Brain-Damaged Believer (October 17, 2004)

Sam Kinison may have helped me solve a problem I've always had with Phineas Gage.

Kinison was a preacher-turned-comedian who flourished in the 1980s and was killed in a car accident in 1991. If you ever heard one of his stand-up routines, you would not believe that he had once been a minister. He was the most profane, vulgar, blasphemous comic of his (or maybe any) generation. He also drank, did drugs and cheated on his wife - deeds which all became grist for his comedy.

Until last week that was all I knew about Kinison. He was a creep (though a funny one) who fled the Lord and did ungodly things with manic energy. But then I saw a documentary which brought out some facts that made his life story very interesting. In the year before he died, Kinison started cleaning up his life, quitting the drugs and drinking and carrying on. A week before he died, he said to his best friend, Carl LaBove, "I don't know why I'm supposed to tell you this, but I feel I should tell you - get things right with God." LaBove answered, "Sam, if anybody needs to get it right with God, you do!" He agreed.

LaBove and Kinison's brother Bill were following Sam's car a few days later when it was involved in the head-on collision that took his life. When they raced to where Sam lay they heard him saying, "I don't want to die! Why now? Why? Why?" And he kept repeating, "Why? Why now?" Then, as Labove held him in his arms, Sam looked up and spoke as though to someone unseen. He said, "Oh. O.K...O.K...O.K," and, appearing to accept his fate peacefully, passed away. His brother said, "I don't think anybody could be there and not believe in an afterlife - not believe that he wasn't communicating with somebody." LaBove said, "Somebody said the right thing, and Sam heard it, and he left with them."

One more detail: when he was three years old Kinison had nearly been killed in another accident. A truck hit him, causing severe head trauma. He went into a coma and experienced grand mal seizures. His brother said that when they brought Sam home from the hospital, his personality had changed so much that he thought it was a different kid. Quiet, peaceful Sam suddenly became aggressive, impulsive and uncontrollable. He pretty much stayed that way for 35 years.

Why do I connect Kinison with Phineas Gage? Because Gage is the world's best known head-injury case. He was working as a railroad foreman in 1848 when a tamping iron, nearly 4 feet long and over an inch in diameter, shot right through his head. It entered below his left cheekbone, came out the top of his skull and landed 25 yards away, having blasted out a chunk of his brain. Amazingly, he remained conscious and alert. He rested a few weeks and went back to work.

But, in the words of his coworkers, he was "no longer Gage." Though still strong and intelligent, his personality degraded. His doctor wrote, "He is fitful, irreverent, indulging in the grossest profanity (which was not previously his custom), manifesting but little deference for his fellows, impatient of restraint or advice when it conflicts with his desires."

So - a good man lost a piece of his brain and turned bad. What does my Christian faith have to say about that? I'll admit that this problem has long nagged at me. I'd prefer to think that any man's kind and steady disposition is due to the moral choices he makes, or, if he is a Christian, to the presence of the Holy Spirit within him. But doesn't Phineas Gage (and others like him) give the lie to spiritual explanations of goodness? Do responsible behavior and calm temper turn out to be nothing more than the products of a well-ordered brain? I myself do not cuss, cheat, make lewd comments or rage out of control. But hit me hard enough in the head and it looks like I might do just that for the rest of my life. I cannot deny that the thought unsettles me.

But Sam Kinison's story may shed a little light. Because I'd like to think that, for all Sam's iniquities, and whatever their source, God had mercy on his soul. God knew more precisely than we ever could what percentage of Sam's immoral behavior came from his choices and what came from a truck-battered cerebrum. I think God kept working with Sam. His brother said that even through all the years of careening profanely through life, Sam still considered himself a Christian. If God abandoned Sam, then why toward the end of his life did Sam come stumbling back to God as well as his warped and impulsive nature would permit him? And if Sam were irredeemably reprobate, why would the Lord comfort him during his final breaths? (Assuming we accept his friend's and brother's interpretation of what happened in those final moments. I do.)

The Bible says that God "knows how we are formed. He remembers that we are dust."(Psalm 103:14). I'm thankful for that. I will assume that God's perfect justice takes into account all the blows that pound and buffet the dust we are made of. At the same time, I'll not forget that some us are made of perfectly serviceable dust, and suffer no great hindrance to choosing good. In my case, I can't say that I'm aware of any bone chip pressing against my brain that inclines me toward evil. It would be nice to have that excuse, but I don't. So I would do well to remember that the same Bible that assures us of God's understanding and mercy also warns, "To whom much is given, much will be required." (Luke 12:48).