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Comments on: Discussion Tuesday http://www.tvhe.co.nz/2014/04/08/discussion-tuesday-13/ The Visible Hand in Economics Tue, 15 Apr 2014 21:31:00 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.4 By: Matt Nolan http://www.tvhe.co.nz/2014/04/08/discussion-tuesday-13/#comment-42970 Tue, 15 Apr 2014 21:31:00 +0000 http://www.tvhe.co.nz/?p=10677#comment-42970 On this note, an interesting piece by some sociologists:

http://sociological-eye.blogspot.co.nz/2014/04/jesus-in-interaction-micro-sociology-of.html

]]> By: Matt Nolan http://www.tvhe.co.nz/2014/04/08/discussion-tuesday-13/#comment-42969 Tue, 15 Apr 2014 20:57:00 +0000 http://www.tvhe.co.nz/?p=10677#comment-42969 In reply to OLO.

That is brilliant!

]]> By: OLO http://www.tvhe.co.nz/2014/04/08/discussion-tuesday-13/#comment-42968 Tue, 15 Apr 2014 06:04:00 +0000 http://www.tvhe.co.nz/?p=10677#comment-42968 So chasing the moneylenders out of the temple was an early example of financial regulation…

]]> By: Matt Nolan http://www.tvhe.co.nz/2014/04/08/discussion-tuesday-13/#comment-42962 Thu, 10 Apr 2014 19:55:00 +0000 http://www.tvhe.co.nz/?p=10677#comment-42962 Excellent comments guys and gals, excellent!

]]> By: michael reddell http://www.tvhe.co.nz/2014/04/08/discussion-tuesday-13/#comment-42957 Wed, 09 Apr 2014 05:21:00 +0000 http://www.tvhe.co.nz/?p=10677#comment-42957 I guess the way I think about it is “no one is righteous, no not one”. No could be good enough to earn salvation. But, yes, people could reject the gift, and any person accepting the gift didn’t create a scarcity problem – there was no less room in God’s kingdom for others.
The best way to think of the OT law is as a way of illustrating man’s sinfulness, and articulating a vision of holiness or apartness. A right and fitting response to love – God’s or a parent’s – is to seek to live in a way pleasing/honouring to the giver. Doing so fully is impossible this side of heaven, but as St Paul put it “grace abounds even to the chief of sinners”.
Choices matter, but there is no economic scarcity about God’s love, then or now.

]]> By: Elinor_Dashwood http://www.tvhe.co.nz/2014/04/08/discussion-tuesday-13/#comment-42956 Wed, 09 Apr 2014 04:59:00 +0000 http://www.tvhe.co.nz/?p=10677#comment-42956 Hmm, I am no theologian as will be apparent, but surely even those who were within God’s grace, ie Old Testament-times Jewish people, had to continue to earn it, or at least ensure they didn’t lose it, by obeying the Commandments and all the other laws about not eating pork and shellfish etc? There are certainly examples of God withdrawing His grace from (presumably Jewish) people whose behaviour He didn’t like, eg Lot’s wife, everybody except Noah and his family etc

]]> By: Michael Reddell http://www.tvhe.co.nz/2014/04/08/discussion-tuesday-13/#comment-42955 Wed, 09 Apr 2014 01:49:00 +0000 http://www.tvhe.co.nz/?p=10677#comment-42955 No one in the Old Testament earned salvation – that is, worked for it and paid the price. Salvation – and membership of God’s kingdom – was by grace alone. That offer was, for a time, available only to the Jews, but it still wasn’t a matter of scarcity (in a economic sense – nothing anyone (no price, no labour, no did could change God’s allocation of grace).
One parallel is Chrismas. The Christmas presents I give are unevenly distributed too – my children get them from me, and other children generally don’t. It isn’t that my children earn them; it is just an expression of my love for them. So although I don’t give presents to everyone, there isn’t a scarcity issue in economic terms: price or effort won’t change who gets Christmas presents from me.

]]> By: Elinor_Dashwood http://www.tvhe.co.nz/2014/04/08/discussion-tuesday-13/#comment-42954 Wed, 09 Apr 2014 01:20:00 +0000 http://www.tvhe.co.nz/?p=10677#comment-42954 Further to Michael’s remark, I’m seeing that Jesus’ message, in economists’ terms, is that God’s love and mercy is not a scarce resource, and so economic questions about how it is to be distributed/earned do not apply. Not sure how He could then be claiming to be following on from the Old Testament, which abounds with evidence that God’s patience and forgiveness is a very scarce resource indeed, and one that’s very inequitably distributed! But that’s a theological, not an economic question …

]]> By: Michael Reddell http://www.tvhe.co.nz/2014/04/08/discussion-tuesday-13/#comment-42953 Tue, 08 Apr 2014 23:04:00 +0000 http://www.tvhe.co.nz/?p=10677#comment-42953 Have to agree with Elinor. Economics is precisely not the point. The message of the gospel – and the Old Testament for that matter – is of grace, unmerited favour. Allocation isn’t the theme – that is a this-world matter – but abundance is.

]]> By: Elinor_Dashwood http://www.tvhe.co.nz/2014/04/08/discussion-tuesday-13/#comment-42951 Tue, 08 Apr 2014 03:26:00 +0000 http://www.tvhe.co.nz/?p=10677#comment-42951 He was a terrible economist – eg the story about the vineyard workers who worked a whole day ad complained that people who had only done half a day were getting paid the same. He said the whole-day workers had been paid according to terms they agreed and should not concern themselves with what others were getting. He might care to go back to the same vineyard later and see how many people turn up prepared to do a full day’s work once that story gets around.

And what is it with the parable of the talents? The one who gets given the most, invests them wisely and is rewarded. The one who gets given the least, does nothing with it and is punished. Very happy for the moral to be drawn that one should use one’s resources wisely, but that is not what the Bible actually says the moral of the story is. What it actually says is that “For the one who has will be given more, and he will have more than enough. But the one who does not have, even what he has will be taken from him”. Don’t think much to that for a creed

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