Where is her soul? Where is her SELF?

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savedbygrace71

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I have a somewhat philosophical, theological question to ask, but it’s about my grandmother, and so I’m posting it here. I’m also not particularly philosophical myself and need a down to earth answer, if there is one.

My grandmother just turned 95. For about a year and a half she has been living in a memory care unit for her dementia. She doesn’t have Alzheimer’s disease, as far as we know, instead, she’s had many mini strokes that has given her progressive dementia. Every couple of months she’ll not feel well one day and then she will have lost some ground, which evidently is another stroke. So at this point, her memory of her “self” is gone. She doesn’t remember her childhood, her adult life, or even sometimes recognize that I’m her granddaughter. She can still mostly walk and eat, needs help doing some of her self care etc but not too bad at this point. She can talk fine though. Our conversations are circular, as she doesn’t remember what she’s already said but the thoughts are still in there- whatever is on her mind, she’ll say over and over again.

But what I’m wondering about is her self, her soul, her identity. Where is it? Is it waiting somewhere? Since I do believe in purgatory and her eventual entrance to heaven, where she will be whole again, what has happened to it in the meantime? The same with all the other residents there, in her same condition. Is the spirit on hold? Is her personality just going to resurrect when she is in Heaven? Do we even bring our personalities to Heaven or is that superficial anyway? I hope this makes sense. Sometimes when I worry over something for too long, it stops making much sense!

I don’t know why this is concerning me so much. It may just be that it’s part of watching her disappear, it’s so slow and awful to realize that each step worse, it’s not going to get better.

Thanks for reading.
 
If God is omniscient, then he knows everything about us. He knows everything about our personality, our experiences, and everything about us, and he knows all this better than we know ourselves.

Essentially, the omniscience of God implies that we each have a sort of Carbonite back-up in the mind of God. It is this perfect image of ourselves that I believe can best be identified as the “soul”.

Incidentally, this is also why resurrection of the body is necessary. Although this mental image of us would essentially be the truest version of us in every meaningful way, it would be us bounded by the limitations of what we did and experienced in life. We would still require a physical presence in order to grow, act, and change, and we are promised that we will have one.
 
While the human mind is dependent upon the head of its body to be fully expressed and alive, the mind per se is a faculty of the human soul.

The pneumatikon soma will liberate the mind from any deterioration caused by its body’s mortal status.

ICXC NIKA.
 
I don’t know the answer to the harder questions, but concerning the glorified bodies of the elect, Fr. Paul Duffner O.P. writes:

Theologians are of the opinion that, regardless of bodily condition or stage of growth at the time of death, all will be brought back at the stage of perfect development, at the prime of life, a condition that will remain for all eternity. Too, the body will be without any defects it had in this life. The blind will see, the deaf will hear, the lame will walk, the deformed or retarded will no longer be so. …]

He cites St. Thomas Aquinas, S.T. Supp. 81, 1.
 
Her soul is every bit as intact as it ever was. Her access to experiential aspects of her life (education, relationships, memories, etc.) is failing. But, those aspects are of this world, and she will no longer need them when the Lord calls her into His presence.

Think of this: her dementia most likely renders her incapable of mortal sin. What a sublime grace from God!
 
Ad_Orientem said:
I don’t know the answer to the harder questions, but concerning the glorified bodies of the elect, Fr. Paul Duffner O.P. writes:

Theologians are of the opinion that, regardless of bodily condition or stage of growth at the time of death, all will be brought back at the stage of perfect development, at the prime of life, a condition that will remain for all eternity. Too, the body will be without any defects it had in this life. The blind will see, the deaf will hear, the lame will walk, the deformed or retarded will no longer be so. …]

He cites St. Thomas Aquinas, S.T. Supp. 81, 1.
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I’d also conjecture that, as different faculties of our bodies develop at different rates, this corresponds to a perfection never achieved during human life.

For that matter, faculties of the pneumatikon soma, such as subtility and agility are never observed in the standard-issue human body.

ICXC NIKA!
 
Her soul is still animating her body, and not only will we have our personalities but our persons will be more our persons than we are in this life. I think it was St. Irenaeus who said something like this “The glory of God is a human fully alive.” When are we more alive than when we are united with God? You must being going through a very difficult time, I pray that you may be strengthened from and for these times.

May God Bless you and Grant you Peace and Joy
 
What the OP just touched on is probably the number one reason that no matter how hard I’ve tried in life, I cannot believe in god. Actually, the first time I heard the story of Phineas Gage as a child (age 10 or 11) I got extremely upset. I was already very frustrated that I could not “feel” or “hear” or whatever way people always told me that I should perceive the presence of god and hearing that story was kind of the start of me having to admit to myself that I didn’t believe. It was a very sad and scary thing for me as a kid.
 
It may be helpful to remember that we are not made for THIS life. We are made for eternal life with God. Where there is no pain, no blindness, no disability, no crime, no pain of any sort.
Our life here is brief, and transitory. We will be transformed if we live a life pleasing to God. It is possible that her soul is in a state of sanctity, but her early body is not ready to perish. All will be well in eternity. Remember the Beatitudes. Earthly desires are just that. In heaven we will be made whole, and perfect.
God bless you…I know it must be very difficult. Be assured of our prayers.
 
BTW, the “self” is the soul + body; psyche + soma – wherever the live body is, there is the “self.”

ICXC NIKA.
 
My dear mother-in-law suffered from dementia as did her mother before her, so I understand your sadness and questions about this condition. I don’t know if it will help, but it could be consoling to know that St. Therese and her family went through the same thing. Her father, Louis Martin, developed dementia after St. Therese and some of her older sisters had entered the convent. St. Therese’s sister Celine had to put off her entrance into the convent to care for their father. At one point Mr. Martin had to be put in an institution because the family was afraid of his wandering, and that he might get a hold of a gun. When his condition got to the point where he could no longer wander, they brought him home. After his death Celine entered the convent. Mr. Martin’s sad end was outside of his control and no reflection on his holy life. He is now Blessed Louis Martin, and his wife is Blessed Zelie Martin. She died of breast cancer. Even though this family lived at the end of the nineteenth century, their problems seem very modern. I am sure that you can ask St. Therese and her holy father, Blessed Louis to intercede for you and your beloved grandmother.
 
Thank you all for your replies. They have been so helpful, and I’ve been reading and re-reading them to try to soak in the meanings. It’s so confusing to have my grandmother there but not there, alive and well but completely changed. Thanks especially for your prayers- :gopray2: I will pray for you all in return.
 
Ad_Orientem said:
I don’t know the answer to the harder questions, but concerning the glorified bodies of the elect, Fr. Paul Duffner O.P. writes:

Theologians are of the opinion that, regardless of bodily condition or stage of growth at the time of death, all will be brought back at the stage of perfect development, at the prime of life, a condition that will remain for all eternity. Too, the body will be without any defects it had in this life. The blind will see, the deaf will hear, the lame will walk, the deformed or retarded will no longer be so. …]

He cites St. Thomas Aquinas, S.T. Supp. 81, 1.
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This is especially comforting!
 
BlueEyedLady said:
What the OP just touched on is probably the number one reason that no matter how hard I’ve tried in life, I cannot believe in god. Actually, the first time I heard the story of Phineas Gage as a child (age 10 or 11) I got extremely upset. I was already very frustrated that I could not “feel” or “hear” or whatever way people always told me that I should perceive the presence of god and hearing that story was kind of the start of me having to admit to myself that I didn’t believe. It was a very sad and scary thing for me as a kid.
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I am very sad that your belief must bring you to this lonely place. It is entirely understandable that anyone relying on the emotions to somehow “feel” God would be unfulfilled I have only “felt” god once in all my life; the rest of the time I rely on reasoned probability and that leap of Faith we must all take to.affirm a Creator and then look to a personal God.
The existence of evil; decay; imperfection incompleteness is only logical if we accept a broken world. Beautiful, but temporary. I presume that in your disbelief in God, you also do not believe in an afterlife. It is easy to reject the reason but hang on to the jangling epi-phenomena of the Judeao-Christian moral system that encourages your charity to others. To what value when it all ends in death is countered by the fact that it eases suffering albeit in a transitory fashion. A sad and fruitless compassion indeed, but compassion nevertheless and more valuable in its purity of purpose than the charity that expects a reward in the afterlife.
I will pray that you will believe twenty new things before breakfast, one of them being a loving God. You deserve Him.
 
I’d recommend getting an introductory book about Philosophy of mind OP. JP Moreland just published one that it very good for beginners, it is called “The Soul: How we know it’s real and why it matters”. I’m a bit busy today to make a more detailed response, but maybe later. You might try the philosophy forum with this question, they’d give you a better response.

You might also like this video if you don’t want to get that book:

youtube.com/watch?v=FWjkbNkMiMo
 
Estevao said:
I’d recommend getting an introductory book about Philosophy of mind OP. JP Moreland just published one that it very good for beginners, it is called “The Soul: How we know it’s real and why it matters”. I’m a bit busy today to make a more detailed response, but maybe later. You might try the philosophy forum with this question, they’d give you a better response.

You might also like this video if you don’t want to get that book:

youtube.com/watch?v=FWjkbNkMiMo
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I thought about posting in philosophy, but when I lurk in there, there are some threads that I actually don’t understand at all! I didn’t want to not understand the answer. It’s not that I’m not an intelligent, thoughtful person, I just have a hard time with the more existential, philosophical, less tangible parts of life. Like dementia and the soul 🙂
 
savedbygrace71 said:
I thought about posting in philosophy, but when I lurk in there, there are some threads that I actually don’t understand at all! I didn’t want to not understand the answer. It’s not that I’m not an intelligent, thoughtful person, I just have a hard time with the more existential, philosophical, less tangible parts of life. Like dementia and the soul 🙂
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Oh me too! Did you watch the video or are you going to? The part that addresses what you are thinking about comes at 49:15, I will link it then here:

youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=FWjkbNkMiMo#t=2955

The entire video is a good introduction to the soul however.
 
You are correct, this is a philosophy question! An extremely important one, too.

First recognize that we now live in a culture that is utterly materialist. By that I don’t mean they spend too much on consumer goods (which we do), but that we’re conditioned to believe that there is nothing that transcends the physical universe. That’s wrong. Dead wrong.

Catholicism teaches us that we are a union of body and soul. This means that our thoughts, memories and emotions are NOT merely electro-chemical processes occurring in our brains, but experiences of the soul. Dr. John Eccles (Nobel laureate neuroscientist) spent much of his life researching the topic and at the end still concluded that the brain is not the actual SOURCE of the mind, but is rather a sort of two way radio that in a complex way interacts with the mind. The mind itself is a part of the soul. If he’s right, dementia and/or Alzheimers is not the degeneration of the mind, but the malfunction of the radio that links the mind and body.

So don’t despair at what you see now, it’s temporary. Her mind exists as fully and as intact as it ever did. What is damaged is its ability to link to this world as her body declines. Keep caring for her, keep speaking to her, keep loving her. At a deeper level, she receives it and you’re both the better for it. And we know that at the resurrection none of our bodily ills will remain.
 
My feeling is that a demented person is in that same place that any of us are when we’re having a really weird dream. You spend your time trying to piece together things but are also suggestable and “go with” things without realizing how odd the whole thing is.

She is in a vulnerable state where kindness and protection of her dignity is particularly important. It is important she sense that she is safe and among people who love her. It is important she feels that those she cares about are safe, and she cannot keep track of where they are or what they’ve been doing. There is not much “in it” for those conversing with her and serving her, but there is everything in it for her.
 
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