Expert: Marco - 7/13/2007

Question
QUESTION: hi!
I'm 15 and I'm a practising catholic. What i would like to ask is at what exact moment in the theory of evolution- i presume you take the adam and eve as a mere parable since the overwhelming amount of proof on the theory of evolution- did man have/ receive a soul?
I am a little confused. Could you please enlighten me
Thanks
Seb

ANSWER: Dear Seb,

without a soul, a being with a human body would have no psychical life. Our psychical life requires the existence in us of a trascendent element, the soul. Our psychical life cannot be generated simply by the brain as materialists claim.
I think that faith cannot come only from logic, because to have faith in God means to trust and love God.
I think however that logics and science prove the existence of our soul and the existence of  God and that there are many rational arguments strongly supporting the christian faith.
The explanation of these aguments is rather long and Allexperts allows only to give short answers. You can find such arguments  in the following site

http://xoomer.alice.it/fedeescienza/englishnf.html

where  I analyse the incongruencies of the materialistic conception of the mind, on the basis of our present scientific knowledges about brain and matter.
This analysis points out how the laws of physics  prove that the   brain cannot generate consciousness, which existence implies  the presence in man of a unbiological/unmaterial element. The problem of consciousness is then strictly connected to the one of the existence of the soul and, consequently, the existence of God.
In the first article entitled “Mind and brain...” you can find a general discussion of the mind and brain problem from a scientific point of view.
In the second article entitled “Scientific contraddictions in materialism”
you  can find an explanation of the fundamental inconsistencies of  the  typical arguments used by materialists, such as the concept of emergent, macroscopic or holist property, complexity, information, etc.
In the section called “FAQ: answers to  visitors' questions” you can find the answer to many typical questions, such as "Are there any scientifically proved miracles?", "Does the existence of the universe imply the existence of God?", "Can science explain God?", "Can science establish which is the true religion?", "Can science explain consciousness in the future?", and many others.

I hope this may help,

please ask again if you should need some clarifications,

Your brother in Christ,

Marco


---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Dear Marco

I would like to say personally thank you very much, as you have been extremely helpful and your enthusiasm of the subject is inspiring.

I have one other question:
How can it be argued that God truly loves us? Why would he make us suffer sin and purgatory by creating sin. After all, God, the Creator of everything, must have created sin for the devil to be able to chose. It can not be argued a matter of no free-will without sin, since Mary our Mother was born without sin but still retained the right to free will.
What are your views on this topic?
Seb


Answer
Dear Seb,

first of all you must understand that sin and evil do not exist as a substantial reality, and therefore they have never been created. Evil is only a concept we use to indicate a wrong choice.
God has chosen to create us with a free-will, and therefore we can make a right choice or a wrong choice. When we make a wrong choice (for example a person who choses to divorce), we commit a sin.
In other words, evil is only a possibility we must reject; its existence is only a direct consequence of our choices, our refuse to make always the good and right choice.

Why does Hell exist?

God loves us infinitely and He desires to lead each of us to the eternal life  and to the true happiness. But God is perfectly Holy and Good; God cannot tolerate evil because evil is uncompatible with His good and holy nature.
So, we cannot go to heaven as long as we are not completely purified from our sins and sanctified.
Our sanctifcation is necessary for us to go to heaven.
God desires to sanctify us, but He has given us a free-will, so God needs our consent in order to purify and sanctify us. God respects our choices and therefore God cannot santify those who do not want to be sanctified and purified, those who do not want to stop sinning, those who do not want to live a holy life.
These are those who go to hell.


If God knows everything, why did He create those souls who go to Hell?

The fear of eternal damnation and the other penalties threatening the sinner can initiate an interior process which, under the prompting of grace, will yield a true and deep love for God.
God knows that the fear of eternal punishment is sometimes the only means to induce some sinners to repentance and conversion. So the salvation of these souls justifies the eternal punishment of those souls who refuse to repent and be converted. In other words, without an eternal punishment, fewer souls would be saved.
Therefore the existence of an eternal suffering in Hell is justified as an instrument to induce more men to repent and therefore be saved.

Why did Jesus have to suffer on the Cross?

I think this is the most impostant question!

I believe that each of us needed know that God was willing to accept such a terrible suffering for us, in order to really trust God. Every man needed that proof of love, and God, who knew this, has accepted to give him what man consciously or unconsciously asked to Him. Jesus had to suffer and die that way to convince us about God's goodness and God's love towards us. It is man's obstinate distrust against God that has forced God to give man that proof of love, the proof he needed to trust God. By His death on the cross, Jesus destroys our distrust and our doubts, and He gives us the strength to believe in Him and trust Him. This means that each of us is personally responsible of Jesus ' sufferings and death. This distrust, this lack of faith in God is just the essence of the original sin. Christ's Passion has reconciled us to God because it has uprooted from our heart, our distrust and doubts about God; it has satisfied our (conscious or unconscious) desire and need of a proof of love, so that it has given us the strength to trust God and feel loved by Him. I can summarize my thoughts as follows: Salvation implies a deep change of ourselves. God has the power to change us but He wants to do that with our consent. Man cannot really accept to be changed by God and he cannot be in comunion with God as long as even a shadow of doubt and distrust remains in his heart ( it must be stressed that such a distrust may exist even without the man is aware of it, at the unconscious level). God had to destroy every shadow of doubt and distrust in our heart and He has chosen to give us the greatest proof of love that may exist: Christ's Passion.

Your question about Mary being born without sin could be rephrased as follows:
Why God has not created me as a better person than I am?
The point is that a better person would have not been me. God has certainly created persons better than me, but He has chosen to create also me, even if He knew I would have been what I am. He has created me out of love with the purpose to help me to understand the gravity of my sins and to help me to abandon my sins so that I could be santified. With God's help we can become saint and pure and live a perfect happiness and love, the eternal life.
With God's help we can become what we could never be  by ourselves.

I hope this may help you.
If you should need some clarifications, please ask again.

Your brother in Christ,

Marco