Help, tragedy, neurology and the soul

[Holdingontohope]

Hi everyone, I really need some help please. I’m barely hanging onto my rational believe in God, and I don’t know if I will get it back. A few months ago, my family experienced a tragedy. My father was helping me walk, (I have physical disability) When we both slipped and fell because of the snow. We twisted in the air down our front steps. Maybe he twisted deliberately to protect me but I Will never know. He sustained massive brain damage. The head neurosurgeon said that his brain was at a 3.5 out of a 15 point scale, Basically meaning very bad news. He spent 18 days in the hospital, most of it in an induced coma. He never woke up. In the end we took him off the ventilator because that is what his power of attorney directed us to do. I feel devastated. I feel tremendous guilt, Doubt that there is a God, And really really doubt The existence of an immortal soul. I did some research on neurology, And I’m sure you guys are familiar with the hard problem of consciousness, And the theory that the mind and brain are the same thing. Trouble is, I now think those materialists may be correct. How do you exist without a functioning brain and body? There is the theory that the mind and brain are not the same thing, That the mind is really the thug driving in the car a.k.a. the soul, And just can’t express itself when the brain has been severely damaged . This would appear to fit with theology , But how realistic is it? Many neurologists have done experiments with things like the "God helmet"which gives people mystical experiences. This might suggest that every vision is really a hallucination. I have even run across theories that that St. Paul and St. Joan of arc were epileptic, And the disciples were hallucinating when they had the resurrection experiences. I’ve run across theories that the resurrection story could be made up. many atheists think that religion itself may be a construct of the mind an evolutionary or social construct. They say thoughts and emotions are just chemicals, And death is the end. The afterlife is just made up. I really don’t want to believe them, But my daddy’s brain was so damaged that they could be right. He wasn’t even there. It felt like no God was in control during the accident, And to make matters worse, I had just prayed to God to spare my parents from tragedy. The very fact this happened felt like no God had heard my prayer. What kind of loving father would allow my father to be taken away from my family in this way? While he was helping me, and when he knew that I would feel tremendous guilt and doubt because of the accident? When you have a disability, you’re supposed to be able to trust that The person helping you Will not get hurt and ultimately die from the injuries, Much less your own father. When I google “what happens after you die” There are a lot of atheists out there, who basically again, say that heaven is made up, And that everything you are is in the brain. Neurologists can stimulate parts of the brain to initiate experiences, and can even do an experiment in which, by putting a special helmet on the head , They can predict correctly your choices from options on the computer screen, therefore showing that there might be a correlation between brain chemicals and free will. Which there obviously is. Think of people on heavy medication. I would like to believe that my dad has an immortal soul, And in the existence of God but how can someone exist without a brain or body, Especially if the two are really correlated, As they appear to be? I’ve even looked into things like near-death experiences and deathbed visions all of which appear to have a scientific explanation. So, my question is this: are we just deceiving ourselves given what we know about modern neuroscience? Again, I’m familiar with the driver in the car analogy, But this really might be an unrealistic explanation, Especially if our thoughts and emotions are chemicals as is often claimed. I’m really scared, sad and don’t know how to gain my believe in God back after what I have experienced. I just think believing in an immortal soul is unrealistic, And that the atheists are right : death is
end. I don’t want to think this way, but I think I’m being realistic. Could anyone help me please? How do I regain faith and trust in God and does anyone know when the pain will start to get better? Thank you and God bless everyone

 

[Bahman]

All I can offer is that the death is not the end. The mystery of life and death cannot be resolved in scientific framework. Simply, no one knows. I wish that your father and you rest in peace.

 

[tawny]

Praying to the Holy Spirit to give you guidance, direction, strength, fortitude & wisdom in your time of need.

 

[Holdingontohope]

Thank You bouth so much

 

[Povero]

I had an NDE at age five and everything told me came to pass, without that foreknowledge I would not have survived.

Science is quite young but, oddly, it is presently proving the existence of a Creator, a Single Action. You are too young to have read most of the literature and scientific studies done regarding entanglement, non-local consciousness, and the proof of the soul by REAL scientists.

Your father had an accident. In helping you, he was injured and ultimately died. Your problem with faith is not about God, it is about this single event for which you feel great guilt, even though it was not in your control. I suggest you find a Roman Catholic grief counselor who can help you sort through this.

Terrible tragedy such as this always brings doubt. That is the enemy’s intention. You will recover from this doubt, I sense that. But you need to be in prayer, to receive the Sacraments, to go to Mass and Adoration whenever possible, and to speak honestly with a real counselor. It’s often hard to find a parish priest who is equipped to answer the really BIG QUESTIONS but you never know, there might be one in your diocese.

I’ll tell you a story from my past when I was 30: I read Julian Jaymes’ “The Origin of Consciousness in the Bicameral Mind”. It freaked me out. It challenged everything I thought I knew and what I had been taught about the brain, consciousness, faith, etc. Don’t ask me HOW this happened but somehow I found Jesuit psychiatrist in NYC! He never saw ANYONE but priests and religious, yet he saw me three times. And his response to my panic put to rest, perpetually, any doubt I have regarding a Creator. Turn to Jesus. In today’s gospel, He asks us to take His hand. I have taken His hand, it has saved me as I endured the greatest tragedy a Human can. Take His hand.

 

[Prodigal_Son]

Two points:

(1) When I was six, my father got in a car accident, which led to a closed head injury. He barely survived, and has never been the same since – completely different personality, and many OCD-like symptoms. You have my sympathy, and (at some level, at least) I know what you’re going through.

(2) Let me see if I can help you think through some of the mind/body philosophy involved. According to Christian theology, human beings are both body and soul. We are not just soul. It is impossible for a human being to exist without a body – the materialists are right about that.

But what of the resurrection and eternal life? If you read the Bible, you’ll see that, in the resurrection, we have bodies. We are “awakened” to life. There is not the slightest hint, in the Bible, that we will spend time as disembodied souls. This is not part of the Christian belief system; rather, it is a superstition. It’s Plato, not Christ.

So you see, we die, in these bodies, and are awakened (immediately, I suppose) to life in new bodies. In both sets of bodies, I would guess that the brain is just as critical. So when I look at my father, and watch him fail to do some of the simplest things because of his brain injury, it is literally because my father is not all there. But in heaven, he will be all there, since his brain will be restored.

Hope this helps, and I’m open to fielding more specific questions.

 

[Holdingontohope]

Thank you so much, And I’m sorry for The tragedy you went through. Really sorry. thanks for the advice. It is sound. You mind if I ask? Are you sure the NED was when you were dead? A lot of the scientific Studies that I have read other than parapsychology, Claims that NEDs are in The brain somehow. Scientists Who are not parapsychologists or Dr. Alexander point out that people always come back from them therefore, they were never actually dead . every NED is different, as a group, they Don’t necessarily conform to a religious belief also people point out it is very difficult to tell when the NED occurred, Meaning that the brain might have not had measurable brain activity, But could have been highly active. Or that the person had the experience when waking up or because they thought they were dying. Point being, they all return and they have functioning brains, Whereas my dad’s was falling apart.
Also, not everyone who is near death has one. Shouldn’t they be universal if they were evidence of the afterlife?
I don’t mean to be critical or judgmental of your experience. I’ve read a lot about them and they seem comforting and reassuring. But scientists always have an explanation for them what’s your take? Guessing you think the scientific explanations fall short of the mark . Do you mind if I ask you what it was like? I’ve never met anyone who had one before. Thank you for all your prayers and advice. I’m sure it will be very helpful God bless.

 

[Holdingontohope]

Thank you so much . I’m so sorry about your dad question: what you said makes sense about the bodily resurrection. But the Catholic Church also teaches that we have a soul that goes up to heaven. Is this wrong in radiation to reality? I mean about the mind-body duality? CCC and the Bible were written hundreds of years before anything was known about neurology, After all do you think we just go to sleep until a bodily resurrection? Thanks so much

 

[Prodigal_Son]

Thank you so much . I’m so sorry about your dad question: what you said makes sense about the bodily resurrection. But the Catholic Church also teaches that we have a soul that goes up to heaven. Is this wrong in radiation to reality? I mean about the mind-body duality? CCC and the Bible were written hundreds of years before anything was known about neurology, After all do you think we just go to sleep until a bodily resurrection? Thanks so much

I don’t think the Catholic Church teaches that the soul – apart from the body – goes to heaven. I could be wrong, but I’d be interested to see documents that say such a thing.

I know it is the common way people *interpret *the teaching, but I think that has more to do with pagan and neo-pagan accretions to the faith, rather than the New Testament.

Aristotle and Aquinas taught that the soul was the *form *of the body. Since it is, I think, impossible for a form to exist without matter, the form must be instantiated in a body, in Heaven.

 

[Prodigal_Son]

A little more research turns up this:

iep.utm.edu/resurrec/

It’s a nice summary. It has some philosophical jargon, though.

 

[Holdingontohope]

I think you’re interpretation makes more sense given what we know about consciousness and the brain, or think we know, But I’m almost sure that’s not what the CCC says which could mean that the CCC is incorrect ? I am almost sure that what you’re talking about is the second coming, Since Heaven isn’t a physical place. But what do I know? I’m having trouble with the soul existing anyway given what I saw and experienced. So I think the easiest make me more correct when they say that nothing existed after death because nothing exists before we are born. Just because people have an intrinsic value doesn’t mean their soul is immortal. If immortality were actually true, wouldn’t there be more reporting’s of souls coming back to tell their family members about it to reassure them? Not trying to devalue Christianity here. It’s beautiful and I hope it’s true. I just can’t see how right now. Love to all

 

[Prodigal_Son]

I think you’re interpretation makes more sense given what we know about consciousness and the brain, or think we know, But I’m almost sure that’s not what the CCC says which could mean that the CCC is incorrect ? I am almost sure that what you’re talking about is the second coming, Since Heaven isn’t a physical place.

I just looked up the passage in the CCC: vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p123a12.htm

I don’t see any reference that Heaven is a “holding area” that we wait in until the Second Coming. That may be the common view, but I don’t think it is taught dogmatically. Once we realize that God is outside time, I don’t see any reason to think that Heaven and the Second Coming are separate in any way.

It’s true that the CCC says that the soul immediately goes to judgment. But this does not preclude the body’s coming with it – or rather, a reconstituted body.

I’m having trouble with the soul existing anyway given what I saw and experienced.

Understood. But on Aristotle’s view, for example, the soul’s being the “form” of the body just means that the soul is what all the different manifestations of YOUR body have in common. There’s nothing fundamentally immaterial about it. Here’s the question: do you have something in common with the organism your mother gave birth to with your name? If so, then that is your “form” or “soul”. And *this *is what God can reinstantiate in Heaven.

So I think the easiest make me more correct when they say that nothing existed after death because nothing exists before we are born. Just because people have an intrinsic value doesn’t mean their soul is immortal. If immortality were actually true, wouldn’t there be more reporting’s of souls coming back to tell their family members about it to reassure them?

If souls constantly “came back” and talked to us, then there would be no reason for faith – we would *know *about the afterlife.

 

[Holdingontohope]

Sorry for the spelling errors. What I mean is that I think the easiest might be more wrecked in the materialistic view of the body and soul and that nothing exists after death, Purely because of the trauma I have just been through. I feel betrayed by God. Like God was in there during the accident, So I don’t trust the Christ will take care of my dad. I’m not even sure if Chris is up there in heaven right now or if he is dead. If the atheists are right there is no God watching over us and there is no soul or bodily resurrection did we have only the words of the Bible, Which may have been written 50 to 80 years after the death of Christ although I realize there were oral traditions Long before that. For that matter, people happen practicing Islam and A myriad of the other religions as well. How do we know they aren’t all made up, Given what we think we know about the brain? So is Your review them that we go to sleep until Christ comes to Bodily resurrect us? How come we pray to The Saints then? I understand your point about having faith, but I don’t right now because of the trauma. It really didn’t seem like a loving thing to Allow my father to fall in my arms and get badly badly hurt. He was just trying to help me. I’m not sure how I regain faith in God and my father said he would haunt me. He was probably joking or being nonliteral, But the very fact that he is not doing it makes me doubt the existence of God. You would think, given the dramatic situation that God would from me a bone if he want me to have faith again. My dad died because he simply sliped, After I had prayed directly to prevent him from dying tragically. After I pray that prayer, I thought I had received reassurance i’m God that my parents would be okay for a very long time. So it feels like a betrayal or that he simply is not there, And this whole world is an accident. I’m sorry if I sound like a heretic. I just don’t know how to check on him to make sure he’s okay. And I think the atheist maybe right. he may simply not exist because he didn’t exist before he was conceived. Thank you for your patience with me.

 

[Linusthe2nd]

Hi everyone, I really need some help please. I’m barely hanging onto my rational believe in God, and I don’t know if I will get it back. A few months ago, my family experienced a tragedy…

.

You are experiencing emotional trauma. Believe me, time heals all wounds. Your case is more profound because of the close bond you had with your father. But the fault was not yours, you had nothing to do with it. God simply called your Father home.

It is not good to be reading some of the things you have been reading, it is not good to watch some of the things you have been watching on YouTube. The devil is very clever, he will attack all your weaknesses, intellectual and physical. The people you have been reading and watching will, consciously or unconsciously, lead you astray because they have a " world view " to defend. And it is clear you do not have the intellectual armor to answer them - and they are very clever.

The soul is the source and " motor " all the body’s functions, including the intellectual. But we are told by many scientists and theologians that when the body is injured severely, the faculties of the soul become dormant or may become dormant. They are there but not active. The brain is the interface between the body and the soul. If it is damaged, the interface " short circuits " so to speak.

Upon death the soul lives on, and waits for the resurrection as the Church tells us, as Jesus told us. How God arranges this we don’t know, we just know it is so. We know this because the soul is a spirit and spirits do not die. They do not die because there is nothing in them to decompose, they have no matter which can be destroyed.

So your Dad lives on. You can look foreward to seeing him again.

Linus2nd

So pray and ignore all the negative thoughts.

 

[Prodigal_Son]

Sorry for the spelling errors. What I mean is that I think the easiest might be more wrecked in the materialistic view of the body and soul and that nothing exists after death, Purely because of the trauma I have just been through. I feel betrayed by God. Like God was in there during the accident, So I don’t trust the Christ will take care of my dad. I’m not even sure if Chris is up there in heaven right now or if he is dead.

The only place you can address these worries is before the cross, on your knees in prayer. Complain to God, yell at Him, express your doubts and your anger – let it all out. And then listen. Open your heart and listen.

So is Your review them that we go to sleep until Christ comes to Bodily resurrect us? How come we pray to The Saints then?

Good question. My answer is that the saints are outside time, just as God is outside time. If it isn’t nonsense for God to timelessly answer prayer, then it isn’t nonsense for the saints to timelessly answer prayer.

I understand your point about having faith, but I don’t right now because of the trauma. It really didn’t seem like a loving thing to Allow my father to fall in my arms and get badly badly hurt.

Have you ever looked at the Pieta? Here is Mary, holding her son in her arms – the son that died so that she might live. Jesus saved her life, and she is holding him, desperately wanting him to be alive. Her heart is filled with confusion, since she thought that he was the Messiah – but here he is, dead in her arms.

You have lived the Pieta. I did too, brother. My dad had his accident on his way home from buying my family groceries, from taking care of us. He loved me to his death.

Your father died that you might have life, and have it abundantly. Pray for his intercession. Pray that God might give you hope.

If God made a world where fathers would never die to save their sons, then God would have made a world without heroes. Obviously God’s allowing this is angering, and I cannot even imagine your pain. But your hero died so you could live. Don’t look to the critics of Christ for your life. Go straight to Christ. Yell at him. Cry to him. But allow him to show you that he is not abandoning you.

So it feels like a betrayal or that he simply is not there, And this whole world is an accident. I’m sorry if I sound like a heretic. I just don’t know how to check on him to make sure he’s okay. And I think the atheist maybe right. he may simply not exist because he didn’t exist before he was conceived. Thank you for your patience with me.

Don’t worry about sounding like a heretic. Your feelings are valid, all of them. As far as I’m concerned, God had better have an awfully good explanation.

Don’t assume that he doesn’t, though!

 

[Aloysium]

Your story made me very sad:
remembering the people I have lost, no longer to hold them again in this world,
thinking about you and all of us, living out what we encounter in this great mystery that is our life.

If you love and care, you are weak and suffer. That weakness, though reveals itself to be strength because it reaches into the Core of existence, to Christ, the Word of God, who is love.

It will be difficult without your father, as it was to see him suffer, but you will be together again.
I join with others to pray for you and your dad.

 

[Counterpoint]

I don’t want to think this way, but I think I’m being realistic. Could anyone help me please? How do I regain faith and trust in God and does anyone know when the pain will start to get better?

I’m sorry for your loss. Unfortunately, there are no simple answers. All we can do is share our personal perspectives and experiences. In the final analysis, you will have to find your own truth.

And I’m sure you guys are familiar with the hard problem of consciousness, And the theory that the mind and brain are the same thing.

I’m not exactly sure what you are saying here. But the hard problem of consciousness is basically the view that we cannot explain consciousness in strictly scientific and materialistic terms.

 

[Holdingontohope]

Thank you all so much. I will try to take your suggestions. Thank you for such loving replies. It still doesn’t make sense to me how A God could allow this to happen in this way… which is why I doubt his existence, But I will keep trying. The shroud of Turin is helping a little bit. Does anyone know why the Vatican won’t let it be re/ carbonated? I think the reason why heaven doesn’t make sense to me is because atheists say that once your brain stops working, Consciousness stops working, And you can’t exist anymore. My dad clearly wasn’t conscious, And it’s really hard to believe that if God couldn’t even stop my dad from slipping, He will create an immortal soul for him , especially when things like emotions are tied to chemicals in our brains. Thanks so much everyone Heartbroken daughter

 

[Nate123]

I am so sorry for your loss. My hope is that my reply can give you the help that you desired when you came to this forum. It is not God’s will that we suffer and die. The world as we know it is not what God had in plan for mankind. When sin entered the world it created a ripple effect of disorder that has effected everyone’s lives. Mankind now experiences the evils of suffering and death caused by the very nature of sin. So why is that these evils exist if God is opposed to them?

"Though omnipotent, God has irrevocably set a limit to his own power:

“God has not willed to reserve to himself all exercise of power. He entrusts to every creature the functions it is capable of performing, according to the capacities of its own nature.” (CCC, 1884)

In gratuitous generosity, God has arranged that real power in shaping the world be given to human beings and angels for the sake of imbuing created persons with authentic importance as co-creators. In offering himself totally to creatures, God has given himself away in a most radical manner: All powers and roles of importance that can logically possibly be entrusted to others have, in fact, been given to human beings and angels for the sake of imbuing authentic and irreplaceable importance to each creature made in the image of God:

“We can never give too great prominence to the Scholastic principle that God never does through Himself what may be achieved through created causality… For any result which does not require actually infinite power, God will sooner create a new spiritual being capable of producing that result than produce it Himself.” (Abbot Anscar Vonier, The Human Soul)

There are areas of responsibility that can only be acted upon by God (e.g. the creation of the universe out of nothing, or the governance of the entirety of reality via omniscient providence), and these cannot be given over to creatures due to the limits of logical possibility. Even so, the self-emptying of God is such that many of those actions which can only be accomplished by God himself (such as the forgiveness of sins, or the changing of bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ) have been entrusted to human beings as intermediaries through the sacramental ministry of the priesthood.
According to God’s generosity, if something can possibly be done or mediated by a finite power, God creates a finite creature to do it rather than doing the thing directly. Since this is a true giving, and not merely the appearance of gift, it follows that creatures now have a kind of power in the world that God does not have.

Even though sin and the suffering caused by it is an infinite offense to him, God is (though metaphysically omnipotent) functionally dependent on the actions of creatures
obedient to him in order to manifest his will and justice in the world…" NewApologetics.com

You are wanting to reject a “god” that ought to be rejected. God does not permit these evils to “bring a greater good” (which many Catholic/Christians Apologists have said and which as brought great harm and injustice to people) he permits it in agony with suffering humanity. God came to conquer suffering and death power to for ever diminish us. Your Father suffering has been united to the savior of the worlds suffering. In this act you father truly saved all of mankind (in union with Christ) with his life. You Father shares in the glory of God the Son and in this way God has reversed all evil.

 

[Nate123]

Thank you all so much. I will try to take your suggestions. Thank you for such loving replies. It still doesn’t make sense to me how A God could allow this to happen in this way… which is why I doubt his existence, But I will keep trying. The shroud of Turin is helping a little bit. Does anyone know why the Vatican won’t let it be re/ carbonated? I think the reason why heaven doesn’t make sense to me is because atheists say that once your brain stops working, Consciousness stops working, And you can’t exist anymore. My dad clearly wasn’t conscious, And it’s really hard to believe that if God couldn’t even stop my dad from slipping, He will create an immortal soul for him , especially when things like emotions are tied to chemicals in our brains. Thanks so much everyone Heartbroken daughter

I’m not sure if you still had questions about the brain/mind and the soul. The Catholic position is that we are one substance: body and soul. Our body and soul are different but they make up one human person. It is my position from the Catholic understanding of the human person that the mind is made up of the brain and the soul. Neuroscience has clearly demonstrated that brain is somehow connected to the mind. Also the Catholic position is that we have bodies in heaven. For we are body and soul. Hope this helps. Again I am sorry for your loss. Our faith can be shaken from tragedy. But when know that God is actually good the lies have much less power over us. Continually ask God to give you the gift of faith for on our own power we cannot say “Christ is Lord.”