The heavenly good of earthly work : the nature of work in its instrumental, relational and ontological dimensions (original) (raw)
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This paper considers a biblical theology of work, looking closely at the relationship of the Creation Mandate (Gen 1:26-28) along side God's placement of the man in the garden (Gen 2:15). While the trajectory of futility is considered in Gen 1-11, extended exegetical analysis is given to 1:28 and 2:15.
Does God work? Shall we work in heaven? In search of a theological foundation for human work
Theology of Work. New Perspectives, 2025
In the last decades, both Protestant and Catholic thought have tried to build a “theology of work” by rooting the dignity of work in the divine plan of creation, redemption, and eschatological fulfillment. Especially considering Protestant bibliography on this topic, two questions need further study. First, whether God Himself works, that is, whether creation and redemption can be viewed as God’s work. Second, considering the link between the beginning and the end, should we presume that there will be human work in the new creation? In my analysis two elements are highlighted. First, the attempt to build an ontology of work is a theological progress as it comes from the Protestant area, where traditionally, metaphysics was not well considered. Second, speaking of an ontology of work implies recognizing the role of human cooperation with God in the realization of the new creation. In this sense, I find an interesting nuance in the literature as, among Protestants, it is normally said that through our work, we can anticipate the new creation while, among Catholics, the point is that through work, we help God to build the new creation, that is, we collaborate with His providence in the coming of the Kingdom.
UJAH: Unizik Journal of Arts and Humanities, 2017
In the first creation account, Gen 1,28 God mandated man to conquer the earth and subdue. Immediately after the fall in Gen 3, God spells out work as the only way through which man would get his daily bread. It follows therefore, that work remains a conditio sine qua non for man’s survival whether he is at peace with God or no. Hannah Arendt the French philosopher understands work as having a self perfective dimension. Plato in his Republic groups the organization of his political society according to the work every group does. This paper footnotes Paul’s instruction to the Thessalonians to project work as part and parcel of man. It views work as that which perfects man. The researcher believes that without work, the human person can neither be perfected nor can he survive. Thus, the paper documents that work is not just a virtue for survival, it also perfects the human person in as much as it perfects nature. The researcher takes work from the backdrop of its holistic dimension as ...
Participating in the new creation: a theological appreciation of work
2010
IT IS COMMONLY acknowledged that Pope Leo XIII’s encyclical Rerum Novarum (1891), which was promulgated against the backdrop of the rise of modern industrial society, inaugurated a new beginning for Catholic social thought and that it represents a kind of magna carta for modern Catholic social teaching. This is evidenced by the fact that Popes subsequent to Leo XIII, namely Pius XI (1931), Paul VI (1971), and John Paul II (1991), all promulgated encyclicals that revised and updated the analyses of Rerum Novarum in light of changing economic, social, and political conditions. The manner in which each newly promulgated encyclical revisits and re-evaluates the earlier ones alerts us to the evolving character of Catholic social teaching as open to the dynamics of history and seeking to discover new tasks in the process of humanizing our world. In other words, Catholic social teaching is truly focused upon reading the signs of the times and is therefore an arena of the development of doc...