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Body, Mind, and Soul: Why Christians Must Value Health

Body, Mind, and Soul: Why Christians Must Value Health

Last updated on: September 24, 2026 at 9:18 am by Henry Karlson

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Body, Mind, and Soul: Why Christians Must Value Health 2026-09-24T09:18:33-05:00 Henry Karlson

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El Greco: Christ Healing The Blind / Wikimedia Commons

Health is important; part of Christ’s temporal mission was revealed in and through the way he healed those who suffered great physical, psychological, and spiritual maladies. He also worked to heal the religious institution and society of his time by undercutting, deconstructing, and dismantling various unhealthy ideologies that people held and promoted (ideologies, to be sure, which constantly re-emerge throughout history, requiring us to confront them each time with a similar response to the one Jesus gave to them). He confronted notions of supremacy, such as in the way the people treated the Samaritans or women. Not only did he act in such a way to show the error of those ideologies, but he also gave us ways to work against and overturn them (which is one of the things he did with his Sermon on the Mount).

Christ engaged the beliefs and practices of the time in which he was born, using them as the foundation of his practices and his preaching, but he did so in a way that he could slowly add to them and change them so that we can receive from him a new perspective, and with it, a new way of life, the way of the kingdom of God. In Christ, the kingdom of God broke into the world and changed it, transforming it from within. He overcame the divisions brought about by sin, helping us to find ways to come together and realize our interdependence with each other. Thus, he not only works to heal us physically, but also to heal us spiritually, restoring our relationships with God and with the rest of humanity.

We Must Value Our Health

It is important we don’t look at Christ only in the way he heals and transforms our spirituality. There are many aspects to us as persons, and all of them are important; none of them should be neglected, even as none should be exaggerated and made more important than it is. God seeks to heal them all, which means God is at work with us and in us, concerned with our health, physically, yes, but also psychologically and spiritually. However, we must remember, no one is an island. To be a person, we must be in relation with others. This is why Kenneth G. Davis, reflecting on the way Latinos(as) explore the notion of health from a Christian context, explains the value we should place in working for and promoting the health of persons and communities alike:

One unifying, religio-cultural conviction is that the goal of life and death is communion with God through community. Health is conceived as not just the absence of injury or biological contagion, but also as having personal, sociological, and spiritual concord. Health includes at least the following consequent prescriptions and proscriptions: (1) personal integrity, (2) harmonious interpersonal relationships, and (3) trust in God. Health requires harmonious relationships among oneself and others, as well as between oneself and God. For relationships to be harmonious, one must be honorable and responsible, interdependent, mutually forgiving, and devoted to God.[1]

Our Bodies Matter to God

Personal integrity includes both the good of our body and our soul; we should not neglect either of them, even as Jesus did not; indeed, Jesus often healed them both together, forgiving people their sins, and with that forgiveness, curing them of various bodily or psychological ailments, showing how the two not only are tied together, but are equally of value. We should not consider any aspect of our personal being unimportant. We should not use the transitory nature of our temporal existence as an excuse to ignore our own physical health, or the physical health of others, saying that because it will not last, we have no reason to care. Our body is important; we must not act like Gnostics, thinking it is something we will discard. While in death we might experience a mode of being which is described as the separation of soul and body, this is the fruit of sin; it is not what God intended, and it is not what shall be in eternity. It is sinful to disregard our body, to think ill of it, to neglect it and its needs, when we can take care of it: “A man would sin against charity for himself if he neglected his spiritual or corporal health, which is grave if it were done without cause and grave loss, e.g., of death or a serious plague.” [2]

Cooperating With the Divine Physician

Sadly, we are often sick in both body and our soul; while grace is working in us, seeking to heal us, we must cooperate with it, similar to the way we must cooperate with our doctors who give us not only medicine, but regimes which we must follow to get better and preserve our health, such as a new exercise routine which meets our own particular needs. If we don’t do as we are told, we risk our health becoming much worse. This is not to say doing what we are told to do will be easy. We often dislike what needs to be done , which is why we often give excuse after excuse to put things off, saying we will start our new regime tomorrow. But, as Firmicus Maternus tells us, this is a dangerous attitude, one which sometimes has doctors (or society) taking action, even if it is against our will:

Sick persons like what is not good for them, and when ill health takes control of the human frame the sufferer makes perverse demands, counter to their own welfare. The mind, preyed upon by the languor of affliction, incessantly craves what will merely aggravate the disease. Spurns with contempt the healing arts, and hastens with impatient desire to its own downfall. Then if the mischief of the disease grows worse, stouter remedies are invoked; the medical art, solicitous for the patent’s welfare, resorts to sterner measures. Disagreeable foods and bitter potions are forced upon the unwilling sufferer, and if the trouble worsens both cautery and knife are tried. So when the patient recovers his health and he has his well-being restored, he acknowledges with a revival of sound judgment that whatever was done to him against his will for the infirmity of his sick body, was all done for his own good.[3]

The Medicine We Don’t Want to Take

This, of course, is also true in regards our psychological and spiritual health. We are told things we must do, changes which we need to make, and are given various disciplines to help achieve such changes. They often displease us, as they go against our base desires. Sometimes, we follow through with what we have been told, and find ourselves becoming better, where we realize the value of the discipline we had been given. At other times, we might become like the rich young man who asked Jesus what he must do to be perfect, that is to be spiritually healthy; he was told he must give up his wealth. As that rich man did not like that prescription, he turned away from Christ. We do not know what happened in his life after that. We do not know if he eventually heeded what Christ told him to do, but we know, what he was told what he needed for his own spiritual health. It was medicine that he didn’t want to take, at least initially; and, despite having this story in Scripture, his attitude is similar to that held by many Christians today. They claim to follow Christ, but they will not listen to him; they ignore him when he tells them to love their neighbor, to do good, even to those who wish them harm, to embrace the poor instead of the rich, to be peacemakers in the world. And yet, Jesus tells them, indeed, Jesus tells all of us, these things, so we can attain true spiritual health. Those who embrace Jesus’ way will see the fruit of it, as they will grow as persons, finding many things which started off difficult become much easier as they become mature followers of Christ: “To nurture a person is not to impose upon them a framework that, however healthy, is foreign to their soul. To nurture is to unleash the self for growth that is its own.” [4]

We must, therefore, not deny the value of health, but realize, God wants us to be healthy, not only in body and soul, but in the fullness of our person, a fullness which is found in the relationships which we have with others. Sickness in mind, body, or soul, will interfere with those relationships, and without those relationships, we will not be able to be the person God wants us to be. So, while we should be concerned about the welfare of others, and love them, we should love them as ourselves, which means, we should also love ourselves, making sure we do not neglect our own needs, which is what happens when we ignore our health.

[1] Kenneth G. Davis, “Health and Healing,” in Handbook of Latina/o Theologies. Ed. Edwin David Aponte and Miguel A. De La Torre (St. Louis, MO: Chalice Press, 2006), 213.

[2] St. Alphonsus Liguori, Moral Theology. Volume I: Books I – III On Conscience, Law, Sin and Virtue. Trans. Ryan Grant (Post Falls, ID: Mediatrix Press, 2017), 530 [He is quoting from Busembaum’s Moral Theology, which is the main source and foundation for his work, as Alphonsus’ work often acts as a commentary to it].

[3] Firmicus Maternus, The Error of the Pagan Religions. Trans. Clarence A. Forbes (New York: Newman Press, 1970), 78.

[4] Joan Chittister, The Friendship of Women (New York: BlueBridge, 2006), 69.

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