As its most elementary and practical, healing can be defined as a restoration of health to a part of the body that was previously diseased. The body itself has a remarkable built-in system of healing whereby it can replace portions destroyed by injury or disease, prevent the invasion of organisms that take part in the various infections to which it is heir, and reject the ingrowth of foreign tissues. The discipline of medicine especially the studies of physiology and pathology, is now in a position to shed much light on the many processes of healing whereby the body attains a normal state of function after a severe injury or disease. The one characteristic that soon strikes the observer is the remarkable order of the processes. There is a regulated outpouring of the cells and fluid necessary for healing both from the blood and the nearby healthy area, and when the end of healing has been attained the flow of fluid and the migration of cells ceases forthwith. Order and rhythm are features of the healthy body's functioning. Once order is disrupted and disorder predominates the disease becomes more serious; the most sinister is the unrestrained abnormal growth of cells that characterizes a tumour. This follows its own rules of growth, whatever they may be, and if it is malignant it will tend to destroy the whole organism in its relentless spread.
Medical science can describe these processes in terms of chemistry with ever increasing precision, but is still largely ignorant about the fundamental factors that initiate the chemical response and control it. There seems to be a more subtle healing power that lies beyond the manifest phenomena of disease and healing than has yet been discovered by the biological or physical sciences. It appears to be related in some way to the emotional and mental life of the person, and this in turn is dependent on the meaning the person sees in his life and the purpose to which it is devoted. In any healing process there are factors involved that are strictly localized to the part of the body that is diseased. But there are also factors of a more generalized, or systemic, nature that seem to control the over-all response of the whole body to the assault of injury or disease. These include such tangible influences as diet and occupation, but there is also increasing evidence that mental attitudes are also of importance. The mind, itself intimately related to the brain, controls the body's response to many noxious stimuli that might otherwise destroy it.
The human personality functions on at least four levels - the physical body, the emotions that influence its actions, the rational mind that investigates and controls the environment on which life depends, and a deeper centre of moral decision which is traditionally called the soul. More acceptable contemporary names for this central focus of personality are the true self or spiritual self, which is to be contrasted with the ego self by which the personality expresses and asserts itself moment by moment in the environment. The ego consciousness fluctuates whereas the consciousness of the true self is stable; it defines the formed attitude of the person to the great themes of life: vocation, purpose, faith, dedication, renunciation and death. We are told by Jesus to love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength and to love our neighbour as ourself (Mark 12:30-1). This means that all four functions of the personality have to be used in our devotion to God and his creatures. All four functions are to be properly, indeed perfectly, integrated so that they operate as a complete whole in unity as well as in diversity. It is this integrated action that is the basis of order, whether on the elementary level of the body's cells and organs or on the composite level of people and society. St Paul makes this very clear in his famous analogy of the various types of Christian believers with the organs of a healthy body whose integrated whole is Christ himself. For Christ is like a single body with its many limbs and organs, which, many as they are, together make up one body. For indeed we were all brought into one body by baptism, in the one Spirit, whether we are Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free men, and that one Holy Spirit was poured out for all of us to drink" (1 Cor. 12:12-13).
The basis of effective healing, by which I mean a healing made manifest by a changed attitude to life so that the local restoration of health becomes durable and progressive, is integration. The centre of integration is the spirit of the soul or true self, which informs the rational mind, cleanses and purifies the emotions, and renews the body with strength and vitality. Conversely, the state that precedes disease is disorganization of the body that is secondary to disintegration of the personality. This usually follows an emotional upheaval consequent on such disasters as disappointment, betrayal or bereavement. Our emotional life is especially close in its impact on the body; we all know the effects of anxiety or grief on the heart's action and the digestion, how the appetite is lost and the heart-beat is accelerated when we are in danger and how all the body's functions are diminished when we feel unhappy and depressed. The emotions in turn are related to the state of the rational mind that determines coherent action in response to immediate exigencies or more distant need. But all are finally under the direction of the soul, which discerns ultimate purpose in the apparently meaningless flux of everyday life, a purpose that may indeed transcend the rational barriers of life and death.
It must be said, however, that even the most integrated person is liable to injury and infection, and if the injury is of massive extent the person will die at once. Similarly, an overwhelming infection can kill even a previously robust young person with dramatic speed. Nevertheless, in even such acute emergencies as these the individual tending towards integration of his personality is more likely to hang doggedly on to his life than his fellow with a diminished will to survive. When we consider the more chronic, long-standing conditions, the frame of mind of the person assumes an even more decisive role in the progress of the disease. As yet, we do not have the means to put these common clinical observations into a scientific framework with reproducible statistical data. This is because the progress of a disease and its tendency to recovery cannot be readily quantified in terms of such nebulous influences as the previous life-history of the patient and his dominant frame of mind. Furthermore, it is hard to compare the progress of diseases in a group of people with the differences in temperament and background that characterize each of us as a unique individual. Our response to life's various challenges is a very individual matter, a compound in fact of our conditioning and our unique personality. Nevertheless, despite these largely immeasurable factors, there is too strong a correlation between healing and integration of the personality to be dismissed out of hand as either a coincidence or a primitive superstition. Eventually, indeed, the person may learn to live with the affliction and transcend the limitations it exacts on his life. At that juncture the malady may so diminish in intensity that a slow, progressive healing shows itself despite all predictions to the contrary. In other words, the challenge of an apparently incurable disease may serve to integrate the sufferer's personality, after which a certain degree of improvement may show itself.
The radiance of a healthy body is an outer manifestation of the psychic energy that infuses and directs it. This vital energy that pervades the body and directs its inbuilt healing reserve has been tentatively called the vis medicatrix naturae, or healing power of nature. In days gone by it was heavily relied on by the experienced medical practitioner, who had comparatively little in the way of effective drugs to help him in his fight against the infection that was threatening the life of his patient. Quite often the support he was able to give with the simple therapies at his disposal saw the patient through the crisis of the disease and then to a slow convalescence which heralded a glorious return to health and activity. In this dramatic fight, I am convinced that the spiritual support given by the doctor was a major factor leading to his patient's recovery. This spiritual support need not have had a sectarian religious basis - though often it did in the more committed days of yore - for what it entailed was simply a giving relationship between the doctor and the person he was treating. When our own personal resources are integrated and mobilized on behalf of someone about whom we care very much, a powerful psychic energy proceeds from us to the source of our concern, and this seems to activate the natural healing force resident in that person. That subtle healing force, it would appear, stimulates chemical and other agencies in the body that set in action the various physiological processes which are geared to repel infection and reduce the effects of damaging factors on the body's metabolism.
We are indeed members of one body, to return once more to St Paul's analogy, and the healing force of its centre, which is Christ, extends to all its limbs and organs. This healing force is a property of the Spirit of God, that Holy Spirit who is the lord, the giver of all life. Without that Spirit there would be no life, and by his action there is growth of the individual into a healthy organism with an integrated personality that presages that ultimate state of coming to share in the very being of God. This last vision is expressed in 2 Peter 1:4, and there is added the promise of escaping the corruption with which lust has infected the world. In other words, healing is not simply an individualistic venture; it is involved in all human activity, indeed transcending the purely human realm of activity and pouring out from the Holy Spirit himself. Individual healing must always occur in a social context, inasmuch as the healing of society is a prerequisite for the total healing of the individual. On the other hand, it is the healed individual who alone is able to use his strength fully to assist the healing of society. Nor does society exist as an isolated unit; it depends on the world around it, deriving its nourishment and sustenance from nature. Therefore concern for environmental conservation and the welfare of all life are integral to a fully comprehensive view of healing. "God loved the world so much that he gave his only son, that everyone who has faith in him may not die but have eternal life" (John 3:16). These familiar words define the whole Christian venture, that by the participation of the Son Jesus Christ in the entire pageant of life, that life may be redeemed from the slavery of sin, whose wages are death, and enter into the full thrust of eternal life. This entry is effected by the unhindered power of the Holy Spirit; who establishes his healing work best in the person starting to lead the risen life with Christ. This life is one of prayer, service and sharing with all around him.
To mankind belongs the privilege and the duty of caring for the other inhabitants of our world, the animal and vegetable kingdoms. But man is also predatory on these lesser forms of life. What should have been a mission of service and conservation has all too often become an orgy of violation and destruction. In the Creation myth mankind and the animals thrive on the vegetation, but as the primal sin of self regard at the expense of all other beings possesses man increasingly, so the idyllic harmony of the living world is disrupted and destroyed. After the Fall there is enmity between the serpent and mankind, which is followed by human animosity, recounted in the tragic story of Cain and Abel. Finally after the Flood, described in Genesis 6-8, God puts all animals into man's power for him to eat, provided he abstains from blood (Gen. 9:1-5). In this elaborate myth, a symbolic illustration of spiritual truth culled, no doubt, from actual events in the history of a primitive people, we see how a severance of obedience to God leads progressively to a breakdown in relationship between people, between animals, and eventually between all living forms. The one uses the other unmercifully for its own end, but none more cruelly and wantonly than man, armed as he is with immense intelligence and cunning. St Paul says in Romans 6:20-3,
When you were slaves of sin, you were free from the control of righteousness; and what was the gain? Nothing but what now makes you ashamed, for the end of that is death. But now, freed from the commands of sin and bound to the service of God, your gains are such as make for holiness, and the end is eternal life. For sin pays a wage, and the wage is death, but God gives freely, and his gift is eternal life, in union with Christ Jesus our Lord.
In the messianic age as seen in Isaiah 11:6-9, there will be peace and harmony among all the animals once more with a little child leading them. They will not hurt or destroy in all God's holy mountain, for as the waters fill the sea, so shall the land be filled with the knowledge of the Lord. When we remember Jesus' statement that whoever does not accept the kingdom of God like a child will never enter it (Mark 10:15), this prophecy of Isaiah assumes renewed power. St Paul, in a vision of cosmic proportions, sees the universe itself freed from the shackles of mortality and entering upon the liberty and splendour of the children of God (Rom. 8:21). This is indeed the end of the spiritualization of all life in all dimensions of existence in the form of Christ's risen body. To me this is the true theology of healing. It commences on a simple individual plane, extends to involve human society, embraces all other forms of earthly life in its span, and finally takes in the whole created universe. Its paradigm is the resurrected body of Christ, at once individual to Jesus and yet at the same time communal for all creation, now raised from the corruption of death to the incorruption of eternal life.
All other healing is partial and incomplete even if it restores the integrity of a part or organ of the body to efficient function once more. Such healing, valuable as it may be in the short term, is all too liable to relapse if the individual continues on his heedless way, oblivious of the lesson his affliction should have taught him. Healing is not a patchwork repair; it is a recreation of something that has strayed from the image that God originally conceived. It follows therefore that the suffering and pain that burden the dark events of our life, such as severe illness, redundancy, bereavement or betrayal, can be authentic healing agents in their own right. Anything that deflects a person from his previously heedless way of life and causes him to think, perhaps for the first time in his earthly career, about the deeper issues of existence is potentially an agent of healing. Sometimes we may, like the Prodigal Son, have to descend a considerable distance down the pit of despair before we can have the silent isolation in which to reflect in undisturbed clarity upon our past life. This may indeed be one reason why God sometimes says "No" to our petitions for what we regard as healing and worldly success. Every experience in life bears its own lesson, and we will not pass by the barrier it erects until we have learnt how to transcend it. Every aspect of the personality has to participate in this process of growth and strengthening; no one part can be by-passed through excessive emphasis on another. The criterion of effective healing is a harmonious balance of the personality, which in turn is an image of a balanced world in which people of different background, temperament and insight can work together as effective limbs and organs of one fully integrated body of mankind. This is indeed a sacrament of the Godhead beyond our knowledge and yet indefinably set in the centre of the soul of each person.