Conclusion

Gary North - June 02, 2017

Christian Economics: Student's Edition

[Update: 1/1/18]

You have now read my book. It took me about a hundred hours to write it and 57 years to research it. I began in 1960 with a question: I wonder what the Bible has to say about economics? I was 18 years old.

I hope you have understood the book. Most of all, I hope you understand the biblical covenant structure. I hope you also understand that this structure is basic to a correct understanding of the entire Bible. If you do not understand it, you will miss important aspects of God's requirements for His people in history. The five points of the biblical covenant are far more than just a handy way to understand economic theory.

Here is the number-one message of this book. God requires covenant-keeping societies to establish laws enforced by the civil government that defend the private ownership of property. God mandates civil laws against theft. Theft was man's original sin. But covenantal economic theory goes deeper than this. The dominion covenant has built-in economic sanctions that God enforces even when a society does not. First, God's law defending private property means that all forms of socialism are morally wrong. Second, socialism comes under God's negative sanctions. This is why all forms of socialism fail. I extend this analysis to the welfare state. The welfare state is morally wrong, and this is why it is going to fail in full public view.

The free market society recommended by Adam Smith and a long line of economists after Smith is closer to biblical economic theory than the writings of socialists such as Karl Marx and his followers. This is why free market societies prosper. This is why Communism failed in Red China and the Soviet Union. Free market societies did not self-consciously adopt the principle of private ownership in response to Christian economic theory. Smith was a deist, not a Trinitarian. His rhetorical invisible hand was not God's invisible hand. But God respects outward obedience. He curses outward disobedience. His common grace has blessed humanistic free market societies, and His common curse has cursed humanistic socialist societies.

My approach to economic theory is based on the biblical covenant, which means it is based on the concept of ethics: point three of the biblical covenant. My approach categorically denies the idea that economic science is morally neutral. This represents a fundamental break with free market economics as it has been taught by the vast majority of free market economists, beginning around 1880. Adam Smith was a moral philosopher, and economics was a subset of moral philosophy. It became more secularized in the 19th century, when it was called political economy. Today, it is entirely secularized. I am doing my best to de-secularize economics.

This brings me to the free market's accounting concept known as the bottom line.

But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing (James 1:22--25).

You now have more information about Christian economics than the vast majority of pastors possess today or in the past. You have a better understanding of economic cause-and-effect than the vast majority of citizens who have voted for the politicians who constructed and defended the welfare state. You are in a position of greater responsibility than your peers because you possess this information. What are you going to do about it? With knowledge comes responsibility.

I hope you will commit to spreading the message in this book. I hope you will become a teacher. I'm going to do what I can to help you become a teacher.

A few of you are going to become leaders. An even smaller group will become scholars who will be in a position to develop Christian economics for other scholars. This will take you a few years, but if you're young enough, you have plenty of time. I did not write this book for old people.

There is an old political rule: you can't beat something with nothing. With respect to the looming failure of the welfare state, nothing is better than something. But I'm not proposing nothing. I am proposing a reconstruction of economic thought, which in turn will lead to a reconstruction of the economy of the whole world. The gospel of Jesus Christ challenges every institution and every institutional arrangement of the covenant-breaking world. This certainly includes economics.

This book is written for students. There is a follow-up volume written for teachers. I plan to write a large edition for scholars. Finally, I plan to write a volume for activists This will take several years. But this book is sufficient to get you started.

It is not good enough to know the truth. You must also apply the truth. You must gain experience as a doer of the word. Dominion is a long-term process. It began on the sixth day of creation, and it will extend beyond the grave in the new heaven and the new earth. It is time to get started. Remember, I got started in 1960. These things take time.

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For the rest of this book, go here: https://www.garynorth.com/public/department188.cfm