Full life in spite of illness:

health, shalom and integrating spirituality from biblical literature to Paul Tillich's theology

Abstract

Theology is an interdisciplinary knowledge and involves matters of the depth of existence. In both First and Second Testaments, health is shalom: wholeness, peace, well-being, it is fullness of life before God and people. This testimony illuminates theological notions such as that proposed by Paul Tillich on health, cure, and disease, i.e., a perspective of the integration of the human being with themselves and with the whole, to overcome existential alienation and pathological anguish, an objective that can be achieved through cooperation between medical specialties, the psi areas and the religious ministry, which work together with the divine in overcoming the ambiguities and finitude that threaten the being. Poetic quotations Rubem Alves, Adélia Prado and Clarice Lispector provide an important existential, literary, experiential meaning to reflection for integrity. In this sense, the religious community is conceived as a therapeutic environment, which welcomes the person, restores their integrity, and promotes the encounter with the Spiritual Presence – that who strengthens the individual to become a new being – and to experience life in the Spirit, who integrates all dimensions and heals them, even in the face of disease, finitude, the awareness of death.