Scriptorium Daily
Science does a wonderful job making my body healthy.
That is good, but religion does something better. Christianity cures my soul so that I can live well.
After all, bad men are not blessed when they have good health. Sound bodies just give them greater chance to harm others and deeply harm their own souls. As many great saints demonstrate, cure the soul and a man or woman can make a great life out of very trying physical circumstances.
Jesus Christ made my sick soul well.
What is more important than that?
America fixates on physical health, but a man with a fit body and a bad heart is worse than a winning smile that comes with fetid breath. The beauty of the one is spoilt by the grossness of the other.
A sound body with a sick soul does not profit a person. Not surprisingly generally a sound soul will produce a healthier body. The two are closely interrelated.
Christianity is good for you physically. Except for those whose secular fundamentalism limits their perspective, there is sufficient evidence that miracles of physical healing occur as well, something I have personally experienced.
However, spiritual formation is not primarily about physical wellness. Fixing the body is temporary while healing the soul is forever.
You and I are going to sicken and physically die. Given the way things are (due to bad human choices) that is a very good thing and is a major part of God’s severe mercy on humankind. As we are, living forever would grow stale and tedious. As Tennyson puts it:
The old order changeth, yielding place to new,
And God fulfils Himself in many ways,
Lest one good custom should corrupt the world.
Death is coming and pretending otherwise is the ignorant cowardice of childish minds.
Part of that preparation is sacrifice for others, doing one’s duty in difficult circumstances, and even being willing to lay down life itself for others. Health bought at the cost of dishonor or betrayal of family, country, or God is worthless. A bad man living is worse off than a good man dead. A coward in the peak of health is disgusting to himself and all decent folk, but a hero’s injuries are an honor to himself, his family, his nation, and his God. Every mother’s labor pains remind us that nothing great can be produced in this life without difficulty and sacrifice.
Avoiding all physical difficulty may be attractive, but it is spiritually destructive. A sedated mind that is pain free may, or may not, be less good than a clear mind suffering pain that teaches depth and charity. Science, limited to is, can never tell us what ought to be done. Our medical doctors need our pastors in order to help with these broader human questions.
Medical science gives religion useful tools, but it is the ethicist and the pastor, experts in human things, that tell us what to do with them. This is as true in medicine as it is in any other area. The medical doctor can tell us how to heal the sick, but only the priest can tell the doctor that he should or should not do so.
Most important of all is religion’s role in making a man fit for the world to come. If this life is a preparation for further life to come, as thinkers from Plato, to Aquinas, to C.S. Lewis believed it to be, then paying attention to the demands of that future life is important.
Good physical fitness produces health in the body, just as ethical fitness produces health in the soul. Too many Americans ignore nutrition and exercise and then damn their luck when they get ill. Quite a few of us may ignore our spiritual health only to find ourselves simply damned.
Sadly, there are know-nothings in our culture who care only for medical technology, but then ignore the wisdom of Christianity in what to do with it. Like television’s Doctor House, they may be brilliant scientists, but bad men. They ignore the words of Jesus and happily save the body and lose their souls. Their error is not in their veneration of medical science, but in the narrowness of their education and concern.
A world without science would be less comfortable. A world without religion would be without meaning. Plato was right when he argued that people with healthy souls live healthier lives both now and in the world to come. The reasonable person cares for both, but prioritizes paradise. Only when he can say “it is well with my soul” can he truly be said to be healthy.
