Introduction
Have you noticed the connection between fulfillment in your work and hopefulness as you work? We enjoy our research as we pursue some question to its answer, a tool to its application, or an idea to its expression. We find fulfilment when we think of our work as going somewhere. There is a direction of movement – an internal narrative to the pursuit of our work.
But is our academic work really going anywhere? It might have had a purpose within God’s creation before the fall, but what is the role of our work after the fall? This time we will look at whether God’s creation has a continuing role throughout the Bible’s story.
Main resource: The Creator-Creation Relationship
Category 3: Biblical Drama: Creation, Fall, Redemption
Working hopefully, within the unity of the Bible’s story
Excerpt from Biblical Drama: Creation, Fall, Redemption
It would be easy to envisage a kind of 'Christian modernism' in which something almost identical to the sacred/secular divide re-enters the church through an interpretation of the fall which is more shaped by modernity than by Scripture. Here, the fall would totally override the original goodness of creation. We would default to the assumption that the world around us is just material 'stuff'. Being fallen, this creation would become 'secular' to us. It would no longer be a concern for our spiritual lives, whose focus would turn to private matters of personal forgiveness and individual piety. Under this model, creation would be a foil introduced at the start and then immediately killed off in order to highlight how 'sacred' goodness consists in the rejection of the material creation and the pursuit of a heavenly spiritual future. The story would have turned out to be very different to how it started: not about our relationship to God as creatures within his creation, but about our departure from that creation.
What would that model mean for the Christian pursuing a research career? Such residual work within creation would become a mere utility - a means to the end of a different story - one which is diverging away from creation and leaving all such work behind.
For a shorter version of the same core argument, see Creation, Fall, Redemption: The Story of God’s Self-Revelation.
Conversation Starter Questions
Have you ever felt a tension between enjoying your work while questioning its ultimate value?
How does creation-fall-redemption illuminate your work’s goodness, challenge, and direction?
Further Reading: Augustine, Athanasius and Stephen Moroney
1. Augustine, excerpt from Of True Religion
In this short excerpt, Augustine writes on how the beauty of the universe was meant to result in praise ascending to God, and how humanity has instead worshiped the creation rather than the Creator.
2. Athanasius, excerpt from On The Incarnation of the Word of God
In this classic text, Athanasius sets out why God had to become incarnate in order to save us, and in doing so Athanasius provides an elegant overview of the history of creation, fall, and redemption.
Athanasius. “Chapters 1-5.” On the Incarnation of the Word of God. See especially chapters 1-3
3. Stephen Moroney, "How Sin Affects Scholarship: A New Model"
In this article, Moroney offers a new model for understanding the impact of sin on different academic disciplines.