The Soul and Death

[Catholic4Christ]

This is a question about death and the separation of the soul from the body. If there is a defined Catholic stance, I would like to know it. Plus, individual opinions/beliefs from Catholics, non-Catholics, and non-Christians would be appreciated.

Does the human soul depart from the human body as a consequence of death, or does death happen because the soul leaves the body? (I know I’m probably splitting hairs here, but I think it’s a legitimate question)

If (from a religious, non-medical standpoint) the soul is what gives us life, wouldn’t that mean that the soul exits the body immediately prior to death? If this is true, it would imply that the “causes” of our deaths are not what actually ends our lives. Rather, diseases, wounds, etc. would be an extreme weakener of the body. The ultimate decider of the time of death, therefore, would be God “pulling out” the soul. This seems to be in line with Christian belief, with God as the author of life and death. Does anyone know any religious writings, Bible verses (Christ’s death?), etc. that would support this?

On the other hand, I feel like the general mindset of people is that diseases, wounds, and other such things are, in fact, the ultimate causes of death, with the soul departing not necessarily because of some divine will but as a direct consequence of these causes deteriorating the body to the point of death.

I also leave room for the argument that the two events are simultaneous, but that’s no fun

Again, I know I’m splitting hairs, but I thought it was an interesting question. Catholic position? Catholic thoughts? Non-Catholic thoughts? Non-Christian thoughts?

 

[tonyrey]

This is a question about death and the separation of the soul from the body. If there is a defined Catholic stance, I would like to know it. Plus, individual opinions/beliefs from Catholics, non-Catholics, and non-Christians would be appreciated.

Does the human soul depart from the human body as a consequence of death, or does death happen because the soul leaves the body? (I know I’m probably splitting hairs here, but I think it’s a legitimate question)

At death the body and soul are obviously separated because the body disintegrates but the soul is immortal.

If (from a religious, non-medical standpoint) the soul is what gives us life, wouldn’t that mean that the soul exits the body immediately prior to death? If this is true, it would imply that the “causes” of our deaths are not what actually ends our lives. Rather, diseases, wounds, etc. would be an extreme weakener of the body. The ultimate decider of the time of death, therefore, would be God “pulling out” the soul. This seems to be in line with Christian belief, with God as the author of life and death. Does anyone know any religious writings, Bible verses (Christ’s death?), etc. that would support this?

My view is that death is solely the result of physical causes - although of course they may be caused by a person. God ultimately controls physical causes and may hasten or delay or even prevent death in accordance with His love and wisdom. Some people may also will themselves to die or let themselves die without making any effort to stay alive.

On the other hand, I feel like the general mindset of people is that diseases, wounds, and other such things are, in fact, the ultimate causes of death, with the soul departing not necessarily because of some divine will but as a direct consequence of these causes deteriorating the body to the point of death.

I agree.

I also leave room for the argument that the two events are simultaneous, but that’s no fun.

It is also uneconomical!

 

[empther]

Acquinas says the soul is the “principle of life”.

Now, pay attention.

What do we mean by life?

Life is not just the heart beating and the stomach digesting. That is done by animal functions we share with the animals.

Human life consists of all the things humans do, many of which can’t be possible without the soul, which can’t be done by animals.

There is human intelligence which is far above what animals can do. We could write a book about this.

There is esthetics. What animal goes to an art museum just for the enjoyment of art?

There is human loyalty to each other, to country, even to people far away who we don’t know and will never meet. No animal’s conditioned clan reflex can explain this.

These activities are all part of life, and the spiritual soul is responsible for them.

We don’t die because the soul leaves the body, but because the body is so sick, or injured, or worn it can no longer sustain its biological needs. At that point, God declares our earthly journey is over and it’s time to meet the Maker.

 

[Catholic4Christ]

Thanks for the response, tonyrey.

Interesting. So you believe that:

1. Bodily death immediately precedes the soul’s departure
2. The causes of bodily death are earthly in origin, but
3. These earthly causes, whether caused by man or not, are to some degree of divine origin because
4. God is ultimately the master of earthly things.

I like all this. So, in your opinion, is the soul the divine spark that gives us life? I ask not to criticize, I actually quite agree with you mostly. It just seems hard to consider the soul to be a divine “life-sustainer” if it departs from the body after death. This makes the soul’s exit seem like a “symptom” of death. It could be, but I find both possibilities to be equally probable. I personally prefer your opinion, however.

 

[tonyrey]

Thanks for the response, tonyrey.

Interesting. So you believe that:

1. Bodily death immediately precedes the soul’s departure
2. The causes of bodily death are earthly in origin, but
3. These earthly causes, whether caused by man or not, are to some degree of divine origin because
4. God is ultimately the master of earthly things.

I like all this. So, in your opinion, is the soul the divine spark that gives us life? I ask not to criticize, I actually quite agree with you mostly. It just seems hard to consider the soul to be a divine “life-sustainer” if it departs from the body after death. This makes the soul’s exit seem like a “symptom” of death. It could be, but I find both possibilities to be equally probable. I personally prefer your opinion, however.

Thanks for your thanks - and summary of my views!

I believe all living organisms have a soul (because they are not merely physical mechanisms) but not all souls are rational or immortal. I also believe a person’s soul separates from the body **at the moment **of death - which is consistent with the belief that it is the animating factor. Materialism is literally a soul-destroying philosophy because it reduces life to purposeless chemical processes…

 

[chococat]

I graduated from a Catholic school of nursing and we were taught that sometimes even after the person dies, the soul may linger until Last rites are given if the person was in good standing.

 

[Whadyamean]

This is a question about death and the separation of the soul from the body. If there is a defined Catholic stance, I would like to know it. Plus, individual opinions/beliefs from Catholics, non-Catholics, and non-Christians would be appreciated…

Does the human soul depart from the human body as a consequence of death, or does death happen because the soul leaves the body? ?

Some folks who say that they can see such things claim that the “soul” leaves the body over about a three day period. this is the reason for some passages in various “Book of the Dead"s that are to be read to the deceased over that time. But that is in the case of a "
natural” death. Haven’t heard anything credible about sudden death and destruction of the body.

 

[Carlan]

A person very close to me was with his dad when he died and stayed beside him for quite sometime before calling the rest of the sleeping family. When the undertaker arrived and was removing him from the home the person, following behind,said he saw what he believed was his Dad’s soul actually leave his body.
Peace, Carlan

 

[jacob622]

A person very close to me was with his dad when he died and stayed beside him for quite sometime before calling the rest of the sleeping family. When the undertaker arrived and was removing him from the home the person, following behind,said he saw what he believed was his Dad’s soul actually leave his body.
Peace, Carlan

wow !! what an advice !!! thanks for shearing!!!
i like the way you written your post!!!
Caverta

 

[Jaaanosik]

This question will not be answered till we know what is soul and where it is.

A soul is God’s creation. A human body is God’s creation.
The body is dead when brain activity stops. Is the soul part of the brain?
Are there some soul spiritual dimensions ‘interleaved’ in our brains?

 

[rom422]

In the terminology of St. Thomas Aquinas, the soul is the “substantial form” of a living body. In human beings this soul is spiritual and will survive the death of the body; but in plants and brute animals, the soul is material and dies with the body.

Non-living bodies (like minerals and stones) also have a substantial form (a factor that makes them the precise kind of substances that they are), but they have no soul. The word “soul” is used exclusively to refer to the substantial forms of living organisms, because they do not merely serve to substantially specify the organisms, but also serve as their principle of life.

When it is said that the souls of plants and brute animals are “material,” what St. Thomas means is that they are so dependent on matter that they cannot exist separately from it. It does not mean that they have weight and occupy space (as a material body is usually defined in physics), or that they could be handled and dissected in the laboratory. As the “substantial form” of the body, the soul is itself not a body. Only bodies (which are composites of “matter” and “substantial form”) have weight and occupy space.

When a human body dies the spiritual human soul is first replaced by a material soul; then as the body continues to disintegrate, the material soul itself is eventually replaced by the substantial forms of the minerals and substances that still remain in the dead body.

The exact moment of time when the human soul is replaced by a material soul cannot be determined precisely and, therefore, is subject to speculation. It can be anywhere from a split second (as in the case of people whose bodies were blown by an explosive) to several hours or even days (as in the case of people under coma, whose brain suffers a slow death). Strictly speaking, the replacement of the human soul by a material soul itself is instantaneous, because a body can only have one soul at a time. Therefore, strictly speaking, human death is also instantaneous, but the precise instant when this happens is difficult to determine.

From a purely philosophical standpoint a person dies when the human soul separates from the body. The instant of time when this happens, as I said, is difficult to determine. As a practical rule, however, we assume that the separation has taken place when the person is already pronounced dead by a doctor. However, this is only a practical rule, not a guarantee. Even doctors don’t know everything, and someone whom they pronounced dead could possibly still return to life. But this is rare. And if it does happen, then it simply means that the human soul had not yet actually left the body, although the body was previously pronounced dead.

Now, to answer the question raised by the OP: Does death cause the human soul to leave the body, or does the separation of the human soul from the body cause death? From a philosophical standpoint, I think the question is problematic because human death (defined as the absence of human life) coincides with the instantaneous separation of the human soul from the body. However, if death is viewed, not as the complete and instantaneous absence of human life, but as a process of deterioration leading to the elimination of human life, then I would say that death causes the human soul to eventually leave the body.

 

[Bob_Crowley]

A person very close to me was with his dad when he died and stayed beside him for quite sometime before calling the rest of the sleeping family. When the undertaker arrived and was removing him from the home the person, following behind,said he saw what he believed was his Dad’s soul actually leave his body.
Peace, Carlan

A formal study carried out in a number of hospices and nursing homes (where death is fairly common) seemed to indicate this was not uncommon. People would see something like a beautiful light or cloud seem to leave the body and move through the ceiling.

From an article in “The Australian”

theaustralian.com.au/news/features/the-death-whisperers/story-e6frg8h6-1226059721591

Not everyone near to death reports seeing or sensing the presence of relatives who have gone before them. “You’d best ask the cleaners what they hear,” jokes Deborah O’Connor, 53, a former palliative care nurse in the Newcastle region who has watched “hundreds of people die”. She believes patients are just as likely to reveal visions to a worker with a broom than a doctor in a white coat. Her first glimpse into death’s secrets occurred in an oncology ward during her early 20s. “There was a young man who had died in the room with his family and I saw an aura coming off him. It was like a mist. I didn’t tell anybody for years. I’ve never seen it again.” Researching her master’s thesis on this subject, she spoke to two nurses who were in a room with a patient’s husband when they all observed the same “aura”.

 

[Catholic4Christ]

In the terminology of St. Thomas Aquinas, the soul is the “substantial form” of a living body. In human beings this soul is spiritual and will survive the death of the body; but in plants and brute animals, the soul is material and dies with the body.

Non-living bodies (like minerals and stones) also have a substantial form (a factor that makes them the precise kind of substances that they are), but they have no soul. The word “soul” is used exclusively to refer to the substantial forms of living organisms, because they do not merely serve to substantially specify the organisms, but also serve as their principle of life.

When it is said that the souls of plants and brute animals are “material,” what St. Thomas means is that they are so dependent on matter that they cannot exist separately from it. It does not mean that they have weight and occupy space (as a material body is usually defined in physics), or that they could be handled and dissected in the laboratory. As the “substantial form” of the body, the soul is itself not a body. Only bodies (which are composites of “matter” and “substantial form”) have weight and occupy space.

When a human body dies the spiritual human soul is first replaced by a material soul; then as the body continues to disintegrate, the material soul itself is eventually replaced by the substantial forms of the minerals and substances that still remain in the dead body.

The exact moment of time when the human soul is replaced by a material soul cannot be determined precisely and, therefore, is subject to speculation. It can be anywhere from a split second (as in the case of people whose bodies were blown by an explosive) to several hours or even days (as in the case of people under coma, whose brain suffers a slow death). Strictly speaking, the replacement of the human soul by a material soul itself is instantaneous, because a body can only have one soul at a time. Therefore, strictly speaking, human death is also instantaneous, but the precise instant when this happens is difficult to determine.

From a purely philosophical standpoint a person dies when the human soul separates from the body. The instant of time when this happens, as I said, is difficult to determine. As a practical rule, however, we assume that the separation has taken place when the person is already pronounced dead by a doctor. However, this is only a practical rule, not a guarantee. Even doctors don’t know everything, and someone whom they pronounced dead could possibly still return to life. But this is rare. And if it does happen, then it simply means that the human soul had not yet actually left the body, although the body was previously pronounced dead.

Now, to answer the question raised by the OP: Does death cause the human soul to leave the body, or does the separation of the human soul from the body cause death? From a philosophical standpoint, I think the question is problematic because human death (defined as the absence of human life) coincides with the instantaneous separation of the human soul from the body. However, if death is viewed, not as the complete and instantaneous absence of human life, but as a process of deterioration leading to the elimination of human life, then I would say that death causes the human soul to eventually leave the body.

Great response, rom422. It gives me a good bit to think about, and is very insightful. Thomas Aquinas was a smart guy.

 

[greylorn]

This is a question about death and the separation of the soul from the body. If there is a defined Catholic stance, I would like to know it. Plus, individual opinions/beliefs from Catholics, non-Catholics, and non-Christians would be appreciated.

Does the human soul depart from the human body as a consequence of death, or does death happen because the soul leaves the body? (I know I’m probably splitting hairs here, but I think it’s a legitimate question)

If (from a religious, non-medical standpoint) the soul is what gives us life, wouldn’t that mean that the soul exits the body immediately prior to death? If this is true, it would imply that the “causes” of our deaths are not what actually ends our lives. Rather, diseases, wounds, etc. would be an extreme weakener of the body. The ultimate decider of the time of death, therefore, would be God “pulling out” the soul. This seems to be in line with Christian belief, with God as the author of life and death. Does anyone know any religious writings, Bible verses (Christ’s death?), etc. that would support this?

On the other hand, I feel like the general mindset of people is that diseases, wounds, and other such things are, in fact, the ultimate causes of death, with the soul departing not necessarily because of some divine will but as a direct consequence of these causes deteriorating the body to the point of death.

I also leave room for the argument that the two events are simultaneous, but that’s no fun

Again, I know I’m splitting hairs, but I thought it was an interesting question. Catholic position? Catholic thoughts? Non-Catholic thoughts? Non-Christian thoughts?

From the Catholic or any other religious position that I know of, the matter is confusing enough to provide plenty of fodder for theologians, who have been confused for centuries, IMO.

If you assume, however, that the soul exists and that physics principles make sense, the answer to your question is clear. The soul is attached to the brain via some specialized circuitry, which is similar at the (name removed by moderator)ut end to the antenna-tuner system in a TV set which detects and decodes the electromagnetic signals transmitted by a TV station.

Another analogy is that of a Voyager (or any other) spacecraft’s relationship to its earth-based controllers.

It gets a little more complicated with human beings because the brain’s circuitry actually gloms onto a particular soul and builds an intensely interactive relationship with it, such that in the normal mental state for humans, the operations of brain and soul are indistinguishable from one another.

The operations can be separated by hypnosis, drugs, brain damage, and will. A soul can actually learn to distinguish and separate itself from its brain, and to control components of the brain such as the thalamus and hypothalamus which are normally disconnected from soul-level control.

The soul can leave a perfectly healthy brain and will often leave in response to physical trauma. (e.g: Pam Reynolds and Ernest Hemmingway’s well-documented experiences.) If you ask around carefully, you will find that 1 in 30 people have had an OOB (Out Of Body) experience. Many torture victims report this phenomenon.

Final separation between soul and brain occurs when the brain’s circuitry no longer can maintain the soul’s connection. This often happens w/o death, leaving behind a cretin. (An old novel, The Soul of Anna Klane, explores this phenomenon and takes it to an unanticipated, but inevitable conclusion.)

There are anomalous medical examples (the crowbar case mentioned in the above novel) in which a severely damaged brain maintains connection to a soul. William James’ Principles of Psychology, Vol. I, offers an example of a woman who swapped between two entirely different souls. Multiple personalities are sometimes the result of a variety of souls vying for control of the same brain, in a kind of benevolent form of possession— benevolent only because the entities involved are just normal disincorporated souls trying to express themselves exactly as you might if you had no place to go after your body’s demise, not demonic entities whose intent is to do harm.

Alzheimer’s disease is an obvious case of a human brain losing its soul-connection circuitry, gradually, like a cell phone with a dying battery.

Of course, the brain ultimately dies and the soul moves on, maintaining consciousness for a few minutes, hours, days, or weeks before lapsing into its native unconscious state.

Is there anything else you need to know?

 

[Speedypizza]

I once heard it said that the soul is in fact an infinity small, infinity bright point of light that resides between “the third eye” (the space in the middle of your eyes, just above.) and the temples. If you were to draw a line between the two, where they meet, is where the soul lives. This space is also the base of the brain, where the brain connects to the spine. Now I am not sure if this is true or not, however it always made a lot of sense to me, so until somebody can prove me wrong, I am going to stick with it.

I have no reason to think that the soul cannot stay in the body for a little bit after the body dies, at the same point I see no reason that it cannot leave the body before hand, as in the case of somebody who is brain dead.

As for the original question, I think that it can happen in either order. I believe that the cause of death is the same thing that happens when any animal dies. The only difference is that a human has an immortal soul, where as animals do not.

Pax

 

[rom422]

From the Catholic or any other religious position that I know of, the matter is confusing enough to provide plenty of fodder for theologians, who have been confused for centuries, IMO.

The soul - the principle of life - has eluded scientists as well. Up to now they have not made a single living cell.

The soul is attached to the brain via some specialized circuitry, which is similar at the (name removed by moderator)ut end to the antenna-tuner system in a TV set which detects and decodes the electromagnetic signals transmitted by a TV station.

Is the “specialized circuitry” that connects the soul to the brain a physical circuit that has been observed in the laboratory? Can you give scientific evidence?

Of course, the brain ultimately dies and the soul moves on, maintaining consciousness for a few minutes, hours, days, or weeks before lapsing into its native unconscious state.

How do you know that the unconscious state is the native state of the soul?

 

[Julia_Mae]

Does the human soul depart from the human body as a consequence of death, or does death happen because the soul leaves the body? (I know I’m probably splitting hairs here, but I think it’s a legitimate question)

I don’t think you are splitting hairs at all. Soul goes first. The body stops being animated.The person can leave and the body still be breathe and heart still pump for a while. Like a bicycle rolling along after the rider has jumped off. So human life on earth can be ended before people are pronounced dead, sometimes. You read about people who have had a “visit” from some dying relative, but if you match up the times they sometimes aren’t observed to have died until a while after the visit happened.

 

[Julia_Mae]

I once heard it said that the soul is in fact an infinity small, infinity bright point of light that resides between “the third eye” (the space in the middle of your eyes, just above.) and the temples.:

I always find it interesting that if you take a group of people and just say, “Okay, everyone point at yourself” they almost invariably point to the middle of the chest. Some eastern belief systems place the center of the being or soul, right there.

 

[Speedypizza]

I always find it interesting that if you take a group of people and just say, “Okay, everyone point at yourself” they almost invariably point to the middle of the chest. Some eastern belief systems place the center of the being or soul, right there.

I never thought about that before.

 

[Catholic4Christ]

I see no reason that it cannot leave the body before hand, as in the case of somebody who is brain dead.

This is a major issue you seem to have raised. I don’t know if it was on purpose or not, but think about it.

If someone is brain dead for an extended period of time but their body is physically alive, yet their soul has already departed like you say, would you claim that euthanasia in this case is acceptable? I personally do not think it is acceptable, and I know the USCCB would have a thing or two to say about it.

Perhaps this isn’t quite what you meant when you say brain dead… Maybe you just meant that there is a brief moment after the soul departs before bodily death occurs. Elaborate? Thanks.