Taking the Body Seriously: Reclaiming the ‘Mysterious’ and Placing it in the Hospital
Jack Horton, Graduate Student - Master of Theological Studies, Duke Divinity School
“Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.” (1 Corinthians 12:27). This famous ‘Body’ passage of Paul’s is buttressed on both sides by a conversation concerning spiritual gifts. Accordingly, it is commonly understood as establishing equality between the Church’s members. So, interpretations suggesting an ontological oneness amongst Christians are set aside in lieu of the practical and tangible. Through the thorough adoption of such projects as Baconianism, modern medicine has made a similar ‘interpretive’ step avoiding the mysterious - that which does not make ready sense to nor can be quickly grasped by our rational minds - and favoring the definable and controllable. Reckoning appreciation for the former with commitment to the latter is deemed impossible. However, there are those who might be leery of such a development.
Concerning Paul’s discussion of the Body, St. Augustine says, “It is not possible for one member to suffer without the other members suffering” (Ancient Christian Commentary). Responding to Paul’s declaration that, “‘…in one Spirit were we all baptized into one body.’” St. Ambrose focuses in on the mystery and unity involved in the Body’s formation (The Fathers of the Church: Saint Ambrose, p. 51). Moving closer to medical practice, St. Basil compares the profession to a ship at sea where control is entrusted to the ‘pilot’, but supplication to God alone ensures protection from the sea (Asketikon, p. 269). In the modern era we encounter Susan Eastman and Dorothy Martyn who propose, together at the interface of Scripture and developmental psychology, that the individual ‘self’ presupposes ‘relationality’, and may be better defined as self-in-relation, as something located outside the singular corpus.
Common amongst these ancient and contemporary thinkers is an affirmation, in various forms, of the ‘mysterious’. Whether by description of co-suffering, unity in the Body, the invisible workings of a God, or the others-substantiated personhood, room is made for the unknown. Consequently, Paul’s Body may also be rightly interpreted as suggesting we are, in some literal yet elusive sense, part of a singular Body. Simultaneously, we are also bounded individuals. It is an apparently paradoxical formulation that nevertheless may be ontologically accurate, and, thus, mysterious.
This essay will reclaim the proper place of the ’mysterious’ in Christian thought and suggest that modern medicine would do well to adopt an analogous respect for the unknown. Though the ‘mysterious’ is multiform in Scripture, 1 Corinthians 12 and the Body presented therein will serve as the reference point from which to assert the worth of the intangible. Such a valuation of the unknown, partially built from conversation with the aforementioned actors, will offer a ‘lens of mystery’ by which practitioners might perceive their practice differently. Namely, the perspective will accomplish three things: create space for awe, foster humble dispositions (over against shameful ones) in the face of uncertainty, and lend fuller conceptualizations of realities encountered in hospitals. In the present case of the Body this last point will manifest as a view of the person as concurrently both individual and corporate.
Concerning Paul’s discussion of the Body, St. Augustine says, “It is not possible for one member to suffer without the other members suffering” (Ancient Christian Commentary). Responding to Paul’s declaration that, “‘…in one Spirit were we all baptized into one body.’” St. Ambrose focuses in on the mystery and unity involved in the Body’s formation (The Fathers of the Church: Saint Ambrose, p. 51). Moving closer to medical practice, St. Basil compares the profession to a ship at sea where control is entrusted to the ‘pilot’, but supplication to God alone ensures protection from the sea (Asketikon, p. 269). In the modern era we encounter Susan Eastman and Dorothy Martyn who propose, together at the interface of Scripture and developmental psychology, that the individual ‘self’ presupposes ‘relationality’, and may be better defined as self-in-relation, as something located outside the singular corpus.
Common amongst these ancient and contemporary thinkers is an affirmation, in various forms, of the ‘mysterious’. Whether by description of co-suffering, unity in the Body, the invisible workings of a God, or the others-substantiated personhood, room is made for the unknown. Consequently, Paul’s Body may also be rightly interpreted as suggesting we are, in some literal yet elusive sense, part of a singular Body. Simultaneously, we are also bounded individuals. It is an apparently paradoxical formulation that nevertheless may be ontologically accurate, and, thus, mysterious.
This essay will reclaim the proper place of the ’mysterious’ in Christian thought and suggest that modern medicine would do well to adopt an analogous respect for the unknown. Though the ‘mysterious’ is multiform in Scripture, 1 Corinthians 12 and the Body presented therein will serve as the reference point from which to assert the worth of the intangible. Such a valuation of the unknown, partially built from conversation with the aforementioned actors, will offer a ‘lens of mystery’ by which practitioners might perceive their practice differently. Namely, the perspective will accomplish three things: create space for awe, foster humble dispositions (over against shameful ones) in the face of uncertainty, and lend fuller conceptualizations of realities encountered in hospitals. In the present case of the Body this last point will manifest as a view of the person as concurrently both individual and corporate.