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Role of Women |
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For much of Christian history there has been confusion and misperception about the status of work in God’s plan. In the opening chapters of Genesis, God himself is portrayed as a kind of workman, who labors during the six days of creation, then rests on the seventh day. Shortly after, Adam is described as having been put in the Garden of Eden to cultivate and care for it (Gn 2:15), even before the Fall. Thus, human work is before all else a cooperation with and development of God’s creative act. Man’s having been created in the image and likeness of God appears in the use of human will and intellect to produce and order goods. Work, then, is a unique sign of human dignity and an expression of human personality. The Bible, however, also speaks of some of the negative consequences for human work that followed the Fall: “In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread” (Gn 3:19). Since work as such preceded the Fall, it cannot be regarded merely as a punishment for sin or an evil in itself; but the painful and disturbing sides of work, like all the evils of human existence, are the result of Adam and Eve’s sin. Some human work after the banishment from the garden also becomes idolatrous, in that it either denies God as the ground of all human achievement (cf. Ps 127) or seeks goods in a way that conflicts with the divine order of creation. For the most part, however, the Old Testament celebrates the fruits of the just worker. The patriarchs have wealth and many descendants because of their faith and work. The New Testament continues this tradition but also emphasizes other elements in it. Throughout both the Old and New Testaments, God is active, working to repair the damage done by the Fall, to liberate his people from bondage to sin, and ultimately – in Christ – to redeem the human race. Human work appears in this perspective to have several dimensions. Jesus worked for thirty years in Joseph’s carpenter’s shop; many of the disciples are drawn from the ranks of fishermen and agricultural workers. Christ’s parables sometimes refer to these workmen and their obligations toward one another and to their stewardship of creation. Yet Christ also warns about being too anxious and occupied about mere earthly goods and reminds his disciples that the more important labor is to store up treasure in heaven. Christian Views on Work • Early Christianity expected Christ’s immediate return and encouraged a relative detachment from the things of this world as a result. Every honest station in life, even that of a servant, was compatible with the Christian vocation of waiting in hope. But scholars disagree whether in the early Church these occupations themselves were seen as part of the Christian vocation. There is no doubt that working quietly so as to be a burden to no one and giving alms to the poor out of one’s earnings remained duties, however near the Second Coming. In his Second Letter to the Thessalonians (3:10), St. Paul reminds those who think otherwise that whoever does not work should not eat. As it became clear that Christ’s return might be some time off, Christian theologians began to reflect on work as a contribution to the common good and a share in Christ’s redemptive action. Both Greek and Roman culture had denigrated manual labor in favor of the more “liberal” activities of politics and intellectual pursuits. Christianity was influenced by this environment to some extent. But as Rome gradually collapsed during the fourth and fifth centuries, the monasteries then being founded gave manual labor and the preservation of the goods of civilization a different status than they had in classical times, when manual labor was often associated with slavery. The dignity of all who contributed to the common life in monasteries gave work a solid social and religious status. In the high Middle Ages, this led to further development. St. Thomas Aquinas, drawing on a distinction present in the Greek philosopher Aristotle, divides human action into two kinds: making and doing. Making is the humbler activity we usually call work, and it was less damaged after the Fall. Even without grace, says Thomas, fallen men could do simple goods such as tilling fields and building barns. The higher function of doing, which includes the characteristically human activities such as thought, politics, charity, moral action, and so forth, involve man’s will and sense of good and evil more directly and were thus more damaged by the Fall. But man, precisely as man, needs the products of both manual and spiritual work. The Protestant Reformation was largely responsible for moving work in its specifically religious dimension outside the monasteries and into the workshops and households of average Christians. Medieval Catholic guilds and other institutions had placed various occupations under the patronage of Christ, Mary, and the saints. But it was mostly from Luther and Calvin that the modern notions of work as a Christian calling got their start. Unfortunately, this impulse also led, contrary to the intentions of the Reformers, to the eventual separation of work from religious ties and, some have argued, to secularization in capitalist society. Recent Thinking on Work • The twentieth century has witnessed a great flowering of reflection on work. Work and the social situation of workers had become acute problems with the rise of modern capitalism and industrialism. Instead of living in age-old rural communities, modern workers migrated to burgeoning cities. Agricultural workers could see famine as an act of God; unemployed industrial workers appeared to be suffering the consequences of some fault in man. The seeming growth in the poverty of workers stimulated various proposals, including socialism, communism, and labor unions. Pope Leo XIII, recognizing the new situation and the dangers it posed both to the physical welfare and spiritual life of industrial workers, tried to give a Catholic answer to the problem. In his 1891 encyclical On the Social Question, Rerum Novarum, Leo early noted that the socialist vision of man did not accord very well with Catholic anthropology and theology. Prophetically, he predicted that if socialism were established, the workers themselves would be the first to suffer from this wrong solution to their very real problems. Catholic reflection on work and workers centered on questions of freedom, family solidarity, and the family wage in capitalist societies where work and workers were coming to be regarded as mere commodities. But political reactions to market economies could be even more worrisome. In the 1930s, facing both Nazism and communism, Pope Pius XI posited a principle of subsidiarity aimed at preventing politics and economic life from being absorbed by the state. The Church was seeking a balance between the just claims of labor and capital that would permit vibrant economic life as well as just and stable conditions for vulnerable workers.
Unlike modern conceptions of work, the Christian view does not attribute great value to mere production and consumption. Both of these must be seen within the larger framework of what is good for man and for the common good of society. Abundance and just access to material goods may become the normal condition in modern developed societies. But these societies have responsibilities to use their blessings to provide for the poor and unfortunate within their borders and the poor in underdeveloped parts of the world. And they must be concerned with the human development of the worker. At the Second Vatican Council, the Church began another phase of such reflections. Encouraging ressourcement – that is, a return to the sources of Christian thought in the Scriptures and the Church Fathers – the Council developed an insight already formulated by Pope John XXIII in his 1961 encyclical Mother and Teacher, Mater et Magistra: Human work is “an expression of the human person.” The Council and several encyclicals by Pope Paul VI began emphasizing the theme that work is both co-creation (as man cooperates with God) and a share in the redemption (as workers try to repair the consequences of the Fall). In this regard, unemployment and underemployment not only harm the worker financially but also harm him spiritually as a person. Particularly in the writings of Pope John Paul II, who was a workingman in Poland during World War II, work has received even greater theological dignity. In his 1981 encyclical On Human Work, Laborem Exercens, John Paul asks every Christian to examine “the place that his work has not only in the earthly progress but also in the development of the kingdom of God” (27). In The Acting Person, a philosophical book written before he became Pope, Karol Wojtyla tried to lay out a complete exposition of how every human act reveals the transcendent dimension of the person who works in love with others. Despite the positive reevaluation of work, human labor is still often marked with the pain and toil that accompany human things after the Fall. Work cannot – and should not – be romanticized or expected always to be a pleasant use of our powers or a fulfilling development of human faculties. Society may try to make work as humanly satisfying as possible, but at least for the foreseeable future many jobs in many parts of the world will remain harsh tasks. Also, as anyone who has worked on a farm, in a factory, an office, or even a rectory knows, there are internal as well as external evils that must be confronted in the pursuit of our basic needs and participation in redemption. In fact, the willingness to endure the hardship of work when necessary is one of the ways we participate in the redemptive work of Christ’s cross. See: Apostolate; Common Good; Family; Original Sin; Sexism; Slavery; Social Doctrine; Stewardship; Subsidiarity; Suffering in Christian Life; Vocation.
Suggested Readings: CCC 2426-2436. Vatican Council II, Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, Gaudium et Spes, 67. John Paul II, On Human Work, Laborem Exercens. R. Charles, The Social Teaching of Vatican II, pp. 28-34, 312-333. M. Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. M. Novak, The Catholic Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. Robert Royal |
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