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Investigation 1: Faith & Reason
Throughout this Investigation, students studied the human brain through observation, evidence, and scientific reasoning.
They discovered how different regions of the brain contribute to thought, memory, emotion, movement, and behavior. They also saw how injury to the brain can profoundly affect the way a person thinks and acts.
These discoveries raise larger questions:
Are we simply our brains?
What gives every human person dignity?
What does it mean to be a unity of body and soul?
How do our brains affect our choices—and what does that mean for human freedom and responsibility?
Science gives us powerful ways to investigate the human brain.
Faith & Reason invites students to consider what Catholic theology can contribute to understanding the person whose brain we study.
What Have We Learned About the Human Person?
From this Investigation, we discovered that:
- Different brain regions contribute to different abilities.
- Injury to the brain can affect thought, emotion, memory, judgment, and behavior.
- The brain is essential to the way we experience and respond to the world.
- Studying the brain can tell us a great deal about ourselves.
Faith & Reason adds another perspective:
- Every human person is created in the image of God.
- Human dignity does not depend upon intelligence, ability, achievement, or health.
- The human person is a unity of body and soul.
- The body is part of the person—not simply something the person possesses.
- Our brains affect how we think, feel, and act, but understanding the brain does not tell the whole story of who we are.
Leading the Faith & Reason Conversation
Use the questions below to guide students from what they discovered through scientific investigation toward deeper reflection on the human person. These are not questions with simple one-word answers. Encourage students to explain their thinking, listen to one another, and consider how scientific knowledge and Catholic teaching together deepen our understanding of what it means to be human.
1. If injury to the brain can change the way a person thinks or behaves, does that mean the person is simply the brain?
Possible Student Responses
Students may recognize that:
- Damage to the brain can profoundly affect memory, emotion, judgment, movement, and behavior.
- This shows how important the brain is to the way a person experiences and interacts with the world.
- However, Catholic teaching does not identify the human person with the brain alone.
- The human person is a unity of body and soul. The brain is part of the body and therefore an essential part of the person.
Theological Connection
Catholic teaching avoids two extremes: the person is not simply a brain or body, but neither is the body merely a container for the soul. Body and soul together constitute one human person.
This gives students an important way to interpret what they observed in Investigation 1. Changes in the brain can produce profound changes in how a person thinks, feels, communicates, or acts. That scientific fact demonstrates the importance of the body; it does not establish that the person is nothing more than the body.
Teacher Tip
Return to Phineas Gage. Ask students: When Gage’s behavior changed after his injury, did he become less human or lose his human dignity?
Allow students to wrestle with the question. The goal is not to minimize the effects of his brain injury, but to distinguish between changes in a person’s abilities or behavior and the dignity of the person himself.
This distinction prepares students for one of the central ideas of Faith & Reason: what happens to the body matters deeply because the body is part of who we are—but the human person cannot be completely explained by studying the brain alone.
2. What does Catholic teaching mean when it says that the human person is a unity of body and soul?
Possible Student Responses
Students may recognize that:
- A human person is both physical and spiritual.
- The body and soul are not two separate beings joined together.
- The body is not simply a container for the soul; our bodies are part of who we are.
- What happens to the body—including the brain—can affect how we experience, understand, and respond to the world.
Theological Connection
Catholic teaching describes the human person as a profound unity of body and soul. The Catechism teaches that the unity is so deep that the soul is considered the “form” of the body. In other words, we are not souls temporarily occupying bodies. Body and soul together constitute one human person.
This helps explain why studying the brain matters so much. The biological discoveries students made during this Investigation are discoveries about an essential dimension of the human person. Faith does not make the biology less important; it gives students a larger framework in which to understand its importance.
Teacher Tip
Ask students to consider the difference between saying:
“I have a body.”
and
“My body is part of who I am.”
What changes?
Students may initially find the distinction subtle. Give them time. Connect it to ordinary human experience: we communicate through our bodies, recognize one another by our bodies, experience pleasure and pain through our bodies, and use our brains and senses to encounter the world.
The goal is for students to understand that Catholic teaching does not ask them to choose between the biological person they investigated in science and a spiritual person described by theology. They are studying one human person from different but complementary perspectives.
3. If every person is created in the image of God, what does that tell us about human dignity?
Possible Student Responses
Students may recognize that:
- Every human person has inherent dignity and worth.
- Human dignity does not depend on intelligence, memory, health, independence, achievement, or physical ability.
- People can differ greatly in their abilities while possessing the same fundamental human dignity.
- Injury or disease may change what a person can do, but it does not make that person less human.
Theological Connection
Catholic teaching grounds human dignity in something deeper than ability or accomplishment: every human being is created in the image and likeness of God.
This has an important connection to the science students studied. The brain can differ from person to person and can be changed by development, injury, disease, or experience. Those differences can profoundly affect a person’s abilities and behavior. But human dignity is not measured by brain function.
A person’s value therefore cannot be reduced to intelligence, memory, productivity, independence, or any other biological or cognitive capacity.
Teacher Tip
Return again to the brain, but broaden the discussion beyond Phineas Gage.
Ask students:
Would a person with a severe brain injury have less human dignity than someone with a healthy brain? What about a newborn baby who cannot yet reason, speak, or care for herself?
Let students explain why.
This provides an opportunity to distinguish between what a person can do and who a person is. Catholic teaching locates human dignity in the person—not in a particular level of ability.
The goal is not merely for students to learn the phrase image of God. It is for them to begin recognizing its consequence: every human life possesses a dignity that differences in ability cannot erase.
Catholic Connections
The ideas explored in this Faith & Reason lesson are deeply rooted in Catholic teaching about the human person.
Created in the Image of God
“So God created mankind in his image; in the image of God he created them.” — Genesis 1:27
Every human person possesses dignity because each is created in the image of God. Human worth therefore does not depend upon intelligence, ability, health, or achievement.
A Unity of Body and Soul
The Catholic Church teaches that the human person is a unity of body and soul. The body is not merely something we possess; it is an essential part of the person. — Catechism of the Catholic Church, §§362–365
Faith and Science
Studying the brain helps us understand an extraordinary part of the human person. Catholic theology invites us to place those discoveries within a larger understanding of who the human person is, why every person possesses dignity, and what it means to be created in the image of God.