T THE CENTER OF THE LOMA LINDA University campus stands a sculpture representing Jesus' parable of the good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37). A crime victim lies on the ground, beaten and left for dead. Two passersby hurry away. A fourth man stops to help. He kneels down and embraces the semiconscious form.
It's a powerful scene. The bronze figures remind us that suffering is everywhere, all too easy to overlook. But they also project a message of hope. In spite of the world's cruelty and indifference, our lives serve an exalted purpose. We are here because God wants us to be. He gave us the qualities that make us who we are, and He calls us to join Him in His work of rescue and restoration.
Loma Linda University rests on this complex vision of humanity. It holds that human life is a wonderful thing, filled with diversity and rich with possibility. It also holds that something is terribly wrong: The world as it is, is not the world as it should be. Finally, it holds that the central purpose of life is to help and to heal, to assist one another in reaching God's goals for our lives. Each facet of this vision deserves an explanation.
Wholly Human
The truth about humanity is anything but simple. On the one hand, we belong to the natural world and we have a lot in common with other creatures on this planet. Like other forms of life, we are physical and social beings. Because we exist in bodily form, our bodies deserve to be valued and cared for. The Bible supports everything that sustains and extends our lives. God provided food for Adam and Eve (Gen. 2:9, 16). Jesus promised to eat and drink with His disciples in God's kingdom (Luke 22:16-18). The Bible encourages us to attend to our health (see 1 Cor. 6:19; 3 John 2), and describes God as one who "heals all your diseases" (Ps. 103:3).* According to the Bible, human beings also exist as groups, and what we are together is more important than what we are alone. When God created humanity, He made two persons, not just one. When God re-creates humanity, He restores community as well.1
Though we have many things in common with other forms of life, we are remarkably different, too. We are created in the "image of God,"2 an expression that points to a host of important features. It is often said that humans, in contrast to animals, are "rational" beings. We form general concepts and engage in abstract thought; we have powerful imaginations. In every situation we can envision new possibilities. These qualities give human beings enormous freedom. Unlike creatures whose basic "nature" is simply given to them, our lives are largely self-determined. We can choose our destiny; it isn't determined for us.
Not only do we think and choose; we also feel. And the quality of our lives actually depends more heavily on emotions than anything else. No matter how talented, beautiful, rich, and famous we may be, our lives will seem empty if negative feelings plague us. On the other hand, people can be happy in a great variety of circumstances. Careful analysis reveals that nothing about us is more complicated than our emotions. Thoughts are closely related to feelings, but feelings are much more subtle. Feelings can never be precisely translated into words.
As bearers of God's image, we are also spiritual. We may be physical beings in a physical world, but we are far more than a series of physical events. We want to do more than just survive; we need our lives to have meaning and purpose. We ponder the mystery of the universe, and we seek a relationship with the Divine.
This wholistic vision accounts for Loma Linda University's interest in the full range of human inquiry. The belief that God claims the whole of life calls us to explore the full range of human interests, the arts and humanities as well as the sciences, to advance learning in every area, and to pursue excellence in all our endeavors.
A wholistic view of humanity not only takes into account all the features of human existence--physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual--it also notes the many ways these features affect each other. Though we are physical beings, for example, we are never merely physical. The human body is not just an object in the physical world; it's a bearer of meaning. It is the symbol of the person whose body it is. Similarly, our actions give expression to our thoughts and attitudes. Like all physical organisms, we need food to live; but sharing food, eating together, expresses personal fellowship. Sex is a physical activity, but it unites couples psychologically and spiritually, too. In the final analysis, nothing about us is merely or purely physical. The "more" of human existence gives a spiritual dimension to every aspect of our lives.
Not only does the mind affect the body; the body also has an effect on the mind. Some scholars believe that all our mental operations, even abstract thought and language, have a basis in physical experience. Research demonstrates that mental functions are related to specific regions of the brain; and if any of these regions is damaged, our ability to do certain things, such as remember faces or use proper nouns, may be impaired. Explorations of our "cognitive architecture," the way our ideas are put together, also point to a close connection between mind and body. According to one scholar, the basic patterns we think with arise from the way our bodies operate in the world.3
The intimate contact between mind and body--the interaction of mental and physical-underscores the fact that nothing about us is isolated from the rest of us. Touch any part of a person, any facet of human life, and we touch the whole person. This is why religion and health are so closely related. Health professionals everywhere now recognize what Loma Linda has always emphasized. The physical and spiritual dimensions of life are connected; each has an influence on the other.
Sin: The Whole Problem
Although we are fearfully and wonderfully made, as the psalmist exclaimed, another side of human life casts a shadow on all the features just described. The whole truth about human existence includes the fact that we are not, in fact, whole. Though we bear God's image, a scar runs through our lives. And because all our faculties are connected, it affects everything about us. Nothing human is exactly the way God intended it.
Sin represents this loss of human wholeness, or integrity. Instead of complementing and supporting each other, our powers work against each other. This conflict shows up in all the dimensions of our existence, starting with the spiritual. When it comes to God, all of us are rebels. We know that we need God. We sense that we are created for fellowship with Him, but we resist accepting Him as the Lord of our lives.
Sin also sets us in conflict with one another. We see it in the perpetual unrest that engulfs peoples and nations. In the twentieth century human beings made more technological progress than in all previous history, yet we killed one another at a rate that defies comprehension. The rivalries that take such tragic form in war are universally at work in our human experience as individuals. Even members of close-knit families sometimes find it difficult to get along with each other. The divorce rate in the United States is close to 50 percent.
The most pathetic form of sin may be the conflict within ourselves. According to a famous psychiatrist, there is a self-destructive tendency in all of us that takes many different forms, psychological and physical.4 As a result of sin, our marvelous interconnectedness backfires. Physical problems often stem from emotional or spiritual causes. But whether illness has mental, emotional, spiritual, or social causes or symptoms, the fundamental truth is the same. A problem anywhere is a problem everywhere. Nothing about us is merely physical, or merely anything else. Physical illness has emotional effects; emotional problems have physical consequences.
The reality of sin points to a tragic discrepancy between what we are and what we are meant to be. Originally, essentially, all the facets of our lives were fully present and perfectly balanced--the physical, intellectual, emotional, spiritual, and social dimensions. As we actually exist, however, we are physically, mentally, emotionally, socially, and spiritually diminished.
Salvation: The Whole Solution
Human life is undeniably broken, but this is not the last word about human existence. No sooner did sin enter the world, according to the Bible, than God was at work to resist its influence and mitigate its consequences. Where sin abounds, God's grace also abounds. From a wholistic perspective, illness or disease is never merely physical; it is mental, emotional, social, and spiritual as well. A wholistic view of salvation includes the restoration of everything that sin has damaged. Salvation involves physical, mental, emotional, social, and spiritual healing.
If the opening chapters of the Bible give us a basic vision of human wholeness, the ministry of Jesus provides the essential model of human healing. On one occasion Jesus compared Himself to a physician, implying that His mission was a ministry of healing.5 And because the Greek word for "heal" also means "save," it nicely expresses the comprehensive nature of His work.
Jesus met people's needs across the entire range of human experience. We see His concern for spiritual welfare in the overarching theme of His ministry, the "kingdom of God." We see His concern for physical well-being in His miracles. He stilled a life-threatening storm on the Sea of Galilee and fed the hungry crowds that followed Him.
Jesus understood the connection between physical and spiritual restoration. When four men brought a paralyzed friend to Him, Jesus first said, "Your sins are forgiven" (Mark 2:5), and then, "Stand up, take your mat and go to your home" (verse 11).
Jesus healed people emotionally, too. He cared for their feelings as well as their physical needs. When a woman touched His garment in a desperate attempt to find relief from a hemorrhage, Jesus cured her illness, and then He did more. He listened while she poured out "the whole truth," as the Gospel puts it, and He affirmed her dignity by calling her "daughter."6
Jesus showed special sensitivity to those who were the objects of scorn or neglect. He commended a poor widow who put a pittance in the Temple treasury.7 He complimented Mary for choosing "the better part" when Martha complained about her.8 He praised a woman who washed His feet for doing a beautiful thing.9 He comforted a woman accused of adultery, saying, "Neither do I condemn you."10 He embraced "tax collectors and sinners" as valued members of God's family.11 He rebuked His disciples for sending children away from Him.12
Jesus also restored human relationships. Each person He raised from the dead was restored to a bereaved family--Jairus's daughter, the son of the widow of Nain, and Lazarus of Bethany. Physical restoration was the means, social restoration the end. The same was true when Jesus healed people whose diseases forced them to live apart from family and friends, such as lepers and demoniacs.
Jesus not only restored communities; He created a new community, the most inclusive, wholistic community of all. The ultimate goal of His mission was to bring people into a fellowship whose members would exhibit the same love for others that He displayed in His life, and would reach out to people from every nation and every station in life. In other words, Jesus envisioned the most inclusive community possible--a community open to everyone, to the entire world.
To make humanity whole is to participate in the comprehensive ministry of Jesus Himself. It requires us to share Jesus' wholistic vision of human existence. It's a vision that celebrates God's love for the whole world. It considers the needs of every nation and every segment of society. It supports the full range of human potential--our capacity to learn, to understand, and to create. And finally it takes into account the entire scope of human existence, reaching from this life to the life to come.
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*Bible texts in this article are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version.
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1 According to the New Testament, the dead rise together to receive eternal life. They don't receive it one by one (1 Thess. 4:16, 17).
2 The expression first appears in Genesis 1:26, 27: "Then God said, 'Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all . . . the earth.' . . . So God created humankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them."
3 Mark Johnson, The Body in the Mind: The Bodily Basis of Meaning, Imagination, and Reason (University of Chicago Press, 1987).
4 Karl Menninger, Man Against Himself (Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1938).
5 "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick" (Matt. 9:12).
6 Mark 5:24-34.
7 Mark 12:41-44; Luke 21:1-4.
8 Luke 10:41, 42.
9 Matt. 26:13; Mark 14:9.
10 John 8:11.
11 See the parables of the lost sheep, the lost coin, the prodigal son (Luke 15).
12 Matt. 19:13-15; Mark 10:13-16; Luke 18:15-17.
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Richard Rice, Ph.D., is a professor of religion at Loma Linda University.
