Are our bodies like prison cells?

[Robert_Sock]

While in the prison-house of this body, I acknowledge my need of two things -food and light.
-The Imitation of Christ, Book 1, Chapter11

 

[Robert_Sock]

"The death of the just: Death will reach everyone, the good and the bad; but the destiny of each one is quite different. The just man sees himself in this valley of tears as a prisoner, serving a very hard term. He considers himself a slave in this world, suffering an extremely distressing servitude. He regards himself a sailor caught in a horrible storm. And as death means an end of his confinement, an end of his slavery, and is the port of his salvation, he ceases not to cry with David, ‘Woe is me that my sojourning is prolonged!’ (Ps. 119:5)… He ceases not to ask with the Apostle’… Who shall deliver me from the body of this death? (Rom. 7:24)”
-The Golden Key to Heaven, by Saint Anthony Mary Claret

 

[Jon_S_1]

While in the prison-house of this body, I acknowledge my need of two things -food and light.
-The Imitation of Christ, Book 1, Chapter11

It is very Plato like to separate the good soul from the evil body.

That is not the Christian view though. We were created spirit and body and at the final judgement we will have new bodies. It is important to understand that our bodies are part of the perfect uniqueness God created us in following his image.

Our sinfulness is our prison.

 

[Mumbles140]

It is very Plato like to separate the good soul from the evil body.

That is not the Christian view though. We were created spirit and body and at the final judgement we will have new bodies. It is important to understand that our bodies are part of the perfect uniqueness God created us in following his image.

Our sinfulness is our prison.

Precisely - sin is the prison. When we break away from sin (not being sinless, as Christ or the Blessed Virgin, but striving to live without sin as best we can), we can do great things with our bodies - just look at the corporal works of mercy.

 

[dshix]

It is very Plato like to separate the good soul from the evil body.

That is not the Christian view though. We were created spirit and body and at the final judgement we will have new bodies. It is important to understand that our bodies are part of the perfect uniqueness God created us in following his image.

Our sinfulness is our prison.

Yes.

We are body-soul beings, and as such we are made to be complete with both our body and our soul.

 

[Nita]

As humans, it is through our bodies that we are able to communicate our souls to/with other humans. We would be very lonely without a body!!! Alone in the world you might say; unable to see any other human, talk to one, embrace one, …
The body we anticipate being freed from is the one in its fallen state - concupiscent, mortal, susceptible to pain. It’s not the body as such that we wish to be without, but the rather all the flaws present in it in this fallen state. We anxiously await having a risen immortal body.

 

[Lancer]

We can like and enjoy these nice metaphors…images type language…very helpful in some aspects of prayer and meditation…but must remember that they are not precise theological or doctrinal words/language.

Catechism…is the “go-to-source” for precise doctrinal and theological words/language.

Pax Christi

II. “BODY AND SOUL BUT TRULY ONE”

362 The human person, created in the image of God, is a being at once corporeal and spiritual. The biblical account expresses this reality in symbolic language when it affirms that "then the LORD God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being."229 Man, whole and entire, is therefore willed by God.

363 In Sacred Scripture the term “soul” often refers to human life or the entire human person.230 But “soul” also refers to the innermost aspect of man, that which is of greatest value in him,231 that by which he is most especially in God’s image: “soul” signifies the spiritual principle in man.

364 The human body shares in the dignity of “the image of God”: it is a human body precisely because it is animated by a spiritual soul, and it is the whole human person that is intended to become, in the body of Christ, a temple of the Spirit:232

Man, though made of body and soul, is a unity. Through his very bodily condition he sums up in himself the elements of the material world. Through him they are thus brought to their highest perfection and can raise their voice in praise freely given to the Creator. For this reason man may not despise his bodily life. Rather he is obliged to regard his body as good and to hold it in honor since God has created it and will raise it up on the last day. 233

365 The unity of soul and body is so profound that one has to consider the soul to be the “form” of the body:234 i.e., it is because of its spiritual soul that the body made of matter becomes a living, human body; spirit and matter, in man, are not two natures united, but rather their union forms a single nature.

366 The Church teaches that every spiritual soul is created immediately by God - it is not “produced” by the parents - and also that it is immortal: it does not perish when it separates from the body at death, and it will be reunited with the body at the final Resurrection.235

367 Sometimes the soul is distinguished from the spirit: St. Paul for instance prays that God may sanctify his people “wholly”, with “spirit and soul and body” kept sound and blameless at the Lord’s coming.236 The Church teaches that this distinction does not introduce a duality into the soul.237 “Spirit” signifies that from creation man is ordered to a supernatural end and that his soul can gratuitously be raised beyond all it deserves to communion with God.238

368 The spiritual tradition of the Church also emphasizes the heart, in the biblical sense of the depths of one’s being, where the person decides for or against God.239

 

[surritter]

Our bodies are not intrinsically prisons, but that quote is true in a way because in this life we are stuck with “limp” bodies, so to speak. It’s called concupiscence, and the constant temptations do constrain us in a prison-like way.

But recall that one day that pseudo-prison will fade away and we hope to be in Heaven with are true, perfected bodies.

 

[Robert_Sock]

The physical world is constrained to be the lowest of the four worlds in Jewish mysticism. The 3 remaining higher-worlds are all spiritual.

 

[GEddie]

Absolutely not.

Prison is a restriction of movement. Your body enables movement. And sight, and smell, and even what we think of as mind!

I see this all the time, people wishing to become pure spirits. That is not Church teaching and does not even make sense. Without your human body, you’d be a ball of nothing without the ability to see, move, speak, smell or even know or remember (knowledge requires memory, which requires a head to reside in).

ICXC NIKA

 

[Robert_Sock]

Absolutely not.

Prison is a restriction of movement. Your body enables movement. And sight, and smell, and even what we think of as mind!

I see this all the time, people wishing to become pure spirits. That is not Church teaching and does not even make sense. Without your human body, you’d be a ball of nothing without the ability to see, move, speak, smell or even know or remember (knowledge requires memory, which requires a head to reside in).

ICXC NIKA

Is God a “ball of nothing” too?

 

[GEddie]

Is God a “ball of nothing” too?

God is infinite; we are not. The infinite would seem not to reside in a measurable solid like the human body. (But God even managed that, with our LORD!)

Because we are finite, our “being” is done in relation to the infinity surrounding us. For which we need eyes to see, heads to know, and limbs to move around in.

ICXC NIKA

 

[Robert_Sock]

God is infinite; we are not. The infinite would seem not to reside in a measurable solid like the human body. (But God even managed that, with our LORD!)

Because we are finite, our “being” is done in relation to the infinity surrounding us. For which we need eyes to see, heads to know, and limbs to move around in.

ICXC NIKA

Nothing do I fear more than coming back to life in a physical body. I’ll take my chances being a “ball of nothing.”

 

[GEddie]

Nothing do I fear more than coming back to life in a physical body. I’ll take my chances being a “ball of nothing.”

And what I’d do to remain embodied!

I long to leap ALIVE into our LORD’s arms and be PHYSICALLY held by Him!

I REALLY do NOT understand what you have against your body!

ICXC NIKA

 

[Robert_Sock]

And what I’d do to remain embodied!

I long to leap ALIVE into our LORD’s arms and be PHYSICALLY held by Him!

I REALLY do NOT understand what you have against your body!

ICXC NIKA

If you had just one panic attack or seen someone die from cancer, I think you might change your mind.

 

[GEddie]

If you had just one panic attack or seen someone die from cancer, I think you might change your mind.

I don’t think so.

Those are horrible because in the first, you think you are going to die, in the second, you know somebody else is. In each case, it is death itself that is the horror.

ICXC NIKA

 

[Robert_Sock]

I don’t think so.

Those are horrible because in the first, you think you are going to die, in the second, you know somebody else is. In each case, it is death itself that is the horror.

ICXC NIKA

When I have one of my panic attacks I never fear dying, but I wish I could die.

 

[tonyrey]

Your question reminds me of the two prisoners: one saw bars and the other saw stars.
But you are looking inwards - and perhaps reaching a similar conclusion to Hamlet:

“What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how
infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express and
admirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like
a god! the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals—and yet,
to me, what is this quintessence of dust?”

 

[Qoeleth]

It is very Plato like to separate the good soul from the evil body.

That is not the Christian view though. We were created spirit and body and at the final judgement we will have new bodies. It is important to understand that our bodies are part of the perfect uniqueness God created us in following his image.

Our sinfulness is our prison.

Precisely - sin is the prison. When we break away from sin (not being sinless, as Christ or the Blessed Virgin, but striving to live without sin as best we can), we can do great things with our bodies - just look at the corporal works of mercy.

Yes.

We are body-soul beings, and as such we are made to be complete with both our body and our soul.

The following saints and sages describe the body as a prison:
Plato, Cicero, Tertullian, Plotinus, Buddha, St. Ambrose, St. Getrude the Great, St. Francis of Assisi, St. Bonaventure, St. Bernard, St. Bruno, Blessed Guigo I, St. Innocent III, St. John of the Cross, Thomas a Kempis, Blessed Augustine Baker, etc., etc.

The Psalmist: “Who will deliver my soul from this prison?”
Auctor Libris Sapientiae: “The perishable body weighs down the immortal soul”
St. Paul: “Who will free my from this body of death?”

Clearly, the body forces us to eat, and hence to work, and to be avaricious. It gives us sexual desire, and hence corrupts the soul.

Whether or not the body is a prison, it is certainly experienced as one by many. It is an important image. It is particular important to those who are afflicted with poverty, imprisonment, physical sickness, etc.

Thinking of the body as a prison has the following advantages: 1) it removes fear of death, and regard it is as blessing, 2) it focuses on eternal and heavenly things as the true source of value, 3) it orients one towards accepting suffering as a matter of course, without blaming God, knowing that, in some way, the wretchedness of our earthly exile is a just retribution for our sins, 4) it introduces a good argument against suicide- knowing that it is morally wrong to let ourselves out of this prison.

Personally, I always prayer that my soul will be delivered from this earthly prison, as soon as God deems it that I have paid the price of my sins and completed my assigned duties. Then, at last, the soul will fly free from this valley of tears and this dungeon of blood and filth, into the Heaven of inaccessible light.

 

[Robert_Sock]

The following saints and sages describe the body as a prison:
Plato, Cicero, Tertullian, Plotinus, Buddha, St. Ambrose, St. Getrude the Great, St. Francis of Assisi, St. Bonaventure, St. Bernard, St. Bruno, Blessed Guigo I, St. Innocent III, St. John of the Cross, Thomas a Kempis, Blessed Augustine Baker, etc., etc.

The Psalmist: “Who will deliver my soul from this prison?”
Auctor Libris Sapientiae: “The perishable body weighs down the immortal soul”
St. Paul: “Who will free my from this body of death?”

Clearly, the body forces us to eat, and hence to work, and to be avaricious. It gives us sexual desire, and hence corrupts the soul.

Whether or not the body is a prison, it is certainly experienced as one by many. It is an important image. It is particular important to those who are afflicted with poverty, imprisonment, physical sickness, etc.

Thinking of the body as a prison has the following advantages: 1) it removes fear of death, and regard it is as blessing, 2) it focuses on eternal and heavenly things as the true source of value, 3) it orients one towards accepting suffering as a matter of course, without blaming God, knowing that, in some way, the wretchedness of our earthly exile is a just retribution for our sins, 4) it introduces a good argument against suicide- knowing that it is morally wrong to let ourselves out of this prison.

Personally, I always prayer that my soul will be delivered from this earthly prison, as soon as God deems it that I have paid the price of my sins and completed my assigned duties. Then, at last, the soul will fly free from this valley of tears and this dungeon of blood and filth, into the Heaven of inaccessible light.

Nice overview.