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REASON, SOCIAL UTILITY, AND SOCIAL COOPERATION For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness; For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things. Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves: Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen (Rom. 1:18-25).
The theocentric issue of this passage is God as the Creator and Sustainer of life. The secondary issue is man as the image of God. The philosophical question raised by this passage is the question of the common knowledge of God by all men: knowledge sufficient to condemn every man for rebellion.
Active Suppression of the Truth We are told here that covenant-breaking men reject the clear knowledge of God as Creator that is presented in nature. They suppress this true knowledge of God. The Greek word translated here as "hold" sometimes has the connotation of "hold back" or "suppress."(1) This implies an active suppression of the truth.
Covenant-breakers worship aspects of the creation. Some of them worship images of corruptible man. Others worship beasts. None of them worships the Creator God of the Bible, who created the world out of nothing by His command. To worship the Creator, Paul says in this and other epistles, fallen men must receive special grace from God. Those who have not received it are God's enemies. Their god is their belly (Rom. 16:17-18; Phil. 3:17-19). So, what may seem initially to be a case of mistaken Divine identity is in fact an act of willful rebellion. God holds men responsible for their active suppression of the truth, for holding it back in unrighteousness. If there were no image of God in men, they would not be held accountable by God. It is the common image of God in all men that leads to God's condemnation of unregenerate men.
This passage teaches that there is a common humanity. Every human being is defined by God in terms of his creaturely legal status as God's image. "And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth" (Gen. 1:26). This fact serves as the foundation of a distinctly biblical social philosophy, including economics -- a social philosophy that offers a way out of the dilemma of individualism vs. collectivism.
Epistemology: From Individualism to Collectivism "What does a man know, and how can he know it?" This is the two-part question raised by epistemology. This question is basic to every system of philosophy.
Socrates began with a command: "Know thyself." From Plato, we learn that this phrase appeared on a wall inside the temple of Delphi (Alcibiades 1.129a). In sharp contrast, the Bible begins with an account of God's creation of the world: "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth" (Gen. 1:1). The Bible is theocentric. Greek philosophy was anthropocentric. Western philosophy has followed the Greeks in this regard. It begins with the individual and what he can know about himself.
Modern economics also begins with the individual. This has been true ever since the epistemological revolution of the early 1870's, which is also called the marginalist revolution.(2) This intellectual revolution formally abandoned the concept of objective economic value, which had dominated classical economics for a century. It substituted individual valuation. Prices are objective, but the individual value scales that underlie market competition are not. A price in money is an objective result of competitive bids by would-be owners, including existing owners who want to retain ownership at prices lower than some subjectively imposed threshold. These bids are based on subjective scales of value that cannot be compared scientifically with each other because there is no objective measure of subjective utility. This is the heart of modern economics' epistemological dilemma. It arises from the starting point: the individual.
Crusoe and Friday
A standard approach to teaching economics today is to begin with a discussion of a single decision-maker, usually called Robinson Crusoe. This pedogogical approach is consistent with Adam Smith's decision to begin Wealth of Nations with a discussion of the division of labor. After discussing Crusoe's plans and actions, the author adds another decision-maker to his narrative, usually called Friday. The economist adopts this approach in order to discuss the added productivity provided by an increase in the division of labor. He seeks to prove that total utility increases when two people enter into a voluntary exchange. Each person benefits, or else he would not make the exchange. Through an increase in the division of labor, the value of total economic output increases more than the cost of the resource inputs, including labor.
The epistemological problem is this: How can we define "total value" scientifically? We have moved from a discussion of the individual actor to a discussion of society. When we begin our economic analysis with the sovereign individual, and then move to the idea of a society made up of equally sovereign individuals, we encounter a philosophical problem: How can we maintain the initial autonomy/sovereignty of each individual and also defend the concept of collective value? An individual has a value scale. This is an aspect of his sovereignty over himself: he decides for himself in terms of his own values. There is no value scale for a collective unless this collective also partakes in sovereignty, i.e., its ability to decide collectively what is good for the collective. How can we move logically from an analytical system based exclusively on individual sovereignty to an analytical system based on social sovereignty, which requires the surrender of some portion of individual sovereignty?
We can begin to understand this problem by asking a series of questions. How can an individual surrender a portion of his sovereignty and still remain the same individual? How much sovereignty can be surrendered to society before the individual loses so much of his original sovereignty that he can no longer be considered a sovereign individual? How can an analytical system that begins with the sovereign individual be maintained theoretically when individuals surrender any of their sovereignty to a collective? Do the analytical tools of individualism apply to collectives? If so, how? Can this be proven in terms of the logic of individualism?
The economist must also prove that social cooperation is based on a shared perception of the way the world works. How does sovereign economic actor A know that sovereign economic actor B understands the world in the same way that he does, or at least a similar way? How does he gain the cooperation of the other person? What appeal for cooperation will work? Why will it work? Would another appeal work even better, i.e., gain cooperation at a lower price? Even to begin considering strategies of persuasion, the economic decision-maker must make assumptions regarding a common mode of discourse. He has to assume that the other person will understand his own personal self-interest. The first person must also assume that he can understand enough about the other person's understanding so that he can make intellectual contact. There must be a shared perception of the world before there can be shared discourse.
The difficulty for economists who attempt to make a plausible claim for economics as a science is that this crucial assumption of shared perception has yet to be proven, either by economists or philosophers. More than this: it must be proven in terms of the individualistic presuppositions of economics. Beginning with the assumption of the fully autonomous individual, the economist must then bring other equally autonomous individuals into the epistemological castle of common perception. To do this, he must let down the drawbridge of objective truth. But the moment he lets down this drawbridge, his assertion of pure subjectivism is compromised. In fact, it is destroyed. There has to be an objective perception that unifies the market's participants in order to gain their cooperation.
This epistemological problem becomes a major problem in establishing State-enforceable rules that govern voluntary exchange. The moment an economist defends any policy of civil government in terms of increased common benefits, he abandons individualism. This is because of the nature of civil law. A civil government threatens negative sanctions against those who violate the law. If this threat of coercion were not necessary to influence human action, civil government would not be needed. To tell an individual that he is not allowed to do something that he wants to do is to reduce his personal utility. So, to justify the imposition of force, the policy's defender must argue that the protesting individual's loss of utility is not enough to offset the increase in utility for other members of society. The economist in his role as policy advisor has to assume that social utility increases even though one person's utility has decreased.
Social Utility
How can the defender of free market economics prove his case scientifically? He must appeal to a conceptual aggregate: social utility. Does this aggregate even exist? If it does, how can it be discovered? There is no known common scale or objective measure of utility. Without a common scale of value, there is no way to measure increases or decreases in social utility. There is no way to measure an increase or decrease in individual utility, either. No one can demonstrate that he has increased his personal utility by exactly this much. The most that he can legitimately claim is that at this moment, he believes that his new condition has improved. There is no objective unit of measurement that tells him by how much his subjective condition has improved.
If an objective unit of measurement does not exist for the individual, then the epistemological individualist cannot logically assume that it exists for society. For a strict individualist, there is no way that he can consistently defend the existence of social utility. He cannot prove its existence even though he assumes its existence. He cannot logically move from personal utility to social utility. To defend logically the existence of social utility, he must first surrender his defense of epistemological individualism. He must adopt some degree of epistemological corporatism. He now faces that age-old question: "How much is too much?" For this question, there has never been a widely agreed-upon answer.
Methodological Covenantalism Long before the social science of economics was developed, and centuries before Socrates, Solomon wrote: "Two are better than one; because they have a good reward for their labour. For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow: but woe to him that is alone when he falleth; for he hath not another to help him up. Again, if two lie together, then they have heat: but how can one be warm alone? And if one prevail against him, two shall withstand him; and a threefold cord is not quickly broken" (Eccl. 4:9-12). Long before Solomon, the story of the tower of Babel made the same point. "And the LORD said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do. Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech. So the LORD scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city" (Gen. 11:6-8).
The truth of the superiority of the division of labor does not rest on the subjective assessment of any man or group of men. In order to justify the concept of the division of labor, we do not have to assume the existence of a common scale of subjective values among all men, a concept which is inconsistent with methodological individualism. The objective superiority of the division of labor does not rest on the subjective assessments of a multitude of individuals, whose subjective assessments may be inconsistent with each other. Instead, it rests on the biblical doctrine of God.
First, God is a sovereign person who brings judgments in history. Second, man is God's vassal, made in God's image. He is required by God to worship God. Third, obedience to God's laws is an aspect of proper worship. When men choose to worship other gods, they break God's law. Fourth, disobedience to God brings men under God's negative sanctions. Paul writes: "For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness" (v. 18).
Christian social theory must begin with methodological covenantalism, not methodological individualism or methodological collectivism.(3) Protestant covenantalism usually begins with implied covenants among the three persons of the Trinity. There is no explicit biblical revelation that any three-way intra-Divine agreements took place before time began. Their existence is deduced from revelation regarding the relationship between God and mankind. The covenant of salvation is one of these assumed pre-historic covenants. Paul elsewhere wrote: "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ: According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love: Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved" (Eph. 1:3-6). This covenant of salvation includes the good works that are its outgrowth. "For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them" (Eph. 2:8-10).
Protestant covenantalism moves from implied, pre-temporal, intra-Divine covenants to the idea of formal legal agreements in history between man and God and also among men under God. For these events, there is abundant evidence, beginning with Genesis 1:26-28. "And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth." The Bible's four oath-bound covenants -- individual, church, family, civil -- are the epistemological foundations of any biblical social philosophy, including economics. Without a covenantal foundation, Christian social theory becomes a mixture of the Bible and natural law theory or some other form of humanistic rationalism.
The terms of God's covenant with all mankind are these: "Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me" (Ex. 20:3-5). We know that these terms bind all mankind, because Paul in Romans 1 identifies men's violation of these laws as sinful. There is no record of Adam's having formally agreed to this covenant, but such an agreement is implied by God's original command to Adam to subdue the earth. God brought the Flood on mankind because of men's rebellion against Him. "And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart. And the LORD said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them. But Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD" (Gen. 6:5-8) God re-confirmed the Adamic covenant with Noah. "And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth. And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air, upon all that moveth upon the earth, and upon all the fishes of the sea; into your hand are they delivered. Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things" (Gen. 9:1-3). This was an act of covenant renewal between God and man.
Methodological covenantalism assumes the following. First, a covenant is judicially objective. It is established by formal words or rituals that are judicially objective. It involves laws that are judicially objective. The covenant's ratifying oath invokes objective sanctions by God, should the oath-taker violate the terms of the covenant. A covenant extends over time, binding judicially the past, present, and future. Second, a covenant is perceptually subjective. God imputes meaning to it. God is a person. Men can understand the terms of a covenant because God understands it and defines it, and men are made in God's image.
God's imputation of meaning is central to the biblical concept of historical objectivity. Moment by moment, He subjectively declares the objective truth or falsity of any subjective interpretation by a man. God is the source of the meaning of history. He is omniscient, so He can accurately assess the importance and effects of any event. This Divine objectivity undergirds all historical interpretation. There is an objective standard against which every subjective interpretation is measured by God.
This objectivity in history makes it possible for men, who are all made in the image of God, to approach questions of social utility with a legitimate hope of solving them. Their knowledge of the truth testifies to them. God's original objectivity offers men a way to gain social benefits by placing civil sanctions on anti-social behavior, but without sacrificing the ideal of liberty. When liberty is based exclusively on an ethical theory of pure individualism, any imposition of civil sanctions undermines the theory and opens the door to tyranny. Pure individualism denies that social justice is possible, because of the absence of an objective common scale of ethical values. But the Bible tells us that there is a common ethical core that unites all men, even though its existence produces rebellion in covenant-breakers as they become more consistent in their defiance of God. Because men are all made in God's image, there is a shared outlook that enables them to come to agreements on social policy. There is no unanimity. There will not be unanimity, given the fact of men's sin, but there is an inescapable knowledge of God at the core of man's perception. It condemns covenant-breaking men.
Without a doctrine of common grace, i.e., God's restraining grace, the image of God could not bring agreement regarding which behavior is subject to civil sanctions. If covenant-breaking men were allowed by God to become fully consistent with their presuppositions regarding God, man, law, sanctions, and the future, there would be a complete loss of social order. This is why God intervened at Babel. God restrains evil. This is grace -- an unearned gift from God.(4)
Conclusion Paul teaches here that men actively rebel against the truth of God. They know God. "For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse" (v. 20). They actively suppress this truth, which nature provides. This includes the nature of man. The image of God in man is basic to man's personality. He cannot escape this objective testimony, no matter how much he suppresses it. It condemns him before God.
Man's rebellion is shaped by objective truth. He worships aspects of the creation, but he does worship. He subordinates himself to something, even though the object of his worship is not God. The pattern of his rebellion reflects the covenantal structure of man and his institutions. There are institutional hierarchies in life (Rom. 13:1-7).(5) The common knowledge of God makes possible men's pursuit of freedom and justice through the imposition of civil sanctions. Even though there is no common scale of ethical values that enables men to quantify social benefits, men can come to God-honoring, blessing-generating decisions to suppress by force certain forms of evil public behavior. "For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same: For he is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil. Wherefore ye must needs be subject, not only for wrath, but also for conscience sake" (Rom. 13:3-5).(6)
Men's natural reason is not reliable for the proper worship of God. This is Paul's message in this passage. Men suppress the truth in unrighteousness. The insufficiency of natural reason is why all men need the revelation found in the Bible regarding God, man, law, sanctions, and the future. They need biblical revelation to correct the errors of natural revelation. This is why God required Israel to meet once every seven years to hear the written law of God preached publicly. "And Moses wrote this law, and delivered it unto the priests the sons of Levi, which bare the ark of the covenant of the LORD, and unto all the elders of Israel. And Moses commanded them, saying, At the end of every seven years, in the solemnity of the year of release, in the feast of tabernacles, When all Israel is come to appear before the LORD thy God in the place which he shall choose, thou shalt read this law before all Israel in their hearing. Gather the people together, men, and women, and children, and thy stranger that is within thy gates, that they may hear, and that they may learn, and fear the LORD your God, and observe to do all the words of this law: And that their children, which have not known any thing, may hear, and learn to fear the LORD your God, as long as ye live in the land whither ye go over Jordan to possess it" (Deut. 31:9-13). This was in addition to the preaching of the law locally by the Levites.
Paul in this section teaches that all men possess objective knowledge of God. Nature objectively testifies to this objective God. Covenant-breaking men subjectively suppress this objective knowledge. In the next chapter, I will cover Paul's assertion of the existence of shared ethical knowledge. It is not simply that all men know that God exists; they know what He expects of them, too.
If all knowledge is subjective, and solely subjective, then the familiar slogan, "do your own thing," must become "think your own thing." When it does, what happens to communications, to the foundations of social order? This is the epistemological dilemma of methodological individualism, which is pure subjectivism. When this purity surrenders to objective truth, in whatever form or to whatever degree, so does methodological individualism. What will replace it?
Footnotes:
1. John Murray, The Epistle to the Romans, 2 vols. (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 1959, 1965), II, p. 37. Murray cites this passage: "And now ye know what withholdeth that he might be revealed in his time. For the mystery of iniquity doth already work: only he who now letteth will let, until he be taken out of the way" (II Thes. 2:6-7).
2. The pioneers, writing independently, were William Stanley Jevons (England), Leon Walras (Switzerland), and Carl Menger (Austria).
3. In the field of philosophy, this means that Christians must begin with covenantalism, not nominalism or realism. In their theology of the sacraments, this means that Christians must begin with covenantalism, not memorialism or the doctrine of the real presence. God is judicially present in the sacraments, not bodily present.
4. Gary North, Dominion and Common Grace: The Biblical Basis of Progress (Tyler, Texas: Institute for Christian Economics, 1987).
5. Ray R. Sutton, That You May Prosper: Dominion By Covenant (2nd ed.; Tyler, Texas: Institute for Christian Economics, 1992), ch. 2.
6. See Chapter 9, below.
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