In God's hands: mental illness and the soul

SINCE ONLY God is the source of all healing, it is appropriate that the Christian soul sometimes searches for God more in depression than in health. But the soul reaches out and often cannot find. Depression increases our longing for the Healing One yet veils our view of him. "We were made for Thee and our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee" (Augustine).

Even the best things of the world never fill the soul--and in mental illness, for the Christian, this is more agonizingly the case. Nothing in the world satisfies, but the longing is intensified. All becomes a seeking for God, for God's blessing and God's comfort. Yet even while this longing is intensified, its goal is painfully removed from view. The soul thirsts for God and yet is pushed further away from the source of its slaking.

   The whole round world is not enough to fill
   The heart's three corners, but it craveth still:
   None but the Trinity, who made it, can
   Suffice the vast triangulated heart of man.

--Christopher Harvey

Adam is created from the dust; God breathes into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man becomes a "living being" (nephesh hayah: living soul). He does not have a soul; he is soul, an ensouled body and an embodied soul. Along with the body, the soul is the totality of the human creature, brain, mind, feelings, actions, inclinations, desires and life. All of these aspects affect the soul, but they do not add up to the soul. Since God is the One who shapes the soul, calls it, imprints it with his image, and sends it out as witness to his grace in the world, the soul cannot be simply a collection of the functions of the human mind. Since the triune God is himself being-in-relation, to be ensouled body means to be created in the image of this God, and also means to be in relation to all creation.

Mental illness breaks this continuum of relationship, since the sufferer is rendered virtually unable to relate. Mental illness threatens to turn us in upon ourselves. But it does not necessarily destroy the relational continuum, unless the sufferer should commit the final act of negation of all relation, suicide.

Mental illness can potentially damage the soul, since it preys on the brain and the mind, but it cannot destroy the soul, for God holds the soul in his hands. "Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell" (Matt. 10:28). God is the only One who has the power to destroy both body and soul.

What does this mean for people who die of suicide, who destroy their own body? The Christian's relation with the triune God may not stop with suicide. Even though suicide is clearly an ultimate separation from fellow creatures, it is not more so than natural death. And natural death does not stop God from loving the soul, or the soul from loving God.

   Eternal and most glorious God, you have stamped the
   soul of humanity with your Image, received it into your
   revenue, and made it part of your treasure; do not allow
   us so to undervalue ourselves, so
   to impoverish you, as to give away
   these souls for nothing, and all the
   world is nothing if the soul must
   be given for it. Do this, O God, for
   his sake who knows our natural
   infirmities, for he had them, and
   knows the weight of our sins, for
   he paid a dear price for them;
   your Son, our Savior Jesus Christ.

--John Donne

This has implications for how the church treats suicides. If I am right and suicide does not destroy the soul of the Christian, then why would any church have difficulties burying those who die of suicide or comforting the families left behind? A baptized Christian remains a Christian. Possibly the difficulty lies in the horror and shame with which the deceased is regarded. She is outcast in death because she could not live, because she was not able to go on living. Her suicide is perceived as a failure on the part of the person, the family and the church. Further, suicide is a transgression of the commandment not to kill. To live is an act of obedience to God.

What does this mean for my own illness? Most of the time when I was ill, I was unable consciously to witness to the grace of God. Or at least so I felt. Even then my sermons were greeted with appreciation by my parish. But I question the value of feeling in religion. If my feelings were dead vis-a-vis God, this does not mean that my soul was sick. My brain certainly was sick, and so was my mind, but God held my soul firmly throughout, keeping me longing for him--even though it felt as if I had been abandoned. Abandonment, however, is not God's way of operating.

Is the soul different then from the heart or the spirit? These latter words are both biblical terms that are used in tandem with soul. "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself" (Luke 10:27; cf. Lev. 19:18; Deut. 6:5). Heart, soul and mind are not three distinct faculties but different biblical terms that designate the very being of the person.