Los Mecanismos Institucionales Formales

One of the many sorry aspects of the Neoplatonic influence is its contempt for physical work. Because Neoplatonism sees the material world as the realm of bondage, manual labor is regarded as degrading and enslaving.

The Talmud gives evidence of similar ideas having infiltrated Hebrew thought. Thus, R. Neborai declared, “I abandon every trade in the world and teach my son Torah (law) only.”222

R. Huna b. Idi held, “Once a man is appointed head of a community, he may not do (manual) labour in the presence of three.”223

The more common and prevailing rabbinic teaching was more scriptural and held:

The father is bound in respect of his son, to circumcise, redeem (if the son is a firstborn), teach him Torah, take a wife for him, and teach him a craft. Some say, to teach him to swim too. R. Judah said: He who does not teach his son a craft, teaches him brigandage.224

The contempt for work gained power with the Renaissance and Enlightenment, and it led to the degradation of the worker throughout Europe. The worker’s status in medieval Europe was low enough, but there was at least theologically some vindication of his position. Humanism undid this advantage. The Victorian era, from whence came Darwin and Marx, was notable also for its contempt for physical work. A gentleman was a man who did not work but lived off an inherited income. The middle class merchants and industrialists who earned fortunes often struggled then to rid themselves and their sons of the taint of work. A gentlewoman of the period was even more radically removed from all physical labor. As Dawes notes,

Women of the Victorian and Edwardian middle classes regarded a life of complete idleness as being essential to maintaining their position in life. If they put a piece of coal on the fire, lifted a duster or answered a doorbell, they were “letting their husbands down.” Or worse, depriving a needy person of employment. So, during the Great Age of Servants, a whole class of women was reared that was incapable of performing even the simplest domestic services for itself. These gentle mistresses never had to make a pot of tea, wash a cup, darn a sock, post a letter, or even brush their own hair.225

222 _{The Babylonian Talmud: Kiddushin 82a; see p. 423 of Soncino Press, London, England, 1936 ed.} 223

Ibid., Kiddushin 70a, 355. 224 _{Ibid., Kiddushin 29a, 137-38.}

225 _{Frank Dawes, Not in Front of the Servants: A True Portrait of English Upstairs/Downstairs Life (New York, NY:} Taplinger Publishing Company, 1974), 22.

Because of its Puritan background, the United States has been least subject to this contempt for physical work, and much of its leadership in productivity has been due to this fact. In recent years, the Europeanization of American intellectuals has led to a growing contempt for work together with a patronizing “defense” of the working man. This “defense” rests on the intellectuals’ premise that all physical work has implicit in it some form of exploitation, an idea common also to Marx.

We cannot begin to understand the biblical doctrine of work unless we approach it theologically, unless we begin with God. According to Moshe Greenberg, in the Bible,

Labor was considered so much a part of the cosmic order that God Himself is depicted as a worker. He “founded” the earth, and the heavens are his “Handi-(or “finger-”) work” (Ps. 8:4; 102:26); He is the “fashioner” (yozer) of everything (Jer. 10:16); man is clay and God the potter (yozer; Isa. 64:7, based on Gen. 2:7). He worked six days at creating the world. . . .226

In all the creation outside of heaven, only God and man work as an aspect of their being. Domestic animals are made to work by man. Some animals, like squirrels, collect and store food, but work beyond the requirement of survival is an attribute only of God’s image-bearer, man. Work which looks beyond survival to long-term purposes in terms of dominion and the Kingdom of God is a characteristic of man alone in this universe.

In a remarkable passage, Isaiah speaks about the love of God in judgment. God’s judgments upon His chosen people are compared to the faithful work of a good farmer for his soil: he breaks it up to plant it and make it fruitful unto himself. According to Isaiah 28:23-29,

Give ye ear, and hear my voice; hearken, and hear my speech. Doth the plowman plow all day to sow? doth he open and break the clods of his ground? When he hath made plain the face thereof, doth he not cast abroad the fitches, and scatter the cummin, and cast in the principal wheat and the appointed barley and the rie in their place? For his God doth instruct him to discretion, and doth teach him. For the fitches are not threshed with a threshing instrument, neither is a cart wheel turned upon the cummin; but the fitches are beaten out with a staff, and the cummin with a rod. Bread corn is bruised; because he will not ever be threshing it, nor break it with the wheel of his cart, nor bruise it with his horsemen. This also cometh forth from the LORD of hosts, which is wonderful in counsel, and excellent in working.

The farmer, Isaiah points out, is not haphazard. He has a careful method in plowing, planting, and threshing, and his timing and method varies from crop to crop. God similarly is “purposeful, orderly, and discriminating.” Moreover, “like the farmer, God is working out a long-term plan and adapts his methods to its successful stages and to different stages.”227 God’s purpose is the

226

Moshe Greenberg, “Labor,” in Encyclopaedia Judaica, vol. 10, 1319.

ultimate salvation of His covenant people, and thus there is always more to the moment’s work than the considerations of the moment.

In the course of this statement, Isaiah makes some very important statements concerning work. In verse 26, it is clearly stated that God teaches and corrects the farmer. This is not by special revelation but by the image of God in men, so that man’s ability to work purposely is an aspect of his being and the creative gift of God. As he examines this ability of man to work with foresight, Isaiah in verse 29 expresses his amazement. He uses language earlier applied to the Messiah (Isa. 9:6), declaring of God, that He “is wonderful in counsel, and excellent in working” as He reveals Himself in man’s work.228

Work was thus God’s purpose for men. The Fall affected work; it is not work that is a curse, as some have wrongly assumed, but fallen man’s work that is under a curse (Gen. 3:17-19). Work, whereby man was to exercise dominion and subdue the earth (Gen. 1:26-28), now became, no longer the means to dominion but a frustration. Thus, the curse placed upon work, man’s great privilege, was a first consequence of man’s revolt against God. Second, death was the inevitable consequence of sin (Gen. 2:17). Third, because man had made himself, rather than God, the arbiter and judge of good and evil, he was separated from the good, from the tree of life, and cast out of Eden (Gen. 3:22-24). However, as H. D. McDonald noted, “In redemption, work is again transformed into a means of blessing.”229

Because work is an aspect of the image of God in man, the application of knowledge, righteousness, holiness, and dominion to actual problems and situations, work can in the long run only prosper when it is done in obedience to His word. “Except the LORD build the house, they labour in vain that build it: except the LORD keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain” (Ps. 127:1). As a result, the biblical greeting to godly workers is, “The blessing of the LORD be upon you: we bless you in the name of the LORD” (Ps. 129:8; cf. Judg. 6:12; Ruth 2:4).

On the other hand, according to Proverbs 18:9, “He also that is slothful in his work is brother to him that is a great waster (or destroyer).”

Work, the ability to work productively and with foresight, is an aspect of our natural inheritance as men created in the image of God. Because in fallen man this ability is afflicted by the curse, it is a supernatural inheritance when with our redemption and obedience work is again under a blessing. Work then becomes a blessing which inherits blessings (Deut. 28:1-14). The meek, those who are broken into God’s harness and work in and under Him, “shall inherit the earth; and shall delight themselves in the abundance of peace” (Ps. 37:11).

Inheritance in Scripture is a theological fact. It rests in our nature, in the image of God in man, and in our redeemed status as legal sons of God by adoption, called into His service (Ex. 4:22- 23).

228

E. J. Young, The Book of Isaiah, vol. 2 (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1969), 301. 229 _{H. D. McDonald, “Work” in Douglas, New Bible Dictionary, 1337.}

36

PRESUMPTION

Like sacrilege, presumption is a sin rarely mentioned in our time; not even biblical and theological works mention it, and it is necessary to turn to older works to find any mention of it. Scripture does speak of it often, as witness these verses:

But if a man come presumptuously upon his neighbour, to slay him with guile; thou shalt take him from mine altar, that he may die. (Ex. 21:14)

And the man that will do presumptuously, and will not hearken unto the priest that standeth to minister there before the LORD thy God, or unto the judge, even that man shall die: and thou shalt put away the evil from Israel. And all the people shall hear, and fear, and do no more presumptuously. (Deut. 17:12-13)

Keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins; let them not have dominion over me: then shall I be upright, and I shall be innocent from the great transgression. (Ps. 19:13)

The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished: But chiefly them that walk after the flesh in the lust of uncleanness, and despise government. Presumptuous are they, self-willed, they are not afraid to speak evil of dignities. (2 Pet. 2:9-10) Very clearly, presumption is a particularly fearful form of injustice. It leads men to despise authority or government, and to speak libelously of their superiors.

An understanding of the meaning of presumption can be had by examining its definition by a popular divine of an earlier era, the Reverend Charles Buck (1771-1815). According to Buck,

PRESUMPTION, as it relates to the mind, is a supposition formed before examination. As it relates to the conduct or moral action, it implies arrogance and irreverence. As it relates to religion in general, it is a bold and daring confidence in the goodness of God, without obedience to his will. Presumptuous sins must be distinguished from sins of infirmity, or those failings peculiar to human nature, Ecc. vii. 20, 1 John i, 8, 9; from sins done through ignorance, Luke xii, 48; and from sins into which men are hurried by sudden and violent temptation, Gal. vi. 1. The ingredients which render sin presumptuous are, knowledge, John xv.22; deliberation and contrivance, Prov. vi. 14, Psal. xxxvi, 4; obstinacy, Jer. xliv. 16; Deut. i. 13; inattention to the remonstrances of conscience, Acts vii. 51; opposition to the dispensations of Providence, 2 Chron. xxviii. 22; and repeated commission of the same sin, Psal. lxxvii. 17. Presumptuous sins are numerous; such as profane swearing, perjury, theft, adultery, drunkenness, sabbath-breaking, &c. These may be more particularly considered as presumptuous sins, because they are generally committed against a known law and so often repeated. Such sins are most heinous in their nature, and most pernicious in their effects. They

are said to be a reproach to the Lord, Numb. xv. 3; they harden the heart, 1 Tim. iv. 2; draw down judgments from heaven, Numb. xv. 31; even when repented of, are seldom pardoned without some visible testimony of God’s displeasure, 2 Sam. xii. 10. As it respects professors of religion, as one observes, they sin presumptuously, 1. when they take up a profession of religion without principle; 2. when they profess to ask the blessing of God, and yet go on in forbidden courses; 3. when they do not take religion as they find it in Scriptures; 4. when they make their feelings the test of their religion, without considering the difference between animal passions and the operations of the Spirit of God; 5. when they run into temptation; 6. when they indulge in self-confidence and self- complacency; 7. when they bring the spirit of the world into the church; 8. when they form apologies for that in some which they condemn in others; 9. when professing to believe in the doctrines of the Gospel, they live licentiously; 10. when they create, magnify, and pervert their troubles; 11. when they arraign the conduct of God as unkind and unjust.230

This definition rather thoroughly includes most Christians of our day under the classification of presumptuous sinners.

Delaney defined presumption as that sin which relies on God’s mercy and power while manifesting no works in conformity to the profession of faith. It is closely linked, he pointed out, to “a Pelagian frame of mind,” and in some cases will even presume to ask for God’s assistance in doing evil as though baptism and an outward profession had made God a necessary ally.231

The God-ward aspects of presumption are by now apparent. However, Buck’s excellent definition makes it clear that presumption has man-ward and personal implications: “it is a bold and daring confidence in the goodness of God, without obedience to his will.”

To give an example of the social aspects of presumption, let us examine an instance from 1911, when Lloyd George brought in the National Insurance Bill, which required employers “to contribute 3 c. a week each (rather less than 1 ½ p)” to insure their servants against illness. Every attempt was made by employers to compel opposition to the bill by their servants.

Petitions were got up, which were signed by employers and their servants, many no doubt under duress. One young servant girl who refused to sign such a petition recalls the vicar calling to ask her to change her mind, and when she refused, telling her she was a very wicked girl. “I had plenty of black looks from the mistress and master.”232

230 _{“Presumption,” in Charles Buck, A Theological Dictionary (Philadelphia, PA: Joseph J. Woodward, 1826), 490.} 231 _{“Presumption,” by Joseph F. Delaney, in The Catholic Encyclopedia, 12 (New York, NY: The Encyclopedia} Press, [1911] 1913), 403.

Attempts by employers to compel or control the minds of employees where their opinions are irrelevant to the discharge of their duties is presumption. Man has no right to play god in the lives of those under him. He has a right to expect the faithful discharge of stated duties, not a compliance to his will and whim.

On the other hand, it is presumption for employees to try to instruct, correct, or dictate to their employers. They have the freedom to leave, but not to control, their place of work. Similarly, children have no right to criticize parents, teachers, pastors, or their elders; to do so is presumption.

These are examples drawn from normal human affairs, but in all, a theological principle of authority governs. It is God’s order, not man’s, which must be maintained. But this is not all: the principle of obedience must be God-centered, because our lives must be so. To be other than God-centered is presumption.

To cite another example, to illustrate this fact, a wealthy man had two sons, who, together with their wives, were earnest and professing Christians. Although no open conflict had developed, and outwardly, there was peace and harmony, the sons and their wives resented the fact that the father made no effort to help them financially, to finance home purchases, or to assist in various ways, despite his superabundant means. The father, on the other hand, knew of the children’s expectations and resented it. While they shared his faith, they lacked his prudence. Both sons had very good incomes, but neither they nor their wives saved anything, nor felt any need to, in view of the prospects of an inheritance to enjoy.

The attitude of the sons and their wives was presumption. Their view of an inheritance was entirely personal, man-centered, rather than theological and God-centered. Despite their profession of faith, they were humanists at heart. They not only used all the fruits of their labors, but wanted the fruits of their father’s labors without any awareness of the biblical meaning of inheritance.

Presumption also means a denial of God’s wisdom and providence in His dealings with us. When Israel in the wilderness said, “Let us make us a captain, and let us return into Egypt” (Num. 14:4), they were guilty of presumption. The rebellion of Israel when the spies made their report, and their subsequent attempt to undo their sin by attacking the Amorites, is called a presumptuous sin by Moses (Deut. 1:43). A prophet or preacher who speaks a word which God has not commanded, or speaks in the name of other gods, has spoken presumptuously (Deut. 18:20-22). The builders of Babel (Gen. 11) and Korah (Num. 16) were presumptuous. The men of Beth-shemesh who had looked presumptuously into the ark (1 Sam. 6:19) were smitten by God. Other examples of presumption are Uzzah (2 Sam. 6:6), Uzziah (2 Chron. 26:16), and the Jewish exorcists of Acts 19:13-16.

Perhaps our clearest insight into the meaning of the sin of presumption is in Psalm 19:7-14. In verses 7-10, the psalmist speaks of the glory of the law, and by the law or Torah he means the law as given to Moses and the whole of God’s written word. He declares the law to be perfect, in that it covers every aspect of life and is a shield for man against evil. It is a sure word, because it comes from the omnipotent God, and it makes us wise. It is a right word, because it is more

fitting and clearer than anything man can devise or imagine. It is a pure word which cleanses and enlightens the eyes. The law is a word which inspires a clean and wholesome fear which is a permanent guide for man. The law is also judgments or verdicts which are totally true and righteous altogether. Moreover, the law of God is more precious than gold and sweeter than honey.

After speaking with such joyful eloquence of the excellence of the law, the psalmist related the law to himself in verses 11-14. The law is a warning to us, and it is also a source of “great reward” when we obey it. The law thus is condemnation to the sinner and a source of great reward to the righteous.

To avoid the condemnation of the law, the psalmist now asks for grace to overcome two kinds of sins. First, in verse 12, there are the “hidden faults,” the weaknesses often unknown to ourselves, which, under stress, appear. Second, there are the presumptuous sins, those committed in open defiance or in casual heedlessness of God. Presumptuous sins readily rule over us, because they