Even an agnotheist can care about this question. It is simple:
The first prediction of the model is that God will not offer a salvation contract where everyone is saved. If God sets θ=0 then all individuals receive s, but there would be no rearrangement of bundles and hence no utility benefits for God to balance the lump sum cost C. This cannot be an equilibrium. On the other hand setting θ=infinity would mean no individuals choose s, and no rearrangements, and this cannot be an equilibrium. Thus θ will be set between these extremes, with the value depending on the forms of the divine and human utility functions and endowments. Some, but not all individuals are predicted to choose salvation, and this is consistent with both the scriptures and observation.
Doesn’t this result fall apart if God can…um…perfectly "price discriminate" in his commands? From Paul Oslington, here is more, namely a rational choice theory of God. How about this bit:
Paradoxically, the more effective is the salvation mechanism the more it will turn the unsaved away from what God prefers. Individuals choosing salvation will force up the prices of inputs into commodities God prefers be consumed, so that unsaved individuals will substitute away from commodities God values to those God frowns upon.
Who said pecuniary externalities do not matter?
And here is John Derbyshire on God and religion, he is no longer a Christian.
And here is John Derbyshire on God and religion, he is no longer a Christian.
It doesn’t appear he ever really was, truth be told. His religion was almost all habit and social norm, little commitment to the tenets of his faith.
- Josh
Tyler,
This view misrepresents the Christian view. On the standard Christian view (barring hyperCalvinists) God offers salvation to all persons. But traditions diverge as soon as we try to understand the causal structure of the salvation event. The traditional Reformed view lines up here and breaks the model above because salvation can’t be construed as an agreement.
But what about once persons are saved? Can’t they lose their faith? Well, some believe that that’s impossible [mostly just the Reformed and some Evangelicals - 'eternal security' is what it's called]. But if it’s possible [on the Lutheran view, for instance], there’s a further twist.
On the Augustinian/Reformed view *Christians actually have two wills* [the degree of reification varies]: a carnal and spiritual one. The Christian both prefers to submit to God by means of her spiritual will and wills her own end as primary by means of her carnal will. Life becomes a struggle to have faith and to rely on God’s grace. So salvation on this model has to be understood in terms of persons under certain conditions as having an exceedingly high preference for to place themselves above God. Some Christians think that unregenerate persons place infinite value on this; in other words, although they are free, there are simply no conditions under which they would choose God if left to themselves.
Some believe that we all will against God and that God chooses some [seemingly arbitrarily] to elect and that His reasons are inscrutable. Others argue that God makes a choice available to everyone in one way or another – at some point [perhaps even after death] and they choose to accept or reject him on their own. On this view, you have to answer the following question: Why does a person reject God? The standard answer is that we have an innate metaphysical disposition to prefer our own ends to those of God’s.
You could construe this view as a contract view, yet no Christian thinks of the decision as being made of in terms of rewards and punishment. It is about entering into a relationship with God *for its own sake*.
Enter, finally, the Catholic view of quiescence. On Aquinas’ view, God will not change the will of a person against her own will. However, if she has no will about her will (no second order will, in other words), then she is said to be in a quiescent state. In this case, God acts to change the will without violating free will. So he actually acts to change people’s valuations. On this view, you also can’t quite construe savlation as a contract in the same way either.
Anyway, economists need to know more theology if they’re going to model this stuff, at least for Christians [which is all I know about theologically].
P(God) = 1/20 small enough to be agnotheist? (Wasn’t that your figure?) Sounds like weak agnotheism to me.
And,
As much as Brad Delong bad mouthes him, I think Derbyshire is a good read. Yes, he says nasty things sometimes, but all old men do that. Pieces like this one about his religion show that he’s at least honest.
“God gives His gifts where He finds the vessel empty enough to receive them.” — Lewis
I don’t know how to economically model humility, though.
Superb post, Rhadamanthus!
God’s economy has no waste and no scarcity. It operates differently from our material world. Economic principles may apply but they must be principles appropriate to the system they analyze.
A saved individual is motivated by his love of God. Life on this earth is a mere sliver of an eternal existence that has already commenced. Choices made by these rational saved individuals likely appear irrational from the temporal perspective of those not yet saved.
In my opinion this is a large part of the disconnect between the somewhat less theistic left and the somewhat more theistic right. Each cannot even comprehend the other’s “irrational” choices because, while most of each are people of good will, they simply live within two vastly different realities.
It is like the difference between purchasing a house and getting your dry cleaning done. When you purchase the house you likely will maximize your utilty by carefully negotiating the price and features, using an especially “sharp pencil” because it is unlikely you will ever purchase a house from that seller again.
When you get your dry cleaning done, both the dry cleaner and you have good reason to not be fiercely maximizing your utilities. Relationship is important, you’re going to need dry cleaning for a very long time and there are probably limited options of truly dependable convenient dry cleaners for you. For the dry cleaner a long term customer is worth thousands of dollars, so she will even pay questionable claims of loss or damage in order to retain you.
So it is for the committed Christian. Every one we interact with must be regarded as one of God’s chosen- someone who is also in the first stage of an eternal life and someone we will be interacting with again and again over eternity. In God’s economy it benefits us to treat all people as we would like to be treated, He even made up a rule about this.
God’s ways are not our ways, they are better ways. And they are available to each and everyone of us, including you, starting right now.
Jesus Christ Superstar
Hosanna by
Weber
This is why I like Hinduism. Everybody gets “saved” – just that it takes some people more reincarnations than others.
quote:
["The first prediction of the model is that God will not offer a salvation contract where everyone is saved.."]
________________
Modeling God as an ‘economic-actor’ is nonsense, of course.
But conceiving God as an ‘actor’ at all — is nonsense. Perfect-Beings do not act.
________________
[" Theists and Deists of the Age of Reason conceived an absolute and perfect being, unchangeable, omnipotent, and omniscient, and yet planning and acting, aiming at ends and employing means for the attainment of these ends. But action can only be imputed to a discontented being, and repeated action only to a being who lacks the power to remove his uneasiness once and for all at one stroke.
An acting being is discontented and therefore not almighty.
If he were contented, he would not act, and if he were almighty, he would have long since radically removed his discontent.
The paradoxes are insoluble. The very idea of absolute perfection is in every way self-contradictory. "]
{– Ludwig Von Mises}
All I can say about this, is that I am a Christian. I have faith and believe in what the bible says. People always ask, “How do you know that the bible is true?”, you have to have faith. In John 3:16, the bible says “For God so Love the world, that he gave his only son, that whoever believes in him will not perrish but have everlasting life.” so, If you believe in Christ and accept him then you will be saved. God is giving everyone the opportunity to be saved…its up to us individuals to accept him.
What a great discussion. First I will confess that I believe in the salvation that I cannot always see. The commodity of salvation is impossible to quantify but I do know that it has changed my life. Yes, I now choose different commodities to consume but not because I made a contract to change. God accepts us right where we are and many people who are saved don’t change their consumption. However, just because God accepts us where we are doesn’t mean that He wants us to stay there. He very often prompts us in directions that are better for us. We still have that choice. The moral hazard issue comes into play in that, unless you are in a very tight community of believers who watch out for you, you have no living, breathing person with skin on watching you and so you have to decide if the choices you make are economical in the Kingdom of Heaven. God has an infinite supply of grace and we choose how much we use. In our relationship with God we make choices on whether we want to please him or not in a particular situation. Those choices are very individual and the rewards are not always pleasant but they are always good if we choose to follow what God (not man) has indicated as being His choice in the situation. It is a very closed economy but has very far reaching effects.
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