fully we would have to trust Him implicitly I think before we could let go, in the knowledge that rather than losing our little kingdoms we would gain immeasurably more.

I think the power in this ideal is immense because guided by it we can overcome all, our defence would be like fog to the sword.
 
Agreed, or step back and relax our white knuckle grip on the reigns.

Is this in line with Catholic teaching?
 
I’m thinking that the body is a tool, a vessel for the spirit and through which the spirit can develop in so many ways, once developed we return to the source of spirit if we are compatible with God and eventually we are resurrected in physical form once more and will not suffer death as through the grace of God we become immortal, body and spirit both.

So the I, the self is what in that scenario? This is my problem. I feel the self is an illusion.

Perhaps the soul retains something of the personality like a basket once emptied of rose petals retains the faint scent, for some time.
 
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Yes, er…thank you.

But at the risk of repeating myself I don’t want to be cloned! 😉
 
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Sorry. However these are just ideas for debate, if you don’t like them for any reason play that guitar so loud your tonsils rattle.

(Funny how autocorrect sometimes creates enigmatic text. Coincidence?)
 
You know the matrix idea was spawned in a mind subject to the will of God, I believe He influences through all media since He is omnipresent and omniscient.

Sometimes I speak to an atheist who tells me that science holds the answers not religion, but who I wonder is the greatest scientist of all? Also I am told that religion is an anachronism and should be consigned to the history books, how so, when God is eternal.
 
This someone else would have to be pretty old, we’ve been around for millennia. What happens if he died? Wouldnt we have heard him snoring? Why am I even considering it!
 
I agree, so …am I an illusion, I mean the self?

I’m converging on an opinion here but what is the Catholic view, is the personality perpetual in a soul who has been saved?
 
Lee1 said:
It’s something that bugs me. If the I that I know is but ephemeral organic material and has mind born of such, and the soul is spirit which belongs to The Creator, God, then am I not a temporary custodian and so ‘I’ an illusion?

(Any answers but ideally based on Catholic beliefs please.)
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The human being is created by the Holy Trinity as a spiritual essence compound with the body uniquely suited for the soul. The person exists when there is both body and soul (see St. Thomas Aquinas for elaboration). The human exists after death but the person is completed again with the resurrection of the body. We receive sanctifying grace and then participate, and continue by our cooperation with that grace to not sin, and then when in heaven will enjoy the Beatific Vision.

Catechism
460 The Word became flesh to make us " partakers of the divine nature ": 78 “For this is why the Word became man, and the Son of God became the Son of man: so that man, by entering into communion with the Word and thus receiving divine sonship, might become a son of God.” 79 “For the Son of God became man so that we might become God.” 80 “The only-begotten Son of God, wanting to make us sharers in his divinity, assumed our nature, so that he, made man, might make men gods.” 81

78 2 Pt 1:4.
79 St. Irenaeus, Adv. haeres. 3, 19, 1: PG 7/1, 939.
80 St. Athanasius, De inc. 54, 3: PG 25, 192B.
81 St. Thomas Aquinas, Opusc . 57, 1-4.
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1028 Because of his transcendence, God cannot be seen as he is, unless he himself opens up his mystery to man’s immediate contemplation and gives him the capacity for it. The Church calls this contemplation of God in his heavenly glory “the beatific vision”:
How great will your glory and happiness be, to be allowed to see God, to be honored with sharing the joy of salvation and eternal light with Christ your Lord and God, . . . to delight in the joy of immortality in the Kingdom of heaven with the righteous and God’s friends. 604
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604 St. Cyprian, Ep . 58,10,1:CSEL 3/2,665.
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Thank you, that’s heartening and illuminating.

So in becoming like God we cease to have any residue of our earthly personalities do you think? This is what I’m calling the self, ‘I’.
 
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