Missionary Thought for the Week of January 7, 2019

1/6/2019

The Annotated Catechism for Autistic Thinking: Lesson One - The Schematic Diagram

Happy New Year!

What a great time to begin at the beginning. Here we are, Baltimore Catechism in hand, ready to start unpacking the components of the Catholic faith as they were laid out for the people in America in 1885. The book reflects nearly sixty years of prior scholarly discussion aimed at creating a summary and explanation of Catholic doctrine easy enough to present to children and detailed enough to enliven the faith in those teaching it. The resulting work remains a timeless starting point for those seeking to conceptualize what choosing to be Catholic is all about.

The twelve questions which comprise Lesson One act as our schematic, like the beginning of any good User’s Manual of today: What are we looking at? What are the functions of the main components, and what is the overall purpose of having a Catholic faith?

First, we see the main characters of this faith: God, the Creator; and us, the people whom He created. The rest of the manual will elaborate on several of the combinations and resulting functions of this relationship between God and us. If we believe there actually is a God, or want to believe, or are in any way open to that possibility, then we’re good to start.

God is presented as the Creator of all things: the physical world and the laws of physics; the spiritual nature of beings and the spirit dwelling within each living creature; and every variation of species therein, of both things we see and invisible essences we experience.

People are a subset of God’s creatures who have both physical (body) and spiritual (soul) natures, made especially for the purpose of knowing God and experiencing Him in a direct and specific relationship.

Each person has a unique, essential spirit, characteristic of their “self,” that is invisible, intangible and immeasurable – but is expressed through all that we feel and all that we do.
This particular spirit is not simply an animating force, but also contains the person’s core identity, their soul, which, as the Catechism states, “will last as long as God Himself.” In other words, each person’s essence lives forever.
The soul is more than the energy enlivening the body; it has awareness of itself in relationship to God and the ability to make rational choices rather than encoding patterns purely on instinct or conditioned responses.
The soul is designed to seek after higher things, better understanding, ever greater knowledge; but the soul cannot know everything by its own power alone. The soul requires God to lead, guide, teach and nurture these yearnings in the relationship for which it was designed.
Every soul may freely choose to follow God’s order, or to go off on its own, risking the kind of harm that comes from disorder.

The main functional parts, then, are God, the Creator; and people, the creatures seeking knowledge through relationship with Him. We’ve got the who, and the what. So far, so good!

We need to pause here and reflect just a bit on the schematic as it relates to people on the autism spectrum. No two people are exactly the same, but within those infinite variations of body and personal essence remains the same purpose, which is growing in knowledge of and relationship with God. (We will get to that next week.) Autistic thinkers tend to approach both knowledge and relationships in our own autistic way, sometimes finding our particular wiring helpful (for instance, in the ways we reflect on and record information) and sometimes needing a little more engineering to understand things as easily as nonautistic thinkers do (such as when our linear, wired-in-series thinking struggles to comprehend the infinite, abundant and parallel functioning of God). Autistic wiring also seems to have unpredictably distributed areas of resistance, capacitance and conductivity, compared to the schematics of more typically wired thinkers. Our energy flow may seem to diminish faster than others, especially when we are functioning in social (parallel-wired) situations. The important point is to be aware of our own, individual wiring and to trust that it was designed that way by God – who did so deliberately, in hopes we would discover Him through that very way he wired us. Comparing ourselves and our wiring to that of anyone else is futile and pointless. If God had wanted us to think like someone else, He would have wired us that way.

(Here's a tip: Any version of the Catechism of the Catholic Church can be thought of as the book proposal for God's manuscript of the fatherly love story He intends to be told by and within each of our lives.)

The way God created each one of us reflects the delight He takes in each one of us.

There we go: the schematic diagram, the main players. The WHO and the WHAT.

Next week, we continue Lesson One, looking next at WHY God created us in the first place.

4 Comments

Nicole Corrado link

1/7/2019 10:45:58 am

One of the aspects of (19th century onward) Catholicism that I find difficult to accept is the concept that only humans have souls, and that animals only have instinct and conditioned responses. (Humans are also incredibly instinctual animals). In 1885, modern neuroscience had not been discovered. It was falsely believed that non human animals had no thoughts, feelings, and could make none of their own decisions. (Autistic people, young children, and indigenous people were also placed in this false category in 1885. These concepts were created to subjugate and even destroy indigenous communities and the natural world.).

If animals could not feel, think, or decide things for themselves, they would have died out years ago.

The Anglican pastor Dr Andrew Linzey has pointed out, that, if animals only had a mortal spirit, their physical lives would be far more worthy of protection, as this life would be all they would have. (There are still people today who unfortunately believe that autistic people have no soul at all!). Most Christians throughout history believe that all animals have immortal souls.

The concept that God is a spirit in all living things is something I agree with. This concept is present in all religions. If God is present in all creatures, and God is immortal, than that aspect of all life is immortal too.

Both humans and non human animals possess the qualities pointed out here for humans. The Bible never suggested that humans alone possessed so called "human" qualities.

The Christian, 100% Bible Based blog Shepherding Creation gives the theologically sound concept that humans and all animals have immortal souls. https://shepherdingcreation.com

Aimee

1/7/2019 11:03:16 am

You are absolutely correct in pointing out that understanding in 1885 was different than it is today. However, we could say the same about 1985, when sensory processing was not at all understood and children were not considered autistic unless they were nonverbal and self-injuring. It is the whole point to annotating the catechism, not sitting with it as it was written, so that the incomplete process begun back then can be updated with new insights and data we know today.

That could also include theology of animal spirituality.

We’re not including animals just yet, but there is nothing to say it won’t come (or someone with your talents won’t write it!) One focus at a time, and for now, our focus is helping people connect with God. Keeping with the theme of this week: All God’s creatures are there in parallel, but we are approaching it in series : )

God bless,
Aimee

Jill Clark

1/7/2019 11:43:49 am

Hello,
Thank you, this is really good. I think it will become a great tool.

I hope you dont mind a gentle critique.

I was confused by some of the terminology you used, such as "encoding patterns" when talking about the soul, and most of the electrical references in the final paragraph (I had to look them up which, while interesting, was also distracting). It might be nice to flesh things out a little for those of us who, while aspie, are not "techy".

Thanks again and God bless,
Jill

1/7/2019 12:03:05 pm

Thank you, Jill! We will surely aim for a good balance. It's a lot right out of the gate, yes. There are limitless analogies we can use to try to make unseen and unmeasurable things more concrete, so we'll gladly get our creative juices working for posts to come!

God bless!
Aimee

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