Economic Fallacies: "Work is Instrumental"

The "Work is Instrumental" fallacy views human economic labor as purely instrumental in service to higher pursuits of spirituality and intellect.

Humanity was created in the image of God. The image of God has primarily been understood through substantive categories throughout much of Western Church history. The substantive view is expressed in two ways: ontological and comparative. Ontologically, we are a spirit and, therefore, of the same substance as God. Comparatively, we are like God and unlike nature in some ways, but unlike God and like nature in other ways. How we are like God and unlike nature points to our image-bearing qualities. We are substantively the same as God. This usually is expressed in terms of matters of the mind, like reason and volition.

While this substantive understanding is true, as far as it goes, it does not go far enough. The substantive view alone has led to damaging dualisms of spirit vs. body and mind vs. body. Personhood is equated with one's spirit or mind. The body and material issues, including work and economic action, are merely instrumental to the spirit/mind half of the dualism.

Narrative scholars have come at the image of God from a functional view (and this view has existed as a minor theme throughout Church history). The functional view observes that, according to Genesis, we were created as material beings for a material world. We were placed in the world to be co-regents and stewards over the world. We are here to "work the garden" and bring creation to completion. Furthermore, there is eschatological importance to our work. We will be raised at the last day with new bodies to work a new creation with Christ. Christ is the firstborn of all creation, bringing all creation to its fullness. We participate with Christ in this work as his body in the world. As restored eikons, we will once again be co-regents and stewards of creation. Work and economic activity in the world is not incidental or instrumental. It is central to our anthropology and teleology.

But we must go further. The danger with the substantive and functional views alone is that they don't sufficiently locate us within the cosmos. They can lead to a low view of nature. Based on the Trinity, the relational view maintains that we exist only in relationship to others. "Others" includes God, fellow human beings, and the material world. We have a dual relationship with the material world. The material world is both the object of our work and the habitat in which we live. It was created good, but it is not complete. God owns it, yet we are stewards of it. (The very word "economics" comes from the Greek word oikonomos, meaning "household manager," the one who looks after an estate in the absence of the head of the household.) The Trinitarian God is complete without the existence of "the other." However, human beings can only be truly defined by their relatedness to God, other people, and the material world. But it is also true that the material world only has its full meaning in its relatedness to God and humanity.

When we work, we exhibit God's image in the world. Our work has eschatological meaning. The biblical narrative begins in a garden and ends in a garden city. Cities were the ultimate symbol of human commerce, government, and culture. In some sense, the cultural systems humanity is building today (including economic systems) will be redeemed and incorporated into the New Creation. At a more personal level, our work is part of our personal formation and spiritual sacrifice we offer to God. While some things are inherent in us at birth, others are more malleable. Our work, and the spirit in which our work is offered, forms us. That formation of who we are will be redeemed and carried over into the New Creation at the last day. Our work is also evangelistic in giving a shadowy witness to what work will look like when the New Creation is consummated.

The negative consequences of the "Work is Instrumental" fallacy are many. With no biblical mooring for understanding work, many in the Church unreflectively absorb the culture's ethos as they endeavor to live spiritually holy lives. Work is an extracurricular activity to "spiritual" living, but it is justified because it generates an income to be tithed to support those engaged in "full-time" Christian ministry. Genuine desire for spiritual growth becomes entangled with the propensity to ground our identities in materialistic and consumeristic ideologies. Some try to take God into the workplace, but this frequently translates only into personal piety and using the office as a staging ground for evangelism. Work itself has no intrinsic or eschatological value.

Other Christians recoil at the materialism they see in the Church. They adopt a more ascetic view of faith. People are to engage in economic pursuits only to achieve minimal sustenance that allows them to pursue "higher" spiritual and intellectual calls. Those who engage in economic activity beyond this level are suspected of being materialists who have succumbed to the baser values of our day. Here again, economic action is of value only insofar as it generates an environment where we can move on to more "spiritual" living. Economic activity has little intrinsic value.

Finally, those who champion social justice routinely direct their greatest energy at leveling differences in wealth instead of equipping the poor to become productive stewards. As we will see later, the Bible has much to say about care and provision for the poor but little about redistribution. The desire to radically redistribute wealth often belies a mindset characteristic of the communitarian wing of the Modernist era, where human beings are seen purely as consumers. (It also belies a belief in the Zero-Sum Game fallacy, which we will visit later.) There is a need for wealth transfers to the incapacitated and the hungry of the world, but if societal redistribution is the primary agenda, then human beings are reduced to just so many cattle that must be fed. Equipping people to work and fostering nurturing environments where the intrinsic human quality of work can flourish are made secondary.

Economic work is intrinsic to human beings bearing the image of God. Work has eschatological value. The "Work is Instrumental" fallacy leads to dualistic unproductive responses to economic questions, and it is probably the most widespread economic fallacy believed by Christians of all different theological and political positions.

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Comments

[Viola Larson]

Michael,
I got a lot out of this but I'm having a problem with this line, "Ontologically, we are a spirit, and therefore of the same substance as God." I would think that this would be a part of the fallacy you are writing about. Theologically speaking I believe only Jesus is of the same substance as God, all else including our spirits and angels are creations. If Christians believe they are of the same substance as God its no wonder they see work as only functional. Since all that is is God's creation, including our work or the talents, etc that God has given for our work such dualism need not be there.

[Viola Larson]

Somehow I managed to exchange instrumental for functional. I guess I need my first cup of coffee. Perhaps that will work.

[Michael W. Kruse]

Viola, what I was getting at is that the members of the Trinitarian God is spirit. We have spirit like qualities that liken us to God and distinguish us from the material world. That is true as far as it goes but we are not spirits inhabiting bodies. We are inseparable spirit/body whole beings. The attempt to define the image of God purely on substance issues leads to a deprecation of holistic humanity. My intended point was that the substance question is a legitimate inquiry as long as it is not divorced from functional and relational questions as well. Substance alone leads to horrible distortions.

Does that clarify?

[RonMcK]

Good Stuff
I look forward to the rest of the series.

[Viola Larson]

Yes Michael,
That's clearer. Thank you. And I agree completely with what you are saying.

[Peggy]

Really well said...reminds me strongly of Brother Lawrence and the submitting of all that we do as sacrificial and sacred ministry.

[Michael W. Kruse]

Thanks for the affirmations you all. The next one is a long one but I expect the others to be shorter. (No promises though.)