No Free Lunch: Economics for a Fallen World: Third Edition, Revised

Chapter One: Introduction to Economics 12 it shall grow for you; And you will eat the plants of the field; By the sweat of your face You will eat bread, Till you return to the ground, Because from it you were taken; For you are dust, And to dust you shall return.” Satan’s attack is always the same: God is not trustworthy; He’s holding out on something that you want. The challenge is to the truth of God’s word, and its applicability to our situation. Eve faced this battle first, but each of us faces the same challenge today to trust and obey. Each one of us still falls short. The Fall of Adam and Eve resulted in all creation being cursed; as the Apostle Paul says in Romans 8, the creation was subjected to futility (vanity) and is enslaved to corruption, waiting eagerly for its redemption just as we are. All of our stewardship is now cursed and labor is difficult. The ground now fights to release what it should have done willingly; our stewardship labor should have been joyful, yet now we perform it in toil. The economic concept of scarcity (more very soon) comes alive in a cursed world—nature now only grudgingly yields its fruits with much labor, and even its fruits are often marred. Further, worse than a cursed world, we now have corrupt hearts. Prior to the Fall, we were in the garden “naked and unashamed. ” But as soon as the man and woman ate of the forbidden fruit, their eyes were opened and they knew they were naked. This is much more than, “hey, all of a sudden I look in the mirror and there are no clothes on.” Rather shame comes into the picture with the corresponding feeling of vulnerability that never leaves fallen humans. Adam and Eve tried to make coverings for themselves, but the problem of shame could only be covered—it was not removed. Every one of us has felt shame at not being what we wish we were. We introspectively understand the effects of the fall. Shame operates as an intense self-focus; any thought of others is in comparison: either to feel inferior, with resulting jealousy, or to feel prideful, which allows us to smugly denigrate others in our own feelings of superiority. Either way, our cursed fleshly hearts are constantly thinking about #1, with other people a means to our ends rather than being an end unto themselves. As we learn in Romans 5, our forefather Adam gave us an inheritance of a sin nature. This means we’re all capable of monstrous evils against one another. It’s easy to think of men like Cain, Herod, Hitler or Stalin as being monsters. But the reality of the Fall means that without the grace of God, we would be the same. Genesis 6:5 provides the terrible indictment of humanity: Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. This stark reality has profound implications for economics, as our choices in exchange are now excessively self-focused, and our prideful attitude often leads one to want to dominate rather than serve others.