All work must be for God

If work is to help people fulfil themselves and live with dignity, then recourse to God in the manner of doing work is indispensable — else  work becomes unrewarding and a tool of oppression. What is the place of God in human work?

Workers in Cape Town strike for better wages. The Church has long taught the value of work in fair employment conditions, since all work must be oriented to God.

God is a first worker. He created the universe and entrusted it to human beings. This invitation to participate in his work is a gesture of confidence and honour to human beings. That is why the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church (CSDC) affirms: “Work is part of the original state of man and precedes his fall; it is therefore not a punishment or curse”.

Even as human beings are being entrusted with the stewardship of creation, they remain creatures that are fundamentally dependent, and thus naturally bound to submit themselves to God. A refusal to respect the divine order risks reducing people to the sorry victims of their own action even in times of apparent economic and scientific boom.

The book of Proverbs calls for a sober attitude vis-à-vis material goods. Work is a means for a decent life but never the master of life. The prayer goes: “Better is a little with the fear of the Lord than great treasure and trouble with it” (15:16).

Excessive desire to produce must never distract human beings from acknowledging God as their master. The Sabbath law was intended precisely to save people from such exploitation.

In the gospel of Matthew, Jesus praises a dutiful servant (24:46) and calls the servant who never worked useless (25:14-30).

Work will have meaning and value only if it is oriented to the kingdom of God and its justice.

Through work human beings are called to be co-creators and co-redemptors. The Church Father St Ambrose of Milan said: “Every worker is the hand of Christ that continues to create and to do good.” So work must not be reduced to merely being a means for fast money. Rather, one should take pleasure in the quality of work well done.

St Irenaeus, another Church Father, said that by their work and industriousness, those who share in the divine art and wisdom make the universe already ordered by God, more beautiful.

Sadly, work is not always serving human good. John Paul II in his 1981 encyclical Laborem Exercens observed: “Man’s life is built up every day from work, from work it derives its specific dignity, but at the same time work contains the increasing measure of human toil and suffering and also of the harm and injustice which penetrate deeply into social life within individual nations and on the international level”.

That is why a healthy balance between the subjective and the objective dimensions of work is vital.

The objective dimension “is the sum of activities, resources, instruments and technologies used by men and women to produce things”, whereas the subjective dimension refers to the fact that “work is the activity of the human person as a dynamic being capable of performing a variety of actions that are part of the work process and that correspond to his personal vocation” (CSDC 270).

In the objective dimension, work varies in its expression according to technology, culture, social and political conditions; but in its subjective dimension, it is stable as it depends exclusively on the dignity of the human person who performs it.

A worker is not a mere instrument of production but the source and end of work, thus, the subjective dimension comes before the objective one; in other words: labour before capital.

Unfortunately, labour and capital remain an area of conflict especially because of the capitalistic greed which seeks maximum profit at lowest cost possible. Yet, the two are complementary and there should be a healthy balance between them.

Besides, work has an intrinsic social dimension: one works with others and for others; a service becomes a means of encounter.

The Catholic Church also teaches that working is a right to participate, that is, workers should participate in ownership, management and profits, for they are not mere objects for production.

As a duty conferred by God, work is “a moral obligation with respect to one’s neighbour, which in the first place is one’s own family” (CSDC 274).

Because work is so important for forming and maintaining a family, the Church considers unemployment, especially among the youth, a social disaster (CSDC 287).

Among other rights, workers have the right to just wages. As Leo XIII puts it in his groundbreaking encyclical Rerum Novarum of 1891: “The simple agreement between employee and employers with regard to the amount of pay to be received is not sufficient for the agreed upon salary to qualify as a ‘just wage’”. Out of desperation people often accept conditions offered even as these conditions exploit them for profit.

Thus, it is only when employment is offered and work is performed according to God’s plan that it becomes rewarding and thus helps human beings realise their dignity as co-creators and co-redemptors with God.