Value is not intrinsic, it is not in things. It is within us; it is the way in which man reacts to the conditions of his environment.
-Mises, Human Action, Chapter 3

This statement was in regard to goods and services: the subjective theory of value breathed new life into classical economics – that goods are priced based on how much they are valued by the consumer relative to other goods, and not by any intrinsic worth – hence why diamonds are more expensive than water, despite water being much more necessary. Neither water nor diamonds have any intrinsic value apart from what people can use them for: that is, it doesn’t matter how much it costs to produce a diamond: if no one will buy it, it does not have that value.

One may say that economics is the study of value given the relevance of human valuations. Thus it is self-limiting in its scope, dealing only with value as humans perceive it in the aggregate. But the same principles apply anywhere. Why is the human being valuable? Does a human life have intrinsic worth?

One can easily put an economic price on a life (just look at medical care and the black market of organ transplants), but people seem to have a problem with this idea – preferring that life’s value be nonmonetary. This requires that the valuation of human life be given not by fellow humans (in which case it would simply be another economic good), but by a higher power. Why then is human life valuable? Not of its own merit: this isn’t an argument from total depravity, for even if we were perfect, it must matter to someone for life to be valuable.

Theology then encompasses the study of value given the relevance of God’s valuation, which is necessarily higher than the sum of human valuations, and thus relevant to the question of nonmonetary human value. Human goods are valued based on their purpose or use: the more useful something is in bringing about one’s ends, the more valuable it is to that person. What then are God’s ends, and how do we factor into that?

The end of history is the glory of God. Humans factor into that as the primary recipients of joy through the apprehension of this glory. In this regard, though all of creation is intended for that same purpose (Calvin said “there is not one blade of grass, there is no color in this world that is not intended to make us rejoice [in the glory of God]“), we may say that human life is more valuable than animal life or other aspects of creation in that God is glorified in the apprehension of His glory.

But the apprehending aspect of human value does not cease at death. It is wrong to say that God is less glorified in death than in life – indeed, the opposite is more nearly true: resurrection and redemption from death stand out as the most glorious acts of God. Human life is therefore of no value as the soul’s purposes of glorification, whether in election for the mercy of God or in reprobation for the wrath of God, are in no capacity diminished by death.

This is not to justify murder, abortion, or anything of the sort. We do not have that moral authority. But in terms of final valuations, it is a mistake to believe the countless self-esteem messages (especially those purportedly Christian ones) that humans are intrinsically valuable, or that God loves us because of who we are. The love of God for us is not founded in anything about ourselves (heaven help us if it were), but in the ends of God through history for the purpose of His glory.

What is human action? According to Mises, it is the use of means to attain ends (Mises, Human Action). One acts towards these ends in order to gain utility, or to somehow improve one’s lot, however that looks for the particular person. This unfortunately runs into problems with the idea of the almighty, as Mises also points out (Human Action, Chapter 2). If God is already the ultimate good and furthermore does not change through history, what does it mean for God to act?

Creation therefore cannot be an act of God, as we think of acting. God did not use means to attain ends in the creation of the world, nor was redemption, or any intervention of God on the part of creation, an “act” in this sense. All ends are God’s already, and as a being of static perfection – Himself the goal and end of creation – we cannot say that God “acts” in creation. This would require God to have need or desire of something, which in turn requires the He lacks something – a quality that is the antithesis of the Almighty.

But God is definitely manifest in creation – not only in the fact that creation exists, but in redemption, and the countless miracles recorded in the Bible. This is why it is important that creation is the result and not the cause of the glory of God. Creation exists because of the glory of God, and not for the glory of God. God cannot be less glorious at the beginning of creation than the end. Leibniz, the co-inventor of calculus, said regarding history, “we live in the best of all possible worlds”. Though it’s become cliche stripped of its context, this is actually a very deep statement: Creation as it exists through history is necessarily the only perfect demonstration of the glory of God, and the manifestations of God therein are not the tinkerings or interventions of God in a creation separate from and acting independently of Himself, but a direct display of glory hidden within the wider indirect display.

This allows us also to conceive of the human will not as nonexistent nor as completely arbitrary, but as a subset of the will of God with regard to creation. We have wills of our own, but it is not possible to act outside of or against the will of God as manifest in the outcome of history. God will be glorified in creation, and we cannot exist except for that purpose, whether we want to or not.

This is the Wordle of the blog so far. I would have expected to see more economics relative to theology, but maybe economics just has a more varigated vocabulary. Or maybe I write about God a lot more than I realize.

The new Ambassador Camp website has just gone live. From the Portfolio page:

Ambassador Camp is an Christ-centered summer camp in Lake Waccamaw, North Carolina. This site was taken on after the old domain was lost to a hosting company that went under, and moves them from a very basic Frontpage website to something both more visually appealing, informative to the visitor, and powerful for the administrators. The content box, extending into the header, is the actual sign outside the camp’s campus, lending itself visually to associations with the camp’s physical location.

I’ve been close to the camp for a while now, so I was keen on the opportunity to do their website as it moved to its new domain. The old site was more or less a separate and unconnected entity from the camp itself, so the new site pulls a lot of resources previously only in print (the brochure, registration form, contact, etc. – hopefully the camp history and the video in the near future as well) and moves them online, and makes for a much more flexible method of publishing news and updates as they should come along.