I spend a large proportion of my time at work evaluating things. As a specialist in economic impact assessment, these evaluations usually involve estimating the value of projects and initiatives in monetary terms. For example, how much has this business support programme benefited the regional economy? Or, have these youth work projects delivered value for money in terms of generating economic benefits for the young people or society in general that are higher than the costs involved?
As recorded in Genesis 1, God built an evaluation programme into his work of creation. He conducted a final evaluation at close of play on Day 6 (1:31) and interim evaluations on Day 1 (1:4), at lunchtime and close of play on Day 3 (1:10,12), close of play on Days 4 and 5 (1:18,21) and lunchtime on Day 6 (1:25). So what was the conclusion of his evaluation studies? At all the interim stages, he assessed his work as being “good” while at the final stage this assessment appears to have increased to “very good”. But what do these terms really mean? Perhaps a social researcher approached him with a clipboard and asked, “Excuse me, sir, could you spare five minutes to answer this short questionnaire? How would you rate your creation (so far)? Very good, good, satisfactory, poor or very poor? Thank you for your time.”
OK, so I’m engaging in a bit of tongue and cheek here. But I think that there is a very serious and important question to be explored. What did God mean when he assessed his creation as “good” or “very good”? In economics, the word “good” is most often used as a noun. A good is anything that is beneficial to human beings and usually refers to tangible items such as food, fuel or manufactured goods. In religious language, we are more likely to use the word “good” as an adjective (e.g. “God is good”). To be good is to hold moral qualities such as holiness, justice and kindness. My very limited research on the Hebrew word used in Genesis 1 (“tub”) suggests that either or both (or more) meanings of the English word “good” could be applicable. Any Hebrew scholars out there may wish to shed further light on this.
Economic goods have value while moral goodness is a value.
It is evident that creation was good in the economic sense by the fact that Adam derived “utility” (i.e. benefit, happiness, the fulfilment of needs) from the created order. Adam’s utility came not only from having his physical needs met (2:16) but also from the relationships he enjoyed with God (implied in 3:8), his fellow human beings (2:18) and, arguably, his fellow creatures (2:19). I also believe that the beauty of the Garden of Eden, as experienced through all their senses, brought great pleasure to the first humans. The level of utility experienced by the human race clearly dropped significantly after the fall (3:16-19,22) and has been very variable and unevenly distributed since then. In terms of having our physical and material needs fulfilled, many of us are now much more materially wealthy than Adam and Eve were in Eden (i.e. one could say that there has been an increase in GDP per capita), except that we now get sick and die, at least eventually. However, one could argue that we are far worse off in terms of the less measurable but no less real benefits of healthy relationships and the appreciation of beauty.
But I don’t think that the value of creation is entirely human-centric. God declared his work to be good long (or at least a few days) before mankind came on to the scene. Although the earlier stages of creation served to prepare an environment where humans could survive and thrive, I don’t think that the utility of mankind was God’s only, or even main, purpose. If God only wanted to create things of benefit to mankind, why would he have created the stars (1:16)? Yes, the stars have their uses (e.g. navigation) and are awesome and beautiful to look at (it helps to go to somewhere like rural Africa to really appreciate the beauty of the heavens) but the vast majority of the stars are located in other galaxies and not visible from earth so have very little impact on our lives. And yet God made them and evaluated them to be good. This suggests that the created order has value for its own sake.
This has implications for how we steward creation. For example, consider the issue of biodiversity. According to Genesis, God intentionally created each species and was happy with all of them. They did not evolve by accident. Therefore, should we be taking steps to ensure species are preserved and do not die out? In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus made it clear that although the welfare of humans is of primary importance to God, he is also concerned with the welfare of plants and animals (Matt 6:26,28-30).
We can only conclude that God defined “good”. He decides what is valuable and what is not. Although our own preferences are important, they should be subservient to God’s preferences as we act as stewards of his creation.
Andy,
ReplyDeleteSome great thoughts - I was inspired to change the background to match your theme!
I'd be interested to hear what you think are the implications of a biblical understanding of value for your own work (or anyone else's work for that matter)
I love the Wall Street wallpaper, Stephen!
ReplyDeleteYou raise a very interesting question, which leads neatly to a tangent that I resisted when drafting the initial post.
My clients (who are mainly public sector organisations either seeking funding for a project or wanting to show how a past project has been successful) are generally very interested in measuring the value of impacts in monetary terms. This allows them to show quantitatively how their work has delivered value for money (vfm), expressed by metrics such as cost/benefit ratio or return on investment.
This leads us to focus heavily on the economic value of projects (e.g. the impact on wages and profits). This makes sense if we assume that an increase in personal income makes us better off - a reasonable assumption as the more disposable income we have, the more choices we have and hence the more opportunity we have to make changes to our lives that will make us happier.
However, there is plenty of research around to suggest that there is not a clear correlation between income and happiness, particularly at the higher end of the income scale. There are things that matter to us (and maybe this is where the social and environmental pillars come in) which money can't buy, or for whatever reason we choose not to buy. Fortunately, there are emerging analytical models (for example Social Return on Investment) that do attempt to incorporate these elements of non-economic value into vfm assessments. The New Economics Foundation website (www.neweconomics.org) is a great place to start for further discussion of these issues.
However, the question I'm grappling with is this: Even if it were possible to measure accurately everything of value to people and hence deliver policies that maximised vfm in this fullest sense, would this be acceptable to God? Due to the fall, human preferences have diverged from God's preferences. Therefore, using the earth's resources in such a way that we focus on making ourselves and each other happy may not necessarily represent the best stewardship of resources from God's point of view. However, it's a step in the right direction compared to focusing purely on maximising economic welfare.
Hi Andy, I thought I'd pop by here after your kind invitation. In terms of the question about measuring the value of everything, I would suggest that while costs and benefits can be quantified, 'value' is a much wider concept which cannot always be expressed numerically or financially. Knowing the cost of everything doesn't mean that we know its value. Such a position would inadequately capture the meaning of our lives, even before any theological considerations are taken into account.
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