My neighbor thinks that the soul is the mind

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Hey everyone. My neighbor thinks that the soul is the mind or the brain. She says that the souls is in the brain or mind. I tell her that the soul is totally integrated with our entire body but she completely disagrees with me. Can someone please help me to explain the Catholic teaching on the soul and the body?
 
The soul and spirit are different too as scripture tells us they can be divided. What the soul, spirit and mind have in common is that they are all intangible.
 
A scientist friend once told me that virtually all human expressions of emotion, including love, are brain functions.

In his opinion, we had no souls, just a brain area specified for the concept of a soul. This is largely an atheistic belief.

I told him if I thought I didn’t have a soul, I would have to kill myself.

There is no point in arguing with this point of view, as the existence of souls cannot be proven.

Only with faith do we discern a soul.
 
Because the soul lends grace to the body.
I was an agnostic/atheist for decades and felt like an automaton.
It gave me an excuse to indulge in all sorts of abusive activities toward my physical self.
IMO, the soul is the true essence of self.
 
Modern_Revert said:
Because the soul lends grace to the body.
I was an agnostic/atheist for decades and felt like an automaton.
It gave me an excuse to indulge in all sorts of abusive activities toward my physical self.
IMO, the soul is the true essence of self.
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Thank you for sharing that.
 
Holly3278 said:
Hey everyone. My neighbor thinks that the soul is the mind or the brain. She says that the souls is in the brain or mind. I tell her that the soul is totally integrated with our entire body but she completely disagrees with me. Can someone please help me to explain the Catholic teaching on the soul and the body?
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Mind: our consciousness, our intellect, our will;

Spirit: our life force, our animation;

Soul: our identity; who we are, to./in the eyes of God.
If Mind and Spirit were Soul, then abortion would not be condemned as being so offensive to God–nor would euthanasia of the unconscious (e.g.–the comatose).

NB: Not that the pre-born, comatose, or ‘brain dead’ are ‘mindless’ or ‘spiritless’, but rather their mental and spiritual faculties have been compromised, or in the case of the pre-born, lack the maturity, to be expressive of the Soul.

It is the Soul, having been created in the image of God, that lends Man his sacred dignity;

The Spirit, his energy and capability to live, and to love, and to help carry out/effect the Will of God (or to work against it, according to his (man’s) own free will) thereby;

The Mind, his ability to understand and know God, good from bad/evil, and to choose either good (to serve and glorify God) or evil (to turn away from God, to serve self or anyone/thing other than God, to not glorify God–i.e.–to sin)–i.e.–free will.

Mind and Spirit permit Man to respond to the gift/grace of Faith (or to reject it)–according to the Soul.

Mind and the Spirit are therefore manifestations of the Soul.

But not the Soul itself.

(Just my humble understanding–no claim to specific authority; as always, I welcome critiques, dissents, corrections, suggestions, clarifications, exceptions, advice, or such).
 
^^^the above framework is why I believe the greatest prayer we can offer to God, is to surrender our free will to Him.

The most noble, worthy and effective petition we can request of God–is to beg the Lord to use us, as instruments of His Holy Will–just as Christ did in the Garden of Gesthemene–"…not my will, but thy will, be done"–and as Christ instructed us to pray–"…they Will be done".

The important thing to note here, is that God’s Will is not known to us. It can not be known by us (note how many people, of whatever faith–Catholics included–make claims to knowing God’s Will–however innocently–the fact is, it’s not known or knowable by us).

Yet how often do we inadvertently seek to employ our own free will, to the service of God’s Will–as if we know what God wills–rather than offering/surrendering our free will to Him, that He may use us as He sees fit? We walk a dangerous line when we do so, since we don’t know what we can not know–what God wills.

What we have, is a will–our free will. What we know, is that God is, and that God has a Will (according to divine revelation). But we can only hope or pretend to know what God’s Will actually is–or rather, what God actually wills. We can use our free will to offer and surrender ourselves–and our will–to God–that He may, if He deems us worthy–use us as instruments of His Holy Will.

JMHO.
 
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