Work and Creativity: A Philosophical Study from Creation to Postmodernity

The Bible highly praises human creativity. In fact, work belongs to Adam’s very creation, homo faber in the image of deus faber (Gen. 2:15). Human production is nevertheless seen in the Bible as imbued with an ambiguous value. In Work and Creativity, André LaCocque reflects on the biblical understanding of labor, juxtaposing texts from the book of Genesis with the conceptions of work of psychoanalysts and philosophers such as Sigmund Freud and Karl Marx, and proposing a dialectical approach to human work and creativity.

Table of Contents:
Part One What about the J Tradition? The Bible and Cuneiform Texts: A Primary Stage of Intertextuality What Do Philosophers Say? First Excursus: The General and the Particular The Garden Raises the Problem of Space and, Subsidiarily, of Evil Homo Faber Home and Exile: Encountering the Other Once More on Production Adam Is Property Tenant; Consumption The Relation with God Work Mechanized Today's “Surplus Value” Entelechy Part Two Introduction A Response to Sigmund Freud On Freud's Theory of Phylogenesis Libido or Aedificatio? Work as Knowledge Work, Knowledge, and Death Second Excursus: Ernest Becker Work and Civilization: Morality and Guilt Work and Worldview Third Excursus: The Commandment Synopsis Part Three For a Dialectical Understanding Peripeteia A Concluding Reflection on Dialectical Work and Creativity The Dialectic Is Dialogical The Enigmatic (Dialectic) Relationship of Israel and Land On Lex Talionis

About the Author :
André LaCocque is professor emeritus of Hebrew Bible at Chicago Theological Seminary.

Review :
This is interdisciplinary work at its best and is bound to provoke in the reader fruitful reflection, application, and perhaps even labor. This work is remarkable in several respects. It is one of the very few studies on the theme of work in the Bible, although that theme is front and center in the creation story in Genesis. It is deeply engaged with European philosophy from Hegel to Ricoeur, to a greater degree than any biblical study I can recall. Finally, it articulates a model for a dialectical biblical theology, that rejects any univocal systematizing and insists on ambiguity and paradox. This is the crowning work of a very distinguished career by an urbane and learned scholar. André LaCocque has written an exceedingly subtle book on interpretation. This work has required him to bring into play his astonishing erudition as he mobilizes the great critical tradition of Western philosophy. His text is the tale of origins in Genesis 2-3. His theme is “work” as he ponders, in Genesis 2-3, first human generative work that co-creates with God the creator, and then work as drudgery that lacks any generativity. His method is dialectical, through which he shows that the narrative text will not allow closure or certitude, but only on-going interpretation. LaCocque’s accent on “share faber-ness” of deus faber and homo faber is the pivot of this welcome study. He here brings together a lifetime of learning to show how biblical interpretation at its best engages both the resources and challenges of modern thinking. LaCocque concludes his new book, Work & Creativity by quoting Paul Ricoeur. “Every tradition lives by grace of interpretation, and it is at this price that it continues, that is, remains living.” There is no more fitting conclusion, as LaCocque also dedicates his latest book to his friend and colleague, Paul Ricoeur with whom he produced Thinking Biblically in 1998. LaCocque models the depth and breadth of a person whose teaching has always been anchored by his own studies and reflection. I do not know another biblical scholar who embraces contemporary ‘intertextuality’ while carefully noting issues in the original biblical Hebrew, classic Greek, Aramaic, and Latin translations. Then insightfully engaging, Karl Marx, the post-Marxist “Frankfurt School of Sociology” (founded in 1923), Emmanuel Levinas, and Sigmund Freud and his disciples. LaCocque has created a rare intellectual feast by dynamically weaving his career-defining biblical insights with a literal library of classic thinkers. This breakthrough book proves that biblical studies have much to offer other disciplines, such as psychology and philosophy, and vice versa, and will appeal to scholars in all these disciplines. The topic of labor offers an excellent example of the rich vein of interdisciplinary studies as the way of the academic future. In a time in which satisfying work is more and more scarce, in which working people for the majority hate their work, and in which pyramid schemes multiply promises of early retirement to those for whom work has become a chore and a humiliation, LaCocque’s book on work is a fulgurant revelation of humanity’s lost and forgotten identity outlined in Genesis 2 as a homo faber whose task is to nurture and protect the seeds of redemption planted in our world by the Creator, and as such, fully realize His creative project. Drawing on the work of twentieth-century philosophers, psychoanalysts, and sociologists, LaCocque offers a profound re-reading of the creation story and gives us back our sacred vocation and responsibility as co-creators of the world rather than passive victims in an economic context where, increasingly, work has become distorted into modes of oppression rather than of redemption. LaCocque's dialogue between Genesis and modern thought, between the fruit of the tree in the garden and the fruits of human labor, yields a rare work of deep learning and originality. The dialectical criticism of this book offers striking juxtapositions and poetic reflections that honor, challenge, and connect biblical and philosophical traditions.