As I look forward to the prospect of job-hunting this week I’ve been thinking about the nature of work. I’ve often heard a sort of Weber-ian account of the virtue and greatness of work, as well as the often-remarked claim that there was even work in the Garden of Eden, and thus work was a part of Paradise for man. I’ve always felt this to be completely untrue. I hate work and don’t find it redeeming and so I decided to investigate the historical and biblical theology of it a bit.
Apparently more Aristotle rubbed off on me than I’d previously thought since I tend to agree with the philosopher that “All paid jobs absorb and degrade the mind“.
Looking at the actual account of Genesis I’d like to make a few remarks:
Man was given a few tasks before the fall was to have sex, make babies, and subdue and eat the riches of the earth and animals around him (1:28). It is written that man tended to the garden (2:15). The ground watered itself and produced food for man. Man’s only other responsibility or ‘work’ seemed to be naming things (2:19). So sure, there was work in the garden, but let’s be realistic – Adam never broke a sweat doing it (3:19). Contrast this deathless and idyllic life with the curse after the fall: “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.” (3:19) There’s the human condition in a nutshell.
A lot of people like to think that Heaven and the Garden of Eden are mirrors of each other, and I wanted to rush to the quick aha! and say ‘but there’s no work in Heaven!’ but then I saw it… Rev: 22:3 his servants will serve Him. Well that’ll at least be better for me, I always preferred clerical work to physical labour. [The Marxist in me wants to say the story of scripture seems to be then one of man’s ascent from the working to the middle (or upper) class.]
I guess this means Aristotle and I were wrong, and I have to go get a job. (one of the annoying crosses to bear as a Lutheran is believing the Scriptures, rather than getting to trump them with Aristotle or Tradition, so it turns out I was wrong and there is work in paradise)