A question for Christians: how would you square a belief in the inherent dignity of honest work with the idea that hard work was the curse of God on Adam? This isn’t a gotcha. I’m genuinely interested.

@jabel This is a fascinating question. My preliminary response is to question the question a bit. In the Genesis narrative working the garden is a pre-curse condition (Gen 2:15). The curse on the ground in 3:17 means the work will be toilsome and frustrating. It’s a quality change, not a new thing.

@isaacgreene “Cursed” work just sounds like work. “Pre-curse” work sounds like leisure: no sweating, no clearing thorns and thistles. Genesis seems to be saying that the blessed state is a leisurely gathering of that over which you did not toil. Yet we know that, in our world, such a state is deeply harmful. That’s why we say honest work is dignifying.

@jabel I see the point, but not sure I agree. There’s a kind of exertion that is not reparative but purely productive (short lived in this life of course), this seems to me something like what it’s getting at. I can’t say if this is in the underlying language, @judsongreene could help us there.

@jabel Because we as human beings take joy in developing our craftsmanship and mastery, and creating things of value to ourselves and others, and strengthening our social bonds through shared projects. Honest work is work that often is meaningful work; and includes a Zen-ish sense of meaning (e.g. finding beauty and meaning in washing dishes). Thus say I after 1.5 cocktails, so take that for what it is worth 😸

@jabel I’m a monolingual American who reads the Bible only in translation, but in my trusty King James Bible, God cursed the ground for Adam’s sake, not Adam.

God is good and loves mankind. Man having broken fellowship with God needed something to do with the time formerly spent walking with God.

@jabel isn’t work both the blessing and curse of independence?

@isaacgreene @annahavron @readerjohn @restlesslens Thanks for the responses!

@jabel Such a good quesion. “Subdue” and “work it and keep it” are pre-curse and imply effort to me. I’m no Hebrew scholar though. I tapped out after a single semester.

It was a bit of a revelation to me when I was younger to realize that (in my reading) God assigned work before the fall, which is why I completely agree with you that work is dignifying. It has been from the very beginning; work itself is not part of the curse. And now work—like all good in creation—is marred as a result of the fall, but the good isn’t erased.

Funny enough, it was the other end of the story that gave me trouble as a kid: heaven. My picture of sitting on a white cloud sounded unbearably boring. My mom found me on my bed crying one night. “What’s the matter, Caleb?” “Heaven.” It wasn’t till I understood that there was a new heaven AND a new earth that it became exciting. So now, good work points backward to the goodness of original creation and forward to the goodness of re-creation.

@jabel I think you’re basically making the old-line Protestant argument that what was good for Man in a sinless state may not be good for Man in a fallen state. A sinner needs the discipline and purpose of labor. Whether you take work therefore as curse or blessing is a state of mind, and also a result of your framing theology (Calvinists and Methodists would have rather different takes). In one sense it’s not wrong, but in another it’s led to the deeply disordered relationship this society has with work, and has to be treated carefully, I think.

If I were going to construct a a Christian defense of work as gift I’d sidestep the Fall, bracket the millennial anticipation of all our efforts being swept away anyhow (I agree with the Orthodox that Revelation ought not be read in church), take justification by grace as given, and focus on sanctification. Theology of the Incarnation would be one way to ground it: see e.g. the Anglican collect for the second Sunday after Christmas Day, which begins “O God, who didst wonderfully create, and yet more wonderfully restore, the dignity of human nature..” I think there’s also much in the way the OT writings reflect a desire to make ordinary, earthly (and earthy) human existence in some way holy. Much of that gets swept away in disdain for The Law (e.g. rules about food) or is NSFC (Song of Songs, Not Safe For Church, must be a metaphor, hmm), but there are also a lot of commands about land and labor that should be pertinent here. I’d want to reread Ellen Davis’ Scripture, Culture, and Agriculture. Also I have a book somewhere of Celtic-Christian prayers for daily chores like milking the cow, which draws from the same well.

In other words, I’d say, well, Christians (at least in the West) have historically spent an awful lot of time on the Fall, and maybe we should just turn the page. Look at the issue from another perspective and then re-evaluate.

Or just give up and reread The Zen Kitchen and Enlightenment. Which I recommend in any case.

Finally: I think Plough ran an issue recently on work. I’m sure they have a ton of good stuff in their archive.

@dwalbert Plough did indeed have an issue on work. I wasn’t subscribing then and haven’t read it.

@JohnBrady looks like a different edition of the same book, yes!

@JohnBrady Incidentally— I thought of you when I mentioned that book. I need to reread it.

@dwalbert Thanks, David. Plenty to think about there. I have gone back to that issue of Plough and found a relevant article by Alastair Roberts.