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When debating about social justice and economics, most philosophical opponents don’t quite agree on the way things work in life, let alone the solutions for making life a better place. When holding to one set of beliefs, it is often assumed that opposing set of beliefs must be incompatible with currently held ones. If one believes in a free society, then social justice must not matter. Or if one fights for social justice, the free market must be unjust.
The more I’ve pondered why this may be, the more I realize that there is a central theme to the debate: the nature of mankind. Opponents of a free market criticize its defenders by saying they don’t take into account man’s depravity. Defenders of a free society (who are also Christians) believe that their vision not only accounts for sinfulness, but furthermore channels it into productive uses. Whatever we do with depravity and sinfulness, not least of which accounts for evil and injustice, we are fallen humans seeking to understand life, and working very hard to preserve it and make it thrive. It is a crucial matter that we understand who we are, what we were made for, and how to best thrive in life so as to make it better for ourselves and for those around us. As I wrote about earlier, we were made to be part of a story, an Epic: The Story God Is Tellingepic story, a “Sacred Romance” that gives us identity and moves us forward each day.
It all starts with believing that human beings are made in the image of God— the “imago dei.” In ancient times, an image, or statue, was a representation of a far-away emperor or caesar, created to represent the king and remind subjects of that kingdom that there was a ruler, and this is what he looked like. So human beings were made to represent God, and the first command we were given was to “tend and keep” the garden. Inherent in this command is the ability to carry out the task, which requires two things: stewardship and creativity. Stewardship because even in Eden we were unable to do everything we needed because of time constraints and geographical constraints (Adam and Eve were not omniscient). Creativity because it wasn’t just a job, it was a calling to work with and through the creation to keep it flourishing as it was intended to be.
A post-Edenic world does not change the game, but merely requires more vigilance for the task ahead of us. We live in a world of scarce resources, where one item can be used for multiple purposes, and cannot (usually) be used for all of them at once. So it is incumbent upon us to steward wisely that which has been given to us. As individuals, we have been given something, whether little or big, and we are to steward that. As social creatures, we are required to cooperate in such a way as to make optimum use of those resources with as little waste as possible. But even beyond mere stewardship, we were designed to create, bring order to disorder, and enliven that which is dying.
Our task of stewardship is our economic vocation. Our passion for creativity is the pathway to social justice. However we feel about the task of man, our hope for the future, and the way we find ourselves structuring society, we cannot escape our economic calling to stewardship or ignore our creativity in our passion for social justice. And both must be present for true justice to prevail. Poor stewardship isn’t negated by ostensible justice, nor can proper stewardship exist where injustice is found.
