Abstract

Narrow understandings of the meaning of vocation, particularly the common contemporary understanding of the term as a synonym for occupation, have obscured its power as a social ethic. The present study is an attempt to retrieve the doctrine of vocation as a social ethic through attention to its historical roots. ;Chapter one of this study lays out first principles for this ethic. These principles will provide the framework for the examination of the historical development of the doctrine which follows in chapters two through six. ;Chapters two and three examine the theologies of Luther and Calvin. In Luther we will find the extension of vocation outside of the monastery and into the world. Calvin will further broaden the scope of vocation by insisting that it cannot be tied to talent and inclination. Both theologians are explicit in connecting vocation to an understanding of a God who creates, orders, and sustains human societies. ;In chapter four the theology of English Puritanism is examined in the work of Perkins, Steele, and Baxter. Vocation becomes connected with occupation, narrowing its focus, and by the end of the eighteenth century, in the work of Adam Smith, we find a reading of providence and human activity which is discontinuous with Reformation formulations. Chapter five focuses on vocation in nineteenth century America. The Social Gospel theologians whose work comprises the last part of that chapter challenge the trend towards identifying vocation with occupation with an ethic which bears similarities to the original Reformation doctrine of vocation while pressing it towards universalism. ;Chapter six examines Neo-Orthodox theology. Frankly Reformed in its orientation, Neo-Orthodoxy, represented here by Brunner, Barth, and Bonhoeffer, insists that vocation is larger than occupation, that it is nothing less than the human participation in the ordering work of God. ;Chapter seven revisits the original principles from chapter one and posits a contemporary ethic of vocation understood as responsibilist. Particular attention is paid to the diminishing role of providence in late twentieth century thought and to the prospects of recovering a doctrine of vocation which understands human activity as participating in the providence of God