13 INTERPERSONAL COMPARISONS OF SUBJECTIVE UTILITY There was a certain creditor which had two debtors: the one owed five hundred pence, and the other fifty. And when they had nothing to pay, he frankly forgave them both. Tell me therefore, which of them will love him most? Simon answered and said, I suppose that he, to whom he forgave most. And he said unto him, Thou hast rightly judged (Luke 7:41-43).
God's forgiveness here, as in the Lord's Prayer (Matt. 6:12), is equated with His forgiving a debt. All people are in debt to God. All people should seek His forgiveness. Most people have refused. God forgives some people eternally, and all people historically, providing them with undeserved common grace.(1) Everyone is in debt, including Satan and his host. When salvation comes, a redeemed person remains in debt to Christ. In fact, he is in greater debt than before, for he has now received special grace. Grace precedes law, and grace creates the debt. The debt we owe for sin has been paid. This, Jesus said, should create thankfulness and love in the hearts of sinners.
This text says that one forgiven sinner was much worse ethically than the other before saving grace came. Jesus asked: Which of the two redeemed sinners (debtors) will love God more? The answer is clear: the one who was forgiven more. Simon the Pharisee understood that this is the case, and Jesus affirmed it, too.
This passage raises several crucial issues for economic theory, but before I get to them, I must first consider Jesus' teaching regarding degrees of love and a common humanity.
Comparing Degrees of Love Jesus' example indicates that we can compare the love of one forgiven debtor with the love of another forgiven debtor. We can legitimately say "more" or "less" love. There is no indication that we can accurately say, "this much greater" or "this much less." But if we cannot say how much, then how can we make the comparison at all? The parable rests on the fact that we can make the comparison. But how can we do it? How is such a thing possible for a third party?
The comparison begins with an admission by both redeemed men: "I have been forgiven. I am grateful to the one who forgave me." Second, there has to be some common value scale that says, "To be forgiven much is better than to be forgiven little." Third, there has to be something in both men that relates the size of the forgiven debt with the love owed to the merciful creditor. Simon's conclusion rested on the assumption that a common humanity implies a common value scale. This common element is what made it possible for Simon to make a judgment regarding their comparative degree of thanks.
The Bible teaches that every person is made in God's image. There is a common humanity. This is the source of the common value scale in all people. God gave a law to Adam: "But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die" (Gen. 2:17). Adam broke this law, and death has come to mankind. "Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned" (Rom. 5:12). Everyone is responsible to God because of Adam's rebellion. Everyone understands that he, too, is a sinner in rebellion against God. Everyone is a debtor to God for the common grace already received, and everyone knows this. This is not to say that people acknowledge their debt to God. This knowledge can be repressed. But in every society, men believe in a god or gods. They sacrifice to their deities, offering them time, money, or slain animals.
Jesus Christ has paid in full every redeemed person's debt to God, but this imposes responsibility on the redeemed: thankfulness. Jesus in this passage affirmed that a forgiven sinner owes thankfulness to God, which is the proper response to grace. Thankfulness is the sinner's token coinage for debt repayment to Christ. The greater the degree of forgiveness, the greater the thankfulness owed.
The Jews were not thankful to God. This was a continuing theme in Jesus' ministry. It was Jesus' point of contention with Simon, who was representative of the Pharisees, just as Christ was representative of God. The sinful woman who had ministered to Jesus was doing so out of thankfulness. She had obviously repented. She was showing her gratitude to God by subordinating herself visibly before Jesus in the home of a Pharisee. Simon dismissed both her repentance and Jesus' status as a prophet because of what she had been, not what she had become. "Now when the Pharisee which had bidden him saw it, he spake within himself, saying, This man, if he were a prophet, would have known who and what manner of woman this is that toucheth him: for she is a sinner" (Luke 7:39).
Jesus condemned Simon's lack of gratitude to Him as the true redeemer. Jesus did this by making her an example of deep-felt thankfulness. "And he turned to the woman, and said unto Simon, Seest thou this woman? I entered into thine house, thou gavest me no water for my feet: but she hath washed my feet with tears, and wiped them with the hairs of her head. Thou gavest me no kiss: but this woman since the time I came in hath not ceased to kiss my feet. My head with oil thou didst not anoint: but this woman hath anointed my feet with ointment. Wherefore I say unto thee, Her sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she loved much: but to whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little. And he said unto her, Thy sins are forgiven" (Luke 7:44-48). Her love had produced her gifts to Christ. These gifts testified publicly to her love.
Jesus was telling Simon that he had not understood his own condition of indebtedness to God. The Jews generally shared Simon's self-assessment, especially the religious leaders. Their lack of gratitude indicated their lack of understanding of the magnitude of their sins and their desperate need of forgiveness. Jesus warned them about this. When he ate a meal at the home of Levi/Matthew, the former tax collector, which other tax collectors attended, the Pharisees had criticized Him. His response is recorded in all three synoptic Gospels: "They that are whole need not a physician; but they that are sick" (Luke 5:31; cf. Matt. 9:12; Mark 2:17). The Pharisees were sick, too. They were in need of a spiritual physician, too.
Thankfulness and Response
Jesus' healing of the ten lepers was a representative case. He told them all to go to the priest for examination, as required by the Mosaic law (Lev. 13, 14). They were not yet healed, but they obeyed. As they walked away, they were all healed. Only one, a Samaritan, returned to thank Him. "And one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, and with a loud voice glorified God, And fell down on his face at his feet, giving him thanks: and he was a Samaritan. And Jesus answering said, Were there not ten cleansed? but where are the nine? There are not found that returned to give glory to God, save this stranger. And he said unto him, Arise, go thy way: thy faith hath made thee whole" (Luke 17:15-19). All ten had obeyed Jesus. They had at least this degree of faith. All ten were healed. But only one was visibly thankful: a non-Jew.
The degree of thankfulness varies among men. These varying degrees of thankfulness are manifested in how they respond to the grace of God in their lives. Simon the Pharisee said that he who is forgiven more will love the creditor more than he who is forgiven less. Jesus concurred. Jesus' question regarding degrees of love rested on an ethical assumption: the proper response to greater mercy is greater thankfulness and greater love. He was speaking of what should be, not what is. Simon recognized this assumption and accepted it. It is not that he who is forgiven much will love the creditor more than he who is forgiven little. It is that he should love him more. Jesus concurred.
He then turned Simon's confession against him. Simon did not love Him as much as the woman did. Simon had become skeptical of Jesus' prophetic ministry because He accepted ministering from a sinner. Didn't He know what she was? Jesus knew exactly who she was and what she had done, as He revealed in His condemnation of Simon. Simon's demonstrable lack of gratitude to Jesus was evidence that he did not see himself as being in need of Jesus' forgiveness. In contrast, the woman did. The result was not what Simon had expected. Jesus publicly forgave her (v. 48) and publicly upbraided Simon.
Every man owes Christ thanks. This is a debt. Offering thanks does not imply that man can pay off Christ for the debt that Christ paid to the Father. On the contrary, it was the magnitude of man's debt to the Father that made Christ's atoning sacrifice mandatory, for sinful man cannot afford to pay it. Their heartfelt thanks, however, does constitute a token payment. Their degree of thanks is revealed by the gifts that people offer to Christ. This was Jesus' point with Simon. The woman was generous in her giving. Simon was not.
Debtor's Ethic
In an otherwise exemplary book, John Piper has written two chapters against viewing gratitude for our salvation as a form of debt repayment to Christ. Significantly, he does not discuss Jesus' confrontation with Simon. He discusses the woman only in the context of her shame.(2) He also does not discuss the incident of the ten lepers. These passages deal with gratitude and obligations.
Chapter One of Part I is titled: "The Debtor's Ethic: Should We Try to Pay God Back?" This is the wrong question. It should be: "Should We Try to Pay Christ Back?" Christ has paid God the Father in full on behalf of His people. Whatever we owe now, we owe to Christ. Piper writes: "The trouble starts with the impulse that we now owe a 'gift'. What this feeling does is turn gifts into legal currency. Subtly the gift is no longer a gift but a business transaction. And what was offered as free grace is nullified by distorted gratitude."(3) He offers examples of what he regards as inappropriate questions: "God has done so much for you; now what will you do for him?" Another: "He gave you his very life; now how much will you give to him?"(4)
The problem with Piper's thesis is Simon, who refused to ask himself either of these questions. This failure on his part was what separated him ethically from the woman. She was grateful, and she showed this by her gifts. Simon was not grateful, and he showed this by his lack of gifts. They both had obligations to Christ. Only one of them understood this. Simon was the recipient of God's common grace. The woman was the recipient of God's special grace. She loved Christ more because she had been forgiven of more. But Simon was not debt-free.
Piper is arguing for his thesis of future grace. He says that covenant-keepers should sacrifice in history for the kingdom of God because God offers us future rewards for faithful service. I quite agree. The Gospel of Luke has this as its predominant economic theme: exchanging earthly treasure for heavenly treasure. But in making his case for future grace, Piper rejects what is obviously a major aspect of the gospel, namely, that we are always in debt to Christ, and we owe Him visible tokens of our love. We can never pay off what we owe, let alone get into a creditor's position with Christ. Jesus Christ never becomes obligated to us. Our account is always in the debt column, for we receive ever-more grace as time goes on. This is why we need continual grace: to enable us to continue our repayment schedule. Our sacrifices are mere tokens of our gratitude. They are not repayments in the sense of ledgers in a banker's repayment book. Our payments are tokens of our debt, but they are to be offered in love, as a marriage partner offers the spouse. They do not settle accounts; they acknowledge a continuing obligation.
Are these payments legal obligations? No. We do not lose our salvation because we fail to show gratitude. Are they moral obligations? Yes. We lose some of our blessings by not making our token payments. "I have shewed you all things, how that so labouring ye ought to support the weak, and to remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he said, It is more blessed to give than to receive" (Acts 20:35). Jesus embarrassed Simon by pointing to his lack of love, which was demonstrated by his lack of gifts. Negative verbal sanctions were publicly imposed on Simon by Christ, based on Simon's silent criticism of both Christ and the woman, and based also on his visible lack of gratitude. If God imposes negative sanctions for failing to show gratitude, then there has to be an element of debt involved in our receiving grace.
Piper writes: "If grace be free -- which is the very meaning of grace -- we cannot view it as something to be repaid."(5) But grace surely is something for which we owe Christ visible tokens of our grateful love. If we do not owe such tokens, then why would Jesus have used Simon the Pharisee and the nine Jewish lepers as examples on ingratitude on the part of Israel, which He contrasted with gratitude shown by a sinful woman and a Samaritan? What other point was He making, if not this one?
There is a debtor's ethic. We teach it to our children. A parent, acting as a third party, tells a child who has just received a gift from a second party: "Say thank you, dear." And if "dear" refuses, negative sanctions are appropriate. God the Father is the parent. Christ is the second party. We are "dear."
The debtor's ethic can become legalistic: past grace. So can the producer's ethic: future grace. The theory of future grace leads to a system of token payments made in expectation of great heavenly rewards. These token payments no more legally obligate God to repay the donor than men's tokens of gratitude legally repay Christ in full for His grace. Men are always in debt to God. God is never in debt to men. The best example of legalistic future grace at work is revealed by God's response on the last judgment. Many will say, "Lord, Lord," based on what they thought they had done for God. His response: "Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels" (Matt. 25:41). Legalism can corrupt any spiritual relationship when men confuse their token payments to God with payment in full.
Common Ethics, Common Humanity Simon's confession was that the person who had been forgiven much should show greater love to the merciful creditor. Jesus agreed with this assessment. But this assumes a common value scale among men. This value scale is ethical.
What is the source of this common value scale? A common humanity. Man is made in God's image. Built into every person is the work of the law. This is what condemns every person before God. Paul wrote: "For as many as have sinned without law shall also perish without law: and as many as have sinned in the law shall be judged by the law; (For not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified. For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves: Which shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another;) In the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my gospel" (Rom. 2:12-16; emphasis added). God's law is not written on all men's hearts, but the work of the law is. This is sufficient to condemn them.
Every person is in deep debt to God, both as a result of Adam's sin and his own sins. The level of personal debt is not equal in each person, although our Adamic debt is the same, which is why all people physically die. There are varying degrees of sinfulness in people. There will therefore be varying degrees of punishment for covenant-breakers in the world to come. "And that servant, which knew his lord's will, and prepared not himself, neither did according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes. But he that knew not, and did commit things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few stripes. For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required: and to whom men have committed much, of him they will ask the more" (Luke 12:47-48).(6)
There is a common judge of man: God. There is a common humanity: the image of God. There is a common standard of righteousness: the law of God. There is a common scale of values: the work of the law written on every human heart. This means that there are ethically mandatory degrees of appropriate thankfulness and love among the forgiven. But men are in varying degrees of rebellion and understanding. They do not acknowledge these mandatory degrees of thankfulness. This condemns them before God.
God makes interpersonal comparisons of subjective utility. He makes no mistakes. He applies to specific cases His universal ethical requirements for all mankind. Because His ethical standard is objective and His subjective evaluation is also objective, men are held accountable by God. This means that the existence of varying degrees of thankfulness among men does not refute the existence of a universal objective standard of appropriate thankfulness. It also does not refute the existence of a universal Judge, to whom all men are in varying degrees of debt.
Simon's confession was grounded in objective ethics. Without an objective ethical standard, his confession could not have been true. Jesus said Simon's judgment was correct. If ethics varies, person to person, and if men's ethical evaluations also vary, and if there were no overarching objective ethical standard above individual subjective ethical standards, then there would be no way to conclude logically that greater forgiveness produces greater love. There would be at most a statistical correlation over large numbers of people between forgiven debt and love. But there is an overarching objective ethical standard above individual subjective ethical standards. This is why Simon's assessment was accurate.
We come at last to the economic issue raised by this passage: an application of subjective value theory.
Subjective Value Theory and Objective Policy-Making This text raises a major theoretical problem for modern economics. Modern economics is grounded in epistemological subjectivism. The individual is said to impute value to scarce resources. He uses his own personal scale of values make this evaluation. He places his ends in a hierarchy, and he allocates his wealth, including time, according to this hierarchy or scale of values.
This raises a theoretical problem: the values of one imputing agent cannot be compared scientifically with the values of another. The two agents are said to have no common scale of values.(7) But if there is no common scale of values, then it becomes impossible for anyone to make scientifically valid judgments regarding the overall social value of any government policy. There is no common scale of values that would enable an economist to say, scientifically, that one policy will produce greater social value than another. There is no scale of social value. Therefore, there is no such thing as social value, scientifically speaking.(8)
I have returned to this theme repeatedly in my economic commentaries, beginning with Genesis.(9) The presumed inability of economists or anyone else to make scientifically valid interpersonal comparisons of subjective utility is a fundamental flaw in modern economic theory. Economists rarely discuss this problem because it has not been solved scientifically or philosophically. To get from the subjective utility scales of individuals to objective social utility is scientifically impossible, according to the logic of individualism. This strips economic theory of all scientific relevance for choosing or rejecting any social policy. But economists want to believe that what they teach can become relevant for making social policy. So, they ignore this epistemological problem. They offer policy suggestions to politicians and bureaucrats as if this epistemological problem had been solved.(10) They pretend to be scientists when they offer advice.
This passage acknowledges that there is a common scale of values possessed by all men: the work of the law written in all men's hearts. Therefore, it is possible for outside observers to make estimates of interpersonal subjective utilities regarding who owes God what degree of thanks. But these estimates cannot be defined as scientific, given the standards of modern humanism. To appeal to a biblical concept -- the work of the law written in all human hearts -- is considered nonscientific. Economists must not appeal to supernatural sources of information, we are told by economists. Economics must be value-free, we are told. But if economics really is value-free, then economists cannot legitimately invoke or assume a common value scale for humanity, i.e., "this is best, this is next best, and this is not too important." Welfare economics in particular and policy-making in general are then removed from consideration by economic science. But economists refuse to let loose of welfare economists.
In 1920, A. C. Pigou, the Cambridge University economist who had taught economics to the young mathematician, John Maynard Keynes, wrote in his book, The Economics of Welfare, that welfare economics assumes the existence of a common "mental constitution" among all men.(11) If men had different mental constitutions, he said, economists could not establish that a government program of graduated income taxation is beneficial to society. In 1912, he had written, "If we assume all members of the community to be of similar temperament. . . ."(12) But on what theoretical basis can a subjectivist legitimately assume this? It was in response to this line of argumentation that Robbins wrote the section in The Nature & Significance of Economic Science that deals with value judgments and policy-making. There is no common value scale, so there is no legitimate case for graduated taxation in terms of declining marginal utility of money to each individual.(13)
Conclusion Modern subjectivist economic theory denies the existence of a common ethical standard, common tastes, or a common Evaluator on the day of judgment. It affirms that each person is different. This destroys the concept of a common humanity. It therefore destroys the possibility of a common objective scale of values linking all men. This means that there can be no scientifically valid interpersonal comparisons of subjective utility. Nevertheless, men make such comparisons all the time, just as Simon did. Without such comparisons, there would be no way to assess the economic results of the court system or the legislative system. There would be no way to say accurately that any judicial policy is economically superior to another. So, while economists deny the scientific basis for making such comparisons, they ignore this presupposition when it comes time to recommend one policy over others.
There is no neutrality. There is no escape from responsibility, including civil responsibility (Lev. 4).(14) Men in their offices as judges under God must make assessments of their own actions and the actions of others. They must decide which actions are acceptable to God and men, and which are not. They must apply civil sanctions in terms of social ethics, which cannot be neutral. Civil sanctions are objective. Judges in a biblical commonwealth must therefore seek to discover an objective social ethics that would authorize objective civil sanctions. They must seek to conform their society's civil standards to what God requires for all civil governments. The closer that men come to applying God's Bible-revealed law to historical circumstances, the greater the blessings of God on their affairs (Deut. 28:1-14). This is surely an objective benefit -- a positive supernatural sanction.
Footnotes:
1. Gary North, Dominion and Common Grace: The Biblical Basis of Progress (Tyler, Texas: Institute for Christian Economics, 1987).
2. John Piper, Future Grace (Sisters, Oregon: Multnomah Publishers; Leicester, England: Inter-Varsity Press, 1995), pp. 137-38.
3. Ibid., p. 32.
4. Ibid., p. 33.
5. Ibid., p. 45.
6. See Chapter 27, below.
7. Lionel Robbins, An Essay on the Nature & Significance of Economic Science (2nd ed.; London: Macmillan, 1935), pp. 136-41.
8. Murray N. Rothbard, "Toward a Reconstruction of Utility and Welfare Economics," in Mary Sennholz (ed.), On Freedom and Free Enterprise: Essays in Honor of Ludwig von Mises (Princeton, New Jersey: Van Nostrand, 1956). This has been reprinted by Liberty Press, Indianapolis, Indiana.
9. Gary North, The Dominion Covenant: Genesis (2nd ed.; Tyler, Texas: Institute for Christian Economics, 1987), ch. 4; Tools of Dominion: The Case Laws of Exodus (Tyler, Texas: Institute for Christian Economics, 1990), Appendix D.
10. See Chapter 48, below.
11. A. C. Pigou, The Economics of Welfare (4th ed.; London: Macmillan, 1932), p. 90.
12. A. C. Pigou, Wealth and Welfare (London: Macmillan, 1912), p. 24.
13. See Chapter 48, below.
14. Gary North, Leviticus: An Economic Commentary (Tyler, Texas: Institute for Christian Economics, 1994), ch. 4.
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