Chapter 3: Purpose Precedes Planning
Updated: 1/13/20
Christian Economics: Teacher's Edition
Then 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 birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth” (Genesis 1:26–28).For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil” (Genesis 3:5).
But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you (Matthew 6:33).
The economic principle of purpose before planning is an implication of point one of the biblical covenant: God’s transcendence, yet also His presence. It has to do with sovereignty. Sovereignty is a legal classification. In economics, it refers to ownership. God was the Creator. He created the world out of nothing. He did not purchase or rent the “stuff” of creation. Rather, He spoke it into existence. So, He is the cosmic Owner. The owner possesses sovereign control over his property. In God’s case, He possesses absolute control.
The New Testament teaches the doctrine of the Trinity. This means three Persons, yet one God. Paul identified Jesus, the Incarnation of the Second Person of the Trinity, as the Creator.
He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross (Colossians 1:15–20).
What about purpose? There was purpose before the creation, Paul wrote. God then implemented His purposes by means of a plan.
This is a clear passage that reveals the biblical economic principle that purpose precedes planning. God had a purpose for mankind before the creation. He had a purpose for the select/elect portion of mankind before there was mankind. God announced: “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” This was His purpose for mankind. This defines man. This is the dominion covenant. It establishes the judicial foundation for the four other covenants: individual, familistic, ecclesiastical, and civil. God announced this before He created Adam and Eve. Their lives would be an unearned gift. That is to say, their creation would be an act of God’s grace. Only after the gift of life did God impose a law: do not eat of a specific tree (Genesis 2:17). This establishes a foundational principle of biblical interpretation: grace before law. Man is made in God’s image. Therefore, what applies originally to God applies derivatively to men. Men have purposes because God first had purposes. He is the model. He is personal, not impersonal. He has purposes as well as plans. So does man. Purpose precedes planning for man, who is a creature. The covenantal battle began when the serpent presented an alternative view of man’s destiny. By disobeying God by eating from the forbidden tree, Adam and Eve would become as God, the serpent promised. That is always the ultimate temptation: to be as God independent of God and in disobedience to God. This is the lure of autonomy: to make the laws for oneself and then exercise dominion for oneself. Autonomy is the assertion of man’s place at the top of the cosmic hierarchy. It is an assertion of man’s original creativity. The Bible says that God created the heaven and the earth (Genesis 1:1). Covenant-breaking men deny this. Nature is said to be autonomous. Out of nature came man. Now man is in charge. Why? Because he alone has purposes. This is the theology of Darwinism. Mankind evolved in a purposeless universe. Every man has purposes. His purposes are marks of his divinity: divinity by default. I have discussed this theology in Appendix A of my book, Sovereignty and Dominion: An Economic Commentary on Genesis. The appendix is titled, “From Cosmic Purposelessness to Humanistic Sovereignty.” (http://bit.ly/gngenv2) When covenant-breaking man ascends to the throne of sovereignty, he has rivals: other men. The war over sovereignty never ends. The grand prize is this: power. This is the supreme purpose of covenant-breaking man. He wants to exercise power on his terms, his laws. He wants to establish the covenants as the creator. He wants to imitate God. Therefore, what would be man’s position as an intermediary between God and nature becomes man’s authority over nature. But since men are part of nature, power necessarily involves authority over other men. Leaders need followers. Rulers need servants. When man asserts autonomy, he thereby aserts a transfer of the covenantal categories of transcendence and presence, which are exclusively God’s, to mankind. In other words, the categories of point one are shifted to point two: hierarchy. For example, God’s ownership is the product of His creation of the universe. In humanistic economics, original ownership is shifted to mankind. Some humanists argue that the state is the sovereign owner. Free market economists assert that individuals are sovereign self-owners. All are agreed that God is not the owner. They ignore this fact in their economic analyses: God has delegated ownership to individuals and institutions. Their ownership is derivative and temporary. For humanists, point two of the biblical covenant, hierarchy, becomes point one: sovereignty. This is the inescapable implication of the doctrine of man’s autonomy. Trusteeship becomes original ownership. Jesus told His listeners to seek first the kingdom of God. He also said that there are positive sanctions in history associated with this endeavor: “all these things will be added to you.” As surely as God’s kingdom has covenantal authority in history, so do the kingdom-pursuing plans of covenant-keepers. Covenant-keepers are required to formulate their personal plans in terms of building God’s kingdom in history. God has purposes. We do not know most of them. He has plans. We do not know most of them. “The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law” (Deuteronomy 29:29). God brings His plans to pass through men’s purposes. “The king's heart is a stream of water in the hand of the Lord; he turns it wherever he will” (Proverbs 21:1). Changes in covenantal administration take place through God’s intervention in history. God had a purpose for Noah. He had a plan: a blueprint for an ark. “Make yourself an ark of gopher wood. Make rooms in the ark, and cover it inside and out with pitch. This is how you are to make it” (vv. 14–15a). Noah obeyed. But he initially had no plan to implement God’s command and blueprint. He had to do this within the limits of existing technologies and capital. This was a change in covenant, marked by a rainbow (Genesis 9:12–13). God had a plan for Abram. He called Abram out of Ur of the Chaldees. Abram was wealthy. His wealth was mobile: gold, silver, and flocks (Genesis 13:2). He was not a land owner. He could move more easily. He had no plan, but he could buy what he wanted along the way. He had money and sheep to barter. He would have capital when he arrived at Canaan. His purpose was God’s purpose. In Canaan, God launched a new covenant (Genesis 15, 17). God called Moses out of his comfortable life in the desert as a herdsman. He gave him a new responsibility as a leader in a new hierarchy. Moses would now represent God. Pharaoh represented Egypt’s divinities. There were two covenants involved: God’s and Pharaoh’s. There were two hierarchies. The exodus made it clear which hierarchy was God’s. But God did not give the details of His plan to Moses at the beginning. God started a new covenant with Israel (Exodus 19). It established a new law-order (Exodus 20–23). The next covenanal transformation was through Jesus. Jesus had a purpose. This purpose had existed before the foundation of the world (Ephesians 1:3–6). Jesus also had a plan. It was God’s plan. Jesus had understood this plan as a young man. He told His parents: “Why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father's house?” (Luke 2:49). This is the only information we possess about His youth. God has purposes. He has a plan. He has a decree. His decree is in perfect conformity to God’s purposes and plan. Nothing can prevent the implementation of His decree (Isaiah 45:1–13). Men’s individual purposes and plans exist within the confines of God’s decree. God is sovereign. Men are not (Job 38–42). Jesus did not present to His listeners a comprehensive plan for their lives. He was specific regarding their purposes. The context of His command was this: “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money” (Matthew 6:24). The King James translation is more accurate: “Thou cannot serve God and mammon.” What was mammon? It was more than money. It was a way of life: “more for me in history.” This goal is inherently suicidal, Jesus said. “What will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul?” (Matthew 16:26). By placing the kingdom of God at the center of his thinking, a covenant-keeper establishes his priorities. God’s kingdom is at the top of his list. This is hierarchical, which points to point two of the biblical covenant. But the key to understanding this passage is its theocentrism. God is to be at the center of our thinking. More than this: His kingdom is to be at the center. The mystic has it wrong. The monk has it wrong. Christianity is about God and His kingdom in history. To the extent that personal mysticism or prayer bottles up the expansion of kingdom of God, to that extent it is a false goal. The economic issue is this: purposeful action. Ludwig von Mises placed this at the center of his economic theory. More than any other economist, Mises relied on the explanation of purposeful action to explain, first, economic decision-making, and second, the interdependence of economic causation and economic theory. The opening words of Part I, Chapter 1 of Human Action (1949) make this clear. This is why Austrian School economics is closer to Christian economics than any other school of economic opinion. Mises was a Darwinist and a follower of Immanuel Kant. Most economists are followers of Darwin and Kant. Murray Rothbard was an exception. He was a follower of Thomas Aquinas. He believed in natural law and natural rights. Few economists agree with him. What made Mises unique was his commitment to personal responsibility for the outcomes of human action. He placed the autonomous individual at the center of his analysis. He argued that the intervention of the state to reverse the outcomes of human action within the legal and institutional framework of the free market would lead to conditions that would make most men poorer, meaning less able to achieve their goals with the resources in their possession. He was a great believer in the social and individual benefits of the auction process. Mises did not appeal either to God or morality to defend his support of the free market. He appealed to the goals of each individual. He argued that in order to attain their purposes, men must rely on the market process. State intervention will thwart the vast majority of individuals in their pursuit of their goals. State intervention will disrupt the system of economic causation that enables the vast majority to achieve their goals, given their limited wealth. At the end of Human Action, Mises summarized his position. State intervention into the market process reduces wealth. The various myths of intervention reduce men’s wealth when put into practice. In other words, when men’s plans are based on incorrect ideas regarding economic cause and effect, the outcomes of their plans will not be what they hoped for: greater personal wealth, subjectively determined. The outcomes will also not be greater wealth per capita. Mises believed in the market process, meaning the auction process, as the only way to enable people to achieve their ends with the least expenditure of economic means. He understood the connection between people’s goals and their plans. He did not confuse these intellectual categories. Purpose precedes planning. Mises did not criticize people’s goals, as long as they are achieved peacefully. He did criticize their plans if these plans involved state coercion. He did not say that such coercion is immoral. He said coercion is inconsistent with people’s stated purposes: greater satisfaction. But there was a serious problem in his theoretical system. He did not discuss this purpose: envy. Envy is the desire to tear a successful person down, no matter what the costs. Here, state coercion may be appropriate. The existence of envy is a stumbling block for all free market economics. It undermines this principle: “when two people make an exchange, both are better off, and no one is worse off.” If the exchange produces an increase in satisfaction and therefore wealth for wealthy people, envious voters see themselves as worse off. State coercion may be just what they need to make rich people worse off. Men have purposes. These purposes, like God’s, exist prior to the development and implementation of their plans. Men do not go into the market place and purchase purposes. They make plans in terms of their purposes. Then they go into the market place and buy goods and services that they hope will enable them to complete their plans. The free market is where people make bids for ownership. These bids are made in terms of their plans and their existing stock of money and capital. They exchange ownership for the sake of their plans. Their purposes precede their plans. The origin of purposes is independent of the auction process. These purposes are prior to and superior to their plans. They are as aspect of point one of the biblical covenant. This has to do with the image of God in man. This is the source of men’s vision: their mission statements, their creativity, and their entrepreneurship. These are not the product of the market process, which is governed by this principle: high bid wins. We do not buy our purposes in the market. We bring our purposes to the market. Covenant-keepers should see their purposes as an aspect of God’s grace. Grace is not earned. It is not purchased. It is granted free of charge by God to His people. Grace precedes law. It also precedes the market. _________________________________________ For the rest of the book, go here: https://www.garynorth.com/public/department193.cfm
But Jesus called them to him and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. It shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant” (Matthew 20:25–26).
Now the earth was corrupt in God's sight, and the earth was filled with violence. And God saw the earth, and behold, it was corrupt, for all flesh had corrupted their way on the earth. And God said to Noah, “I have determined to make an end of all flesh, for the earth is filled with violence through them. Behold, I will destroy them with the earth (Genesis 6:11–13).
Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Genesius 12:1–3).
Human action is purposeful behavior. Or we may say: Action is will put into operation and transformed into an agency, is aiming at ends and goals, is the ego's meaningful response to stimuli and to the conditions of its environment, is a person's conscious adjustment to the state of the universe that determines his life. Such paraphrases may clarify the definition given and prevent possible misinterpretations. But the definition itself is adequate and does not need complement of commentary.
For economics does not say anything either in favor of or against myths. It is perfectly neutral with regard to the labor-union doctrine, the credit-expansion doctrine and all such doctrines as far as these may present themselves as myths and are supported as myths by their partisans. It deals with these doctrines only as far as they are considered doctrines about the means fit for the attainment of definite ends. Economics does not say labor unionism is a bad myth. It merely says it is an inappropriate means of raising wage rates for all those eager to earn wages. It leaves it to every man to decide whether the realization of the labor-union myth is more important than the avoidance of the inevitable consequences of labor-union policies (Ch. XXXIX: 2).