Where was our soul before being born?

[Techno2000]

We were in the mind of God. Jeremiah 1:5

I forgot about that one.

 

[Fiasco]

If this is the case, why should we care about God, and not worship Nothingness, our true Father (or Mother)?

Why would we want to worship Nothingness when God raises us to true dignity by creating us in His own image and likeness in various ways?

The ultimate Nothingness is the metaphorical spawn of Satan with all of his deceits/empty promises.
Worshipping the Darkness draws us into it.
Worshipping The True Light draws us to Him.

 

[Robert_Sock]

That’s heresy! The soul is created, and created from nothing: “ex nihilo”.

That’s a Pagan belief…Buddhism (Nirvana) and/or whatever! The idea of being absorbed into the Deity is anti-Christian.

In the next life, each person retains his individuality, and for those in Heaven, there’s the Beatific Vision: raw knowledge and love contact with God and the other blesseds and the angels.

As others have said, God creates the soul at conception, the just-created soul animating the just-fertilised egg. “Life begins at conception.”

As above: God creates the soul at conception, and that’s when life begins. The soul animates the body.

Sorry if I offended anybody, but did anything exist before God? I believe God is One and that nothing exists outside of Him. And if true, then everything would be nullified without God, including our soul (I know that this is a Catholic forum, but this is certainly what our Jewish brothers and sisters believe). It follows then that our soul, which came directly from God, would cease to exist if it managed to reunite itself with God. Please explain how the logic I used is faulty?

7 then the LORD God formed the man out of the dust of the ground and blew into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.
–Genisis 2

Does not the above quote suggest that our soul came directly from God Himself as He blew into the nostrils of man? Is not the “breath of life” referring to our soul?

God formed the body of man from the slime of the earth; but He breathed the soul into man’s body.** In this way the soul came direct from God**, and indicates closer likeness to Him.
catholicbook.com/AgredaCD/MyCatholicFaith/mcfc017.htm
If I got this wrong, then Bishop Louis LaRavoire Morrow, sdb (1892 - 1987) got it wrong too.

 

[Della]

Sorry if I offended anybody, but did anything exist before God? I believe God is One and that nothing exists outside of Him. And if true, then everything would be nullified without God, including our soul (I know that this is a Catholic forum, but this is certainly what our Jewish brothers and sisters believe). **It follows then that our soul, which came directly from God, would cease to exist if it managed to reunite itself with God. Please explain how the logic I used is faulty? **

7 then the LORD God formed the man out of the dust of the ground and blew into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.
–Genisis 2

Does not the above quote suggest that our soul came directly from God Himself as He blew into the nostrils of man? Is not the “breath of life” referring to our soul?

God formed the body of man from the slime of the earth; but He breathed the soul into man’s body.** In this way the soul came direct from God**, and indicates closer likeness to Him.
catholicbook.com/AgredaCD/MyCatholicFaith/mcfc017.htm
If I got this wrong, then Bishop Louis LaRavoire Morrow, sdb (1892 - 1987) got it wrong too.

I am first responding to the sentence I bolded. No, our souls do not “cease to exist if it managed to reunite itself with God.” Indeed, our whole aim is to be united to God. We don’t disappear as persons merely because we are united with another person. It’s like the marriage relationship, not like bumps in the tapioca.

The breath of life is indeed the soul which God breathed into Adam, making him a living, immortal soul. But no, it was not God becoming man nor man becoming God. There was only on Incarnation in Christ Jesus, and even that wasn’t man becoming God, but God becoming man.

 

[ANV]

Sorry, the nervous system does not make a dead person a living person.

Then what animates the body is an ancient concept about an invisible soul that has never been proven, only explain humanity’s lack of scientific knowledge back then; to fill the gaps of our ignorance, then if there is a soul and it dies when we die, why does the heart keeps beating hours after we die?

 

[Della]

Then what animates the body is an ancient concept about an invisible soul that has never been proven, only explain humanity’s lack of scientific knowledge back then; to fill the gaps of our ignorance

Oh, I wouldn’t be so quick to dismiss the knowledge of the ancients, my friend. Much of what we know about the physical world, philosophy, religion, etc. came from the ancients. They weren’t as backwards as many claim they were–generally people who know little to nothing about ancient times/civilizations and their contributions to our current knowledge.

then if there is a soul and it dies when we die, why does the heart keeps beating hours after we die?

It’s a pump run by electrical impulse. It tells us nothing at all about the difference between life and death, nor what makes us alive.

 

[STT]

Sorry, the nervous system does not make a dead person a living person.

Then what is the main reason for existence of nervous system and brain? We know that our experience is the result of receiving the sensory (name removed by moderator)uts. The act of experience then happens in the brain. We also know that the movement of body is the result of receiving signal from brain. Therefore that is brain which is in charge of experience and movement of our bodies.

 

[Della]

Then what is the main reason for existence of nervous system and brain? We know that our experience is the result of receiving the sensory (name removed by moderator)uts. The act of experience then happens in the brain. We also know that the movement of body is the result of receiving signal from brain. Therefore that is brain which is in charge of experience and movement of our bodies.

That is not the question, though. The question has become: what animates the body? IOW, what makes us alive rather than not alive? You didn’t address that question.

 

[STT]

That is not the question, though. The question has become: what animates the body? IOW, what makes us alive rather than not alive? You didn’t address that question.

I think we should agree on a definition of alive first. To me it is a set of experiences and functions. How do you define it?

 

[Robert_Sock]

I am first responding to the sentence I bolded. No, our souls do not “cease to exist if it managed to reunite itself with God.” Indeed, our whole aim is to be united to God. We don’t disappear as persons merely because we are united with another person. It’s like the marriage relationship, not like bumps in the tapioca.

The breath of life is indeed the soul which God breathed into Adam, making him a living, immortal soul. But no, it was not God becoming man nor man becoming God. There was only on Incarnation in Christ Jesus, and even that wasn’t man becoming God, but God becoming man.

This is from Judaism (Chabad) and is not Catholic. This was why in my first post I emphasized that there exist those who believe this.

 

[ANV]

Oh, I wouldn’t be so quick to dismiss the knowledge of the ancients, my friend. Much of what we know about the physical world, philosophy, religion, etc. came from the ancients. They weren’t as backwards as many claim they were–generally people who know little to nothing about ancient times/civilizations and their contributions to our current knowledge.

It’s a pump run by electrical impulse. It tells us nothing at all about the difference between life and death, nor what makes us alive.

Not dismissing the knowledge of the ancients, but many of their religions, mythologies and stories were made up to explain their lack of knowledge about natural phenomenons.

Then when you shoot a bullet in your head it’s not similar to when you shoot it on your leg, does the soul exist in your head?

 

[Bookcat]

It is not possible to “impose” something on someone who does not exist.

Just not possible.

Existence can never be said to be imposed on someone (and be a true saying).

 

[Della]

I think we should agree on a definition of alive first. To me it is a set of experiences and functions. How do you define it?

Not dead.

 

[Della]

Not dismissing the knowledge of the ancients, but many of their religions, mythologies and stories were made up to explain their lack of knowledge about natural phenomenons.

Well, not all, and certainly not the revealed knowledge given by God by way of direct communication or inspiration, or that gained through observation of the physical world, nor the grand ideas of ancient philosophy, which dealt with these very issues.

Then when you shoot a bullet in your head it’s not similar to when you shoot it on your leg, does the soul exist in your head?

One can kill oneself by shooting oneself in the leg–if one hits an artery. But no, the soul doesn’t reside in any part of us, it animates us. You are thinking in strictly physical terms–as if the material world is all that exists. You cannot know that that is so, neither can you prove it. It is a matter of knowing beyond our mere physical senses, but in conjunction with them. It’s both/and, not either/or.

 

[STT]

Not dead.

And what is dead?

 

[Della]

And what is dead?

Not alive.

 

[Bookcat]

Fezzik: You’ve been mostly dead all day

(Princess Bride).

 

[jlhargus]

CCC 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.

scborromeo.org/ccc/p1s2c1p6.htm#366

 

[STT]

Not alive.

So you didn’t finally define alive. Are you happy with my definition of alive?

 

[Gorgias]

No doubt. But that does not make the question worthy to contemplate. Of course “non-being” is just a concept, not an actual, ontological entity.

It is a state, not just a concept.

Most people would say that they value their own existence. But that is irrelevant. My question is an abstract one: “is existence preferable to non-existence”? I don’t see how this question can be answered in general.

I’m not going to rehearse the history of the philosophical question for you, although I invite you to do so for your own edification. The whole notion of philosophy, though, is to answer questions “in general”, isn’t it?

I am not “married” to the empirical method, if anyone can present a different one. The only requirement is that the method be objective, and not the opinion of some people.

I suspect that you might be setting up a straw man (albeit perhaps unintentionally), so… just for giggles: could you give me an example of an “objective method” that is not empirical? That would help me suggest such a method for you in this context.

The ancient principle: “Nihil est in intellectu, quod non prius fuerit in sensu” seems to be very well established.

Established, but not agreed upon by all philosophers. Aquinas utilized it, as a means of proving the existence of God, but I’m sure you’re not endorsing that.

On the other hand, it’s a maxim of empiricists, so it’s really only useful these days for advancing that argument (which, of course, I do not endorse). Your unicorn example describes why it doesn’t work…

Of course that does not mean that one must experience a “unicorn” in order to have a concept of a unicorn. We are able to use our fantasy to imagine nonexistent “things”

I haven’t experienced a black hole, but it is in my intellect, and it is real. Therefore, I can perceive in my intellect things I haven’t experienced with my senses. (Unless, of course, you concede that I can perceive in my intellect the things I have read (i.e., experienced through my eyes). But, if you concede that point, then the whole axiom dissolves into triviality.) The maxim is interesting, but hardly dogmatic.

Don’t ask me, ask the ones who believe in the existence of “souls”. But you can’t have it both ways. Either the two separate twin humans share one soul, or the “twinning” - which is different from the conception - requires a “fresh” soul (maybe two??) to be created.

That’s right; the implication is that, at the point a second human being comes into existence, a second soul comes into existence as well.

The procedure of splitting the brain, effectively creates two humans

Two personalities, maybe, but not two humans.

Moreover, in theory, one of the two half brains can be transplanted into a different body.

How would you define the other ‘person’, then? Or, wouldn’t it be reasonable to suggest that it is merely one person in control of two bodies?

Such experiments did not happen yet with humans, but they did happen with animals. Seems strange that the scalpel of the surgeon can “cut” the immaterial soul.

That’s a rather odd take on the experiments. You’re talking about operating to create a split brain, right? That didn’t create “two cats”; in fact, it created two “half-cats”, as it were, sharing the body, as maze experiments demonstrated. Perhaps there’s a different experiment you’re thinking of?