Theological Tidbits

Through the tasks accomplished in working, we share in God’s creative activity as well as in His dominion over the world. When we work, we fashion things from the created order that God has given to us. After we have made these things, we legitimately govern them. Through work, we do what God does. Therefore, through work, we become more and more like God. We fulfill ourselves as images of God. Work, then, is truly for man. It is a means for us to become more and more the beings we are—i.e., images of the Creator. We are not made for work—i.e., work does not take precedence over a person. Rather, God invited us to work so that we might become more and more like Him. As Pope St. John Paul II has written, “In the first place work is ‘for man’ and not man ‘for work’. In the final analysis it is always man who is the purpose of work” (Laborem Exercens, no. 6). If we work primarily to fulfill ourselves as images of God, then every worker should work first and foremost to shape himself more and more into an image of God. A worker should not work primarily for money, for fame, or for success, but rather to fulfill himself. Of course, it is only in working, in accomplishing some task together with co-workers, that one has the opportunity to become more God-like. Since workers are called to love one another, they are called to will the self-fulfillment of one another. Workers then will the specific task or job as the means to an end—i.e., as the means of fulfilling themselves and their co-workers. Further, as the worker comes to know more and more people, he or she realizes that everybody works. Therefore, each worker wills the self-fulfillment of all workers—i.e., the entire human race. In other words, in and through a specific task—e.g., building cars, a worker chooses to unite himself in love not only with those building cars with him, but with every other worker—i.e., every other human being. The task accomplished through work is not the primary goal or end product of work. The self-fulfillment of all workers is the most important goal of all work.

Adam and Eve knew from their own experience that they should love each other. God not only invited Adam and Eve—and, through them, all of us—to put this knowledge into practice in the familial communion of persons, He also asked them to imitate His trinitarian love by loving in the worker communion. All human beings are invited to be members of the worker communion of persons because all are invited to work. The goods of the earth are given to everyone in common and therefore everyone together is to engage in the immense task of subduing the earth. Such a goal would be impossible without everyone’s cooperation. Thus, through work, the entire human race is called to be joined together. This bond should be one of love because “the only proper and adequate attitude” towards persons—fellow workers—is love.

The communion of persons in the workplace is established through a free choice, a will-act, of each worker to give himself to every other worker in a self-gift that is total—permanent and limitless. It is a gift of self similar to the gift of each Person to the other Persons in the Trinity. Each worker continues to give himself to all other workers, permanently—i.e., until death. Further, each worker pledges himself to give himself limitlessly—i.e., he gives all that he has—including his talents, skills and property, if necessary, to produce goods or to render services—for the life of other persons. Clearly, this activity does not give life in the same sense as the family gives life. The family renews itself with new members, but the worker communion does not procreate new members. Rather, it gives life outside of itself and indirectly through the use of things or by providing goods and services.

It is critically important to note the incredible blessing that God gives human beings in inviting them to participate in the familial communion of persons. In a family, each spouse should love as God loves and therefore fulfill himself or herself as an image of God. Further, in and through this love, each spouse wills what is best for the other—i.e., the other’s self-fulfillment as an image of God. If there are children each child finds fulfillment by loving as God loves. In addition, each child wills the self-fulfillment of all the other family members. Through the profound mystery of familial love, husbands and wives—and any children—become more and more like God. They fulfill themselves as images of God because they love as God loves.

In loving as God loves, spouses also fulfill themselves by giving life. The love of spouses procreates new life, the life of an enfleshed spirit destined to spend all eternity with God. In an incredible gift of God, spousal love gives life to potential saints! Of course, God could have chosen to bring new life into the world in a different way. However, He wants to make it possible for spouses to fulfill themselves as images of God by loving as He loves. Therefore, He gives spouses this unimaginable blessing: He allows them to procreate new life. It is because of this incredible gift that the sacred author of Genesis prefaces the invitation to “be fruitful and multiply” with the phrase, “God blessed them” (Gen 1:28). Indeed, familial love is a blessing, an awesome one, because through this love spouses fulfill themselves. Sadly, sin marred familial love and, while not destroying it, made it less than what it could have been.

We can glean from our own experience that “the only proper and adequate attitude” (John Paul II) towards persons is love. In inviting us to “be fruitful and multiply” (Gen 1:28), God asked us to put our experiential knowledge to good use by establishing a familial communion of persons. God asked us to give ourselves within the family through will-acts that are total—permanent and limitless. Familial love is permanent because spouses give all the days of their lives to each other. Familial love is limitless because the spouses give all that they are—including the possibility of life. Even those couples who are incapable of procreation love as God loves, provided their marital acts are “open to life.” Thus, the gift of each person in the familial communion imitates the gift of the divine Persons in the in the trinitarian communion because spouses love one another permanently and limitlessly.

God said to Adam and Eve: “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it” (Gen 1:28). He asked our first parents to form a family and to work. He asked our first parents to form two loving communions of persons—one familial communion and one worker communion—in imitation of the love in the trinitarian communion of Persons.

The invitation to form the two human communions is, in a certain sense, logically included in the creation of human persons in God’s image. Since we are like God, we should act like God—i.e., we should love. When we love, we form loving unions with other persons. When God invited us to enter these two communions, He not only confirmed His creative act, but He gave each of us an opportunity to become more and more like Him. Every act a person does is “contained” in his consciousness. Every conscious act shapes us. Consequently, through our conscious acts, we can shape ourselves into more and more perfect images of God or into more and more imperfect images of God. Since we are images of God, we should always try to become more and more like Him through repeated God-like acts. Conversely, repeated ungodly acts shape us more and more into distorted images of God. The invitation to form the two communions of love—i.e., to imitate God by loving in the family and in the workplace, is an invitation to shape ourselves more and more into images of God. In other words, by acting as God acts, we become more and more what we already are: images of God. It is this concept that allowed Pope St. John Paul II to ask families to “become what you are” (Familiaris Consortio, 17).

Of course, the familial communion is more fundamental. The familial communion mirrors the divine communion more profoundly than the communion of workers. The familial communion imitates the trinitarian communion more closely in the limitless self-gift. In the family, as in the Trinity, each member gives all that he or she is, while each person in the worker communion gives all that he or she has.

Adam knew that Eve was to be loved. Adam knew that a “person is a good towards which the only proper and adequate attitude is love…. This norm, in its negative aspect, states that the person is a kind of good which does not admit of use and cannot be treated as an object of use and as such the means to an end” (John Paul II). Human beings have a value far superior to the rest of God’s earthly creation. The extraordinary worth and value of persons gives each of them a right to be treasured for their own sakes. To put it another way, persons call forth love from other persons. The very existence of persons is an invitation for others to love them. One might even say that the existence of persons demands love from other persons. All this was known by Adam and then by Eve.

Adam and Eve knew from their own experience that they were to love one another. God invited them to put this knowledge into practice when He said to both of them: “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it” (Gen 1:28). In this invitation, God asked our first parents to form a family and to work. Human beings demand love from one another. In inviting Adam and Eve to form a family and to work, God was inviting them to act together and to love each other. When people love each other, they form a communion of persons. Therefore, God asked our first parents to form two loving communions of persons—one familial communion and one worker communion—in imitation of the love in the trinitarian communion of Persons.

Human love must be founded on a knowledge of the truth about the value and dignity of the one to be loved. Based on our own self-knowledge, each human being knows that he is different from the animals. Adam discovered this wonderful mystery in naming the animals. Each of us discovers it in growing up. Even a three-year-old knows that he is different from the animals. In other words, we know that we are unique—i.e., we know that we are enfleshed spirits with bodies created to be physical images of God.

Knowing our own dignity and value is the foundation of our knowledge of others’ dignity and value. We experience ourselves intimately—but we cannot know others nearly as well as we know ourselves. Still, we see that other human beings are like us in many respects. The obvious and only conclusion is that they too are persons. They too have a value, worth, and dignity because they are created in God’s image and likeness. Adam came to this conclusion when he first saw Eve. Knowing his own value, Adam met Eve and realized that she was like him. In other words, he realized that she, too, was made in the image and likeness of God. At the sight of Eve, he cried out, “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh” (Gen 2:23). In Eve, Adam recognized an image of himself. Adam perceived in Eve the dignity and value he had discovered in himself.

With the recognition of Eve’s dignity, Adam had the knowledge necessary to love Eve in a God-like way: to give himself to her through a will-act that was total—i.e., permanent and limitless. He knew that Eve was to be loved.