Physical Disability in the New Testament: Vessels for God’s Grace

Introduction

The portrayal of people with disabilities throughout the Bible is varied and complex. There are conflicting representations of people with disabilities in the Bible ranging from their physical afflictions being caused by their sins to their impairments being unmerited and merely present for the sake of displaying God’s glory. However, viewing the reality of disability through such narrow frames often does more harm to marginalized people with disabilities as it attempts to neatly categorize or even invalidate their unique experiences of suffering. 

This essay will explore the presentation of people with physical impairments in the New Testament. Through this, it will examine passages in the New Testament which display people with impairments, both where they are healed and when they are not. While there is a plenitude of legitimate interpretations of these passages, this paper will utilize a Neo-Platonic Christian metaphysics in order to explicate these passages in a way which shows the purposeful nature of their suffering. The beginning of this essay will be devoted to developing this framework. Then, the essay will explore two miracle passages: the healing of the paralyzed man in Matthew 9 and the healing of the blind man in John 9. Applying a canonical-theological lens, in tandem with the Neo-Platonic metaphysical framework, will allow for a sensitive and nuanced exegesis, one that ultimately aims to spiritually empower people with disabilities. The essay will then investigate St. Paul’s affliction in 2 Corinthians 12, with the assistance of the same paradigm and framework from before, in order to understand the purpose of suffering for those who are not miraculously cured. The bulk of the paper will be devoted to reflecting on these passages, with their accompanying exegesis, in light of people’s lived experiences and ultimately explaining how, through receptive prayer and faith, one may begin to reflect on their disability and suffering as a vessel for God’s love in their lives.

In applying this framework for the examination of New Testament miracle passages and Christian figures with physical disabilities, this essay will argue that human suffering in the form of physical disability and the necessary vulnerability of the flesh and humility accompanying such ailments, ultimately provides the sufferer with greater opportunity to unite with Christ and foster an intimacy with God otherwise difficult to obtain for Christians without physical disabilities. Furthermore, this conclusion will be accompanied with an equal consideration of people with disabilities’ lived experience, through a case study of Max’s mother, Leah, who suffers with heart failure, and the real and often complicated reception of the New Testament miracle narratives by people with disabilities. Finally, examining the complexities of these passages’ reception will reveal potential spiritual solutions, particularly prayer, to the frustrations regarding the reconciliation of God’s loving will and the reality of living with a physical disability. 

Philosophical Framework

Before engaging the Scriptural passages we have selected, it is important to explicate the philosophical framework we will employ in interpreting these passages. The primary focus of this demonstration is to elucidate how, from a metaphysical point of view, suffering and evil can have a purpose and, thereby, be meaningful and a call to intimacy for those suffering from physical impairments. The framework we will employ is a Neo-platonic Christian metaphysical paradigm because it offers the best grounding for purposeful suffering.

This can be easily seen if one starts by examining the relation between being and goodness within this framework. For Neo-platonists, being and goodness are ultimately identical (Wildberg). This can be seen by that that Neo-platonism “is a strict form of principle-monism that strives to understand everything on the basis of a single cause that they considered divine, and” the fact that they “indiscriminately referred to as ‘the First’, ‘the One’, or ‘the Good’” (Wildberg). The foundational layer of reality for Neo-platonists, which is this sole divine cause of all things, is conceptually interchangeable with the concept of the good because Neo-platonists conceive of goodness as another way of understanding being.

This conceptual interchangeability between goodness and being is what is referred to in classical philosophy as “the transcendentals” (Aertsen & Goris). This concept says that goodness, beauty, and truth are merely different ways of apprehending being. While this notion traces back to Aristotle, the idea was greatly developed during the medieval period where philosophers and theologians, such as St. “Thomas Aquinas” and Bl. “John Duns Scotus”, formulated the idea of the transcendentals by reflecting on Aristotle's Categories (Aertsen & Goris). In this work, Aristotle tried to provide a comprehensive list of the fundamental categories of being. He makes many distinctions in this work, but he leaves out the notions of goodness, beauty, and truth as categories within being, which led later philosophers to think that these notions are not categories within being, but, rather, identical to being. The medievals, taking this idea from classical philosophy, came to view God as the Good as they already viewed Him as the source of all that is. This meant that they also viewed all that exists as good in itself since good and being are identical.

One reason for thinking the identity between being and goodness might be true is that when pointing out the goodness of a thing, they will inevitably be pointing out things that are identical to the being of the thing. For example, if someone says that there is a good tree, when they describe what they find good about it, the branches, the leaves, the trunk, they will simply be articulating different aspects of the being of the tree. Moreover, when they describe what is good for the tree, they will also end up pointing out things which help the tree to grow in its being, like water, for example. 

A significant natural consequence of this view is that evil, which is certainly the opposite of good, is, in the final analysis, non-being. This has the important entailment that all evils do not exist in themselves; that is, they do not possess being in the same way that the good does because, unlike the good, evil is, in itself, nothing. This goes for both natural evils, which are evils owing to an innate deficiency, and moral evils, which are evils that are caused by failing to properly adhere to the moral law. Thus, the only way evil can exist is as a “privatio boni”, a privation of the good (Coyle). This has the further entailment that God, being the Good itself, can never will evils in themselves because they are nothing in themselves. In other words, evils cannot be willed directly by God. Therefore, since that everything exists is willed by God into being, and since all evils can only exist as a privation of the good and so cannot be willed directly, all evils must be willed for the sake of some good. This grounds hope for those who suffer evils of all kinds, including people with physical impairments, since there is metaphysical grounding for knowing that their suffering is not in vain, that it is not pointless. They can know that even if they do not understand the exact purpose of their suffering when they are in the midst of suffering, they can still know that their suffering does, indeed, have a purpose.

People Who Are Healed in the New Testament

So, with this framework in place, the texts in the New Testament which present people with physical disabilities who have their impairments cured. The first passage that will be examined is the healing of the paralyzed man in Matthew 9: 

And after getting into a boat he crossed the sea and came to his own town. And just then some people were carrying a paralyzed man lying on a bed. When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “Take heart, son; your sins are forgiven.” Then some of the scribes said to themselves, “This man is blaspheming.” But Jesus, perceiving their thoughts, said, “Why do you think evil in your hearts? For which is easier, to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Stand up and walk’? But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins”—he then said to the paralytic—“Stand up, take your bed and go to your home.” And he stood up and went to his home. (Matthew 9:1-7)

This passage has many rich points for exegesis and is a great example to see how evils, whether or not they be natural or moral, are, in themselves, non-being. The man's paralysis seems to be caused by his sinfulness since it is the forgiveness of his sins that enables the man to walk. Indeed, first he is forgiven and then he is told to “Stand up” (Matthew 9:6). Given this, the evil that causes the man’s impairment is a moral one; an evil for which he is culpable. Despite this, from his impairment comes an opportunity for intimacy with the Lord owing to the fact that the man had to be forgiven. Firstly, there is an intimacy that comes from forgiveness that is unavailable to people who do not need to be forgiven. Forgiveness shows a love that a lover has for the beloved which is wholly accepting and free because the lover has been injured by the beloved and, despite this, the lover still desires union and relationship with the beloved. Christ shows this radical love for the man by forgiving his sins, thus affording the man an opportunity for intimacy that comes with the assurance of God's love for him. Moreover, the physical consequences which come from this forgiveness, the man’s ability to walk, provides the man another avenue of intimacy with the Lord since he can now physically follow Him as the disciples do. 

To move on to an example where intimacy with the Divine springs from a healing where no forgiveness of sins is involved, the healing of the blind man in John 9 can now be explored:

As he walked along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus answered, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him. We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” When he had said this, he spat on the ground and made mud with the saliva and spread the mud on the man’s eyes,  saying to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which means Sent). Then he went and washed and came back able to see.  The neighbors and those who had seen him before as a beggar began to ask, “Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?” Some were saying, “It is he.” Others were saying, “No, but it is someone like him.” He kept saying, “I am the man.” But they kept asking him, “Then how were your eyes opened?” He answered, “The man called Jesus made mud, spread it on my eyes, and said to me, ‘Go to Siloam and wash.’ Then I went and washed and received my sight.” They said to him, “Where is he?” He said, “I do not know.” (John 9:1-13)

The healing of the blind man is a great example of how evils, even if they are not moral evils, have a purpose. Here, the man who is healed has not committed any wrongs as Christ says: “Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him” (John 9:3-4). Still, there is an opportunity for intimacy that the blind man has which others do not which stems from the inherent vulnerability of having a physical impairment. Vulnerability opens a person up, whether they intend it or not, and while this can make a vulnerable person easily taken advantage of, it also enables them to love more wholeheartedly since vulnerability is a precondition for intimacy and love. Therefore, the blind man is naturally open and receptive to others because of his physical impairment. So, when Christ comes into his life and heals him, he cannot help but love the Lord because he was in a vulnerable state and Jesus used it as an opportunity to draw the man closer by accepting him as he was and making him new by healing his wound. This is the glory of God for which the blind man was born: love and intimacy with the Lord Jesus Christ.

People Who Remain Unhealed in the New Testament

These passages where people with physical impairments, while very important and a source of hope for many, are only one side of the Biblical presentation of people with physical impairments in the New Testament. The vast majority of Christian faithful with such impairments are never healed, thus it is critical to examine New Testament passages where these people are represented. There is no greater person to use in this effort than St. Paul and his uncured ailment discussed in 2 Corinthians 12:

But if I wish to boast, I will not be a fool, for I will be speaking the truth. But I refrain from it … even considering the exceptional character of the revelations. Therefore, to keep me from being too elated, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me, … Three times I appealed to the Lord about this, that it would leave me, but he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.” So I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities for the sake of Christ, for whenever I am weak, then I am strong. (2 Corinthians 12:6-10)

A case like St. Paul’s is the hardest to understand since his ailment goes unhealed within  the Biblical narrative. What kind of purpose could this suffering have if there is not an earthly release from the suffering? The same answer as with the miracle stories: intimacy with the Lord Jesus. St. Paul himself thinks that his physical suffering has enabled him to grow spiritually and, thus, grow closer to Christ. As he says he “will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in” him (2 Corinthians 12:9). St. Paul’s physical weaknesses have allowed him to know the incredible extent to which he is dependent on God for everything. This realization is the essence of humility– acknowledging how much one needs God. Given this, St. Paul’s physical impairment has made him humble, thereby enabling him to draw on Christ for his strength rather than himself, increasing in St. Paul love and intimacy with the Lord Jesus Christ.

Implications on the Lived Experience of People with Disabilities

However, although St. Paul’s faith despite his ailment may offer great hope to those who suffer, the difficulty of embodying such profound faith while living with a disability remains a extraordinary task for most Christian faithful. Although people with disabilities may admire St. Paul for his confidence in the Lord and courage in the midst of pain, his experience may still prove difficult to relate to, as the days of Christ’s earthly encounters and miraculous healings seem more and more distant two-thousand years after His Ascension. Thus, it becomes necessary, as contemporary Christians grow ever farther apart from the time of St. Paul and the writing of the gospels, that these healing narratives be reconciled with the modern experience of suffering for those with disabilities. This section will employ a more personal, first-person perspective for the purposes of sincerity and sensitivity as, although we have worked to consider a variety of Biblical and contemporary perspectives, we acknowledge that our discussion is not one directly rooted within the disability community as neither Max nor I have a physical disability. 

With that said, we would like to address the contemporary reception of the New Testament healing narratives, particularly the heartfelt frustrations people with disabilities experience regarding such narratives, ultimately for the purpose of providing potential spiritual solutions to such frustrations. To begin, some of the most common reactions to the Christian miracle tradition from people with disabilities are anger, jealousy, disbelief, and resentment. This is incredibly common and understandable since, as evident in the New Testament passages covered previously, the experiences of people with disabilities in the Bible is largely unlike that of the average contemporary Christian with a disability, as the vast majority of sufferers remain afflicted their entire life without being miraculously healed. Considering this, it is reasonable for many sufferers to react with sadness, anger, or even skepticism, as these Biblical narratives seem to be, as independent spiritual scholar Sharon V. Betcher puts it, a “screaming incongruity between our lived experience of the body and what these stories seem to see and promise” (166). Furthermore, the mere fact that people with disabilities seem only to be included within the New Testament to add to the many groups that require Jesus’s healing, can serve to invalidate their individuality as well as the years of affliction such people already endured. Betcher goes on to characterize the New Testament portrayal of people with disabilities as “silent stage props”, devoid of agency and individuality (170). Given these many core distinctions, there exists a significant tension between the New Testament depiction of disability and the lived experience of disability, perhaps even more than the other marginalized identities featured in the Bible.

Therefore, to address this invalidating disparity as well as the common aversion Christian people with disabilities have to the Biblical healing miracles, it is helpful to consider the spiritual foundations of such narratives and reactions. For example, one of the interpretations that may contribute to the negative reception of these miracles stories relates to worthiness and fault. Specifically, the interpretation that if one person with a disability is healed by the Lord, like those featured in the gospels, this necessitates that they must be more deserving than all those, the majority, that are not healed and are likewise determined to have faulted or sinned in some way against the Lord. Or rather, one may believe that they are more deserving of being healed due to the extent of their suffering. Although both reactions are valid and real, more fundamentally, they reveal an incomplete understanding or acceptance of God’s love. Clark-Soles examines this same concept within her essay “John, First–Third John, and Revelation”, where, in John 9, Jesus Christ corrects the public and his disciples away from attempting to “determine whose fault [the man’s blindness] is” and instead towards “the person in front of them”, ultimately asking them to choose to “work for and with God” or “for themselves and against God” (347). In this way, Clark-Soles elucidates how, in focusing on fault or merit, we minimize the importance of the actual person, who has been loved into existence by God and continues to suffer while we try to discern a guilty party. Thus, the belief that God’s healing miracles somehow relate to the individual worthiness of the afflicted ultimately serves to narrow our understanding of the scope of God’s love and desire for our grace as well as undermines the significance of disability in providing the sufferer with an enhanced knowledge and nearness to Christ through a shared suffering.

Another aspect contributing to these reactions, similar to this concept of merit but even more rudimentary, is the difficulty Christians have in surrendering to the Divine Will. It is from this fundamental issue that most other spiritual dilemmas emerge– as failing to submit oneself to Providence is failing to fully let oneself be subject to God’s love. And yet, it is still the natural human tendency to resist God’s will, particularly when we feel it is unfair or against our best interest. This is especially the case with physical disabilities, as it can seem impossible to reconcile the pain of being disabled and the love through which God sustains us. Therefore, in first acknowledging our uncomfortability with God’s divine scheme and the necessary act of surrender, we may begin to slowly carve a way out of fear and towards peace. 

This way, as with all spiritual aspirations, centers prayer as the tool through which one may achieve such feats. Although prayer is always essential to the spiritual journey, it is particularly helpful for those who suffer as it can provide such people with the valuable virtues through which they may overcome their burdens. A New Testament verse that is frequently cited when considering people with disabilities, Providence, and prayer, is 1 Corinthians 10:13 where St. Paul writes:

No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it. (1 Corinthians 10:13)

In beginning to understand how to pray to the Lord as a person with disabilities, this passage is helpful in explaining two things. First, how all sufferings, or temptations, do not mean that the sufferer is less loved by God or make them less than those who do not suffer in the same ways they do. For a person with disabilities, this verse may seem to undermine the extent to which they may suffer, as the lived experience of disability can often seem anything but “common”, given people with disabilities compose the minority of the world population. However, what St. Paul means to say in asserting all temptations as “common to mankind”, is that, as God is known to love all of mankind, God wants to see us overcome our suffering through seeking his grace and consolation. Secondly, this verse also confirms that God will provide us with everything we need to endure our burdens, as they have been assigned to us such that we may simultaneously obtain the good that accompanies the suffering as well as grow closer to the Lord through our vulnerability and heartfelt requests. With this understanding, it is possible to start meaningful conversation with God from a place of humility and surrender, having faith that the Lord will ultimately relieve us of our anguish and guide us to salvation, if we only choose to seek Him.

Furthermore, the content of our prayers must also align with our interior submission to God. Thus, a spiritual roadblock people with disabilities may face in regard to their prayer is only asking to be healed or relieved from their disability. Of course, it is never wrong to pray to God to relieve us of our suffering. Whether it is a particular circumstance like the loss of a loved one or a continuous reality or identity like a physical disability, we should always turn to God in our times of need. However, in either case, it may be more helpful to the sufferer to simply ask for, as St. Paul urges, the grace to endure and accept God's plan for them as this necessarily acknowledges that God loves us above all and wants us to be saved through His Providence. Moreover, it is not wrong to pray to be healed, but it is perhaps more loving to simply pray to carry out God's will, no matter what it may be, and fill us with the strength to perform all the tasks He grants us. In this form of prayer, equipped with a spiritual agency that cannot be stripped, we present our whole humble selves to the Lord, acknowledging our weakness and reliance on Him, ultimately requesting to serve God in sincerely carrying out His will.

Furthermore, to provide a real and contemporary example to this discussion, Max’s mother Leah, who has suffered with heart failure for over fifteen years, finds much hope in the New Testament miracle passages. Through these narratives, she said she finds hope in the prospect of being healed. She acquired her impairment, congestive heart failure, later in life when she was almost 48 years old and so she remembers her life prior to her disability and still desires the freedom that came with her ablebodedness. She particularly resonates with the blind man who is healed in John 9 because her impairment is caused by a genetic condition and so, like the blind man, was not the consequence of moral failure. Personally, she does not feel, as Clark-Soles puts it, “erased” through the healing performed by Christ, but rather finds hope in it (Clark-Soles 342). When asked about whether healing diminishes the value of a person when they have a disability, she said that she did not think so as “all people with disabilities want to be healed”. Although this statement is a generalization, it nevertheless reflects the experience of an individual with physical impairments who, as a practicing Christian, finds hope in the representation of those in the Bible who suffer like her and thus become vessels for God’s grace. 

When looking at the passage from St. Paul, she found comfort in the knowledge that her experiences of suffering, even if these sufferings will remain through the course of her life, allow for a weakness that may, if taken up in prayer, welcome Christ to accompany and console her in the suffering. She said that she often feels very weak because of her heart failure and people both in her life and in the general society often look down upon this weakness. However, Christ relishes the weakness that comes from her disability as it allows her to be humble, thereby fostering intimacy between her and the Lord. Max’s mother values this intimacy as she finds it to be a source of comfort and strength in her life.

Conclusion

Therefore, in developing a philosophical and exegetical framework for a theological analysis of select miracle passages, it is possible to derive a spiritually liberating understanding and solution to the frustrations generated by the New Testament healing narratives for Christians with disabilities. In first acknowledging the goodness of all that is, due to the loving nature of God’s will, physical disability can be recognized not as evil nor a punishment to be endured, but rather a sacred and humble position from which the afflicted may supremely exercise their devotion. Finally, claiming this humble posture in prayer and gathering the Lord’s strength in our weakness, we may truly realize the healing and joy that Jesus Christ so dearly wished for our burdened hearts–a grace that will unite God’s children on Earth and ultimately see them home to the Kingdom of Heaven.

Works Cited

Betcher, Sharon V. “Disability and the Terror of the Miracle Tradition.” Miracles Revisited, 2013, pp. 161–182., https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110296372.161. 

Brettler, Marc Zvi, et al. The New Oxford Annotated Bible: New Revised Standard Version. Oxford University Press, 2018. 

Clark-Soles, Jaime. “John, First–Third John, and Revelation.” Journal of Disability & Religion, vol. 23, no. 4, 2019, pp. 346–354., https://doi.org/10.1080/23312521.2019.1680110. 

Coyle, Justin. “May Catholics Endorse Universalism?” Eclectic Orthodoxy, 1 Nov. 2022, afkimel.wordpress.com/2019/09/22/may-catholics-endorse-universalism/. 

Aertsen, Jan, and Goris, Wouter. “Medieval Theories of Transcendentals.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 27 June 2019, plato.stanford.edu/entries/transcendentals-medieval/. 

Wildberg, Christian. “Neoplatonism.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 11 Jan. 2016, plato.stanford.edu/entries/neoplatonism/.