An appointed hour?
There are two kinds of explanations for the same event in life. One tells us how it happens. The other tells us why it happens. Between these two lies the mystery of human existence, where science describes the visible and faith explains the invisible. Death is perhaps the clearest place where these two languages (science and faith) meet. Science can trace every heartbeat, every molecule, and every cell that stops working, but it still stands silent before the moment itself, the precise instant when life leaves the body. That instant belongs not to laboratories or equations, but to the divine.
Science has made extraordinary progress in understanding life and death. It tells us that death occurs when the organs that sustain life, the heart, lungs, and brain, cease to function irreversibly. It explains the processes that lead to that failure: the lack of oxygen, the breakdown of energy in cells, the collapse of the body’s electrical communication. Medical science can even predict that death is near by observing certain patterns. But what it cannot predict is when and where that moment will strike. A healthy man can die in his sleep, and another can survive after his heart stops for several minutes. Science studies the mechanism, but it cannot unlock the mystery of timing.
In the human body, every breath and every heartbeat depends on delicate systems of chemistry and physics. The brain needs a constant flow of oxygen; the cells need glucose; the heart must contract in rhythm. If one link breaks, the chain of life collapses. In medical terms, we call it cardiac arrest, stroke, or organ failure. Yet even in the most controlled medical environment, doctors can only describe the sequence, not the decree. The........





















Toi Staff
Gideon Levy
Tarik Cyril Amar
Sabine Sterk
Stefano Lusa
Mort Laitner
Mark Travers Ph.d
Ellen Ginsberg Simon
Gilles Touboul
John Nosta