Abstract
Following a brief discussion of Erik H. Erikson’s (1958) reflections on Martin Luther’s redefinitions of work, this article focuses on the theology of work as presented in Marie-Dominique Chenu’s (1955, 1963) The Theology of Work. It suggests that Chenu’s theology of work provides a valuable foundation for a pastoral theology of work in that it emphasizes the role of work in releasing the potentialities inherent in the material world and in the individual who is engaged in this creative process. It notes Chenu’s emphasis on the historical transformation from a craft-oriented to a machine-oriented work environment, on the emergence of a conscious awareness among humans of the effects of work, on Christian understandings of humans as co-creators with God, on humans’ creative role in the transformation of the material world, on the role grace plays in the creative process, and on the role of work in human liberation.
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Notes
Marcel-Leon Chenu was born in 1895 in Soisy-sur-Seine and died in 1990 in Paris. He took the name Marie-Dominique when he entered the Dominican Order in 1913. He wrote his doctoral dissertation in 1920 on the meaning of contemplation in Thomas Aquinas’s work. The same year he was appointed professor of the history of dogma at Saulchoir, where he had done his undergraduate work. In 1942 his 1937 book Le Saulchoir: Une école de la théologie was placed on the Vatican’s index of forbidden books, and he lost his professorship at Le Saulchoir. Friends helped him secure a position at École des Hautes Études in Paris, and he also taught at the Sorbonne and the Institut Catholique de Paris. In the late 1940s and early 1950s he became involved in the worker-priest movement, and he was among the French Dominicans disciplined for these activities in 1953 by the master of their order, supposedly to save them from worse treatment by the Vatican. He was forced to leave Paris and moved to Rouan but was allowed to return to Paris in 1962. At that time he served as a theological expert at the Second Vatican Council (1962–65) (see Wikipedia 2015).
As his book was originally published in French in 1955, Chenu may not have been aware of Henri Rondet’s (1954) Die Theologie der Arbeit. Also, Hans-Andreas Egenoff’s (1964) Zur Theologie der Arbeit and José Luis Illanes’s (1965) La Sanctificacion del Trabajo, originally published in Italian and published in an English translation two years later (1967) under the title On the Theology of Work, had not been published yet (see also Illanes 2003). In any event, Chenu’s book gave the reader the strong impression that the “theology of work” was at the discussion stage and that not much had actually been written on it at the time his book was published. The English translation was published 8 years later.
Erikson’s observation that Luther’s views on work and sex were misunderstood anticipates his later discussion in Identity: Youth and Crisis (Erikson 1968) of Sigmund Freud’s response “when asked what he thought a normal person should be able to do well” (p. 136). Erikson notes that “the questioner probably expected a complicated, ‘deep’ answer. But Freud simply said, Leiben und arbeiten (‘to love and to work’)” (p. 136). Erikson goes on to suggest, “It pays to ponder on this simple formula; it grows deeper as you think about it. For when Freud said ‘love,’ he meant the generosity of intimacy as well as genital love; when he said love and work, he meant a general work productiveness which would not preoccupy the individual to the extent that he might lose his right or capacity to be a sexual and a loving being” (p. 136). This discussion occurs in his consideration of the intimacy vs. isolation stage in his chapter on the life cycle.
Note Erikson’s use of the word “coupon” in reference to what were termed “indulgences” in Luther’s time. An indulgence was a partial or complete remission, under conditions specified by the Church, of divine temporal punishment that might otherwise have been due for sins committed but subsequently forgiven (see Agnes 2001, p. 729). Although the word “indulgence” has its own ambiguities, especially when the indulgent one is viewed as a parent, the word “coupon” has the effect of diminishing the value of the indulgence, and this, it would seem, was Luther’s point.
The publication of James E. Dittes’s (1987) When Work Goes Sour in 1987 helped to confirm my early judgment that work is an important but neglected theme in pastoral theology and the related disciplines of pastoral care and counseling. When it was republished nine years later it was titled Men at Work (Dittes 1996).
The English translation of Chenu’s The Theology of Work uses the words “man” and “mankind” rather than “human,” “humankind,” and “humanity.” I have used the original translations here.
A noteworthy example of the psychological study of work is Donald Scott’s (1970) The Psychology of Work. It has chapters on how we work, what makes us work, the work place and working conditions, wages, strikes, and unemployment, job dissatisfaction, women, marriage, and work, retirement, the effect of work on the mind, work as a cure, and other topics. It also includes a chapter on work and the Church that focuses on Protestant communities in Scotland and England designed for persons who had experienced a work-related emotional breakdown. A British psychiatrist, Scott is also the author of The Psychology of Fire (1974; see also Capps 2010).
In light of Erikson’s observation that Luther’s “was a craftsman’s point of view; and he considered one craft as good a way to personal perfection as another; but also as bad a potential prison as another” (Erikson 1958, p. 220), Chenu’s emphasis here on the transformation in the very nature and character of work with “the changeover from craft tool to machine” raises the question of whether Luther’s understanding of work from a craftsman’s point of view is obsolete. I pondered this question when writing my oral defense paper and came to the conclusion that what Erikson refers to as a “psychological truth” in Luther’s redefinition of work was relevant to the new situation (the machine age), for the issue was whether the work, whatever it may be, was imprisoning or liberating. It is also interesting to note that Volf (1991) refers to the task of “crafting” a theology of work (pp. 30–35, 76–79). This would suggest that a craftsmanship perspective is not necessarily obsolete despite the fact that the prevailing work environment has undergone major changes. It may, in fact, be adaptable to the new work environment.
In light of Chenu’s reference to liberation here and elsewhere in the book, it is noteworthy that Gustavo Gutiérrez, whose A Theology of Liberation (1973) is credited with having inspired the development of liberation theology, studied with Chenu at the Institut Catholique de Paris and later moved from Peru to France to became a member of the Dominican community to which Chenu belonged. The Wikipedia (2015) article on Chenu indicates that he has been credited with being the grandfather of liberation theology. Gutiérrez quotes Chenu in A Theology of Liberation (pp. 6, 31) but does not cite his A Theology of Work.
The author of this statement was probably Alain de Lille, a twelfth-century theologian (Chenu 1963, p. 14).
James M Childs Jr.’s (2000) Greed: Economics and Ethics in Conflict is, in effect, an effort to respond to what Chenu is calling for here. Childs points out in the preface that although the book deals with greed in business and other issues, the book is centrally about how these areas of economic life provide occasions “to heighten our consciousness” and thus to “spur our drive for better understanding and committed Christian action and advocacy” (pp. v–vi).
Volf (1991) develops the implications of this view more fully in Work in the Spirit.
The dictionary defines potential as that which can, but has not yet, come into being; possible; latent; unrealized; undeveloped (Agnes 2001, p. 1126).
James E. Dittes (1987, 1996) devotes a chapter of his book on work to “conversion and liberation.” In his view, the liberation occurs when one begins to separate the exertion and effort of the work from the need to achieve something and when one can play at one’s work because the work is irrelevant to one’s sense of well-being.
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Acknowledgments
Nathan Carlin served as a surrogate to facilitate the publishing of this paper. He helped with the final preparations because Donald Capps died while this paper was in production. He is not an author of this paper.
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Capps, D., Carlin, N. Releasing Life’s Potential: A Pastoral Theology of Work. Pastoral Psychol 65, 863–883 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11089-015-0674-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11089-015-0674-0