Spiritual Discipline is a Physical, Embodied PracticeAlthough we call the disciplines "spiritual" – and although they must never be undertaken apart from a constant, inward interaction with God and his gracious Kingdom – they never fail to require specific acts and dispositions of our body as we engage in them. We are finite, limited to our bodies. So the disciplines cannot be carried out except as our body and its parts are surrendered in precise ways and definite actions to God. Here we find the positive role of the body in the process of redemption, as we choose those uses of our body that advance the spiritual life. Only as we correctly appreciate that role can we understand the New Testament view of salvation as a life, for a life is, of course, something we live, and we live only in the actions and dispositions of our body. This runs directly counter to the view of faith as an interior act of mind that secures forgiveness alone and has no necessary connection with the world of action in which normal human existence runs its course. But the New Testament knows nothing of such a purely mental "faith." The faith of the New Testament is a distinctive life force that originates in the impact of God's word upon that soul, as we see in Romans 10:17, and then exercises a determining influence upon all aspects of our existence, including the body and its social political environment. From The Spirit of the Disciplines: Understanding How God Changes Lives. Copyright © 1988 by Dallas Willard. All rights reserved. Used with permission of HarperCollins Publishers. |
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