9 min
#195 From God to Government The Christian Economist | Dave Arnott
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- Christianity
Adam and Eve ate the apple because they wanted to be God. That desire has not gone away, and recently, we are seeing even more evidence of it.
Our society is moving from “God to Government” and the implications don’t look great.
Worldview
Christian Worldview to secular worldview
The Christian Worldview says God created a perfect world, fallen humans have messed it up, and we find redemption through Jesus Christ. Support for abortion provides ample evidence that many people don’t believe humans are created by God; I will cite many examples of the denial of the fallen nature in the next few statements. If we’re not fallen, who needs a savior for redemption?
Fallen to not fallen
The defund the police movement was based in the assumption that humans are not fallen. If you just leave them alone, peace will break out. This is not a theoretical belief system. It’s been proven over and over again, that if you reduce punishments, crime increases, as it is in America today.
From serving God to being “god”
In the book The Rise & Triumph of the Modern Self Carl Trueman explains why people believe they are “A woman trapped in a man’s body,” or the opposite. The supposition is objectively false, but the concept of expressive individualism has led folks to believe they can do it. Maybe it’s the best evidence for the departure from the Christian Worldview, because people don’t believe they were created by God, so they can create themselves. Frightening.
Economics
Supply side to demand side
Keynesians believe that during an economic downturn, the economy should be stimulated by shifting the demand curve out. The measure of that effort is called the Philips curve, and it has been shown to work in the short run, but not in the long run. In the long run, you end up with employment returning to its natural rate, but with the added debt that was accumulated to shift the demand curve. When shown this, John Maynard Keynes agreed, and responded, “In the long run, we’re all dead.” What a selfish thing to say. In about twenty years, I might be dead, but my Dallas Baptist University sophomores will be in the middle of their careers, struggling to pay off the debt our country has accumulated. I’ve told them many times, that they will look back on the years from 2019-2023 and ask why the national debt moved from $20 to $30 trillion in just four years.
Free market capitalism to socialism
This is the most dangerous movement in economics. The title “Free Market Capitalism” reveals its intent in the title, because it calls for free exchange of goods and services. Socialism is based in power, where producers and consumers are coerced to exchange goods in a way the government wants them to.
From private investment to government crowding out
To help my sophomores at Dallas Baptist University do well on their weekly quiz, I ask if we should smoke cigarettes. The obvious answer is “no.” “So we should nix cigs!” is exclaim, which helps them remember the equation for Gross Domestic Product: Y = C + I + G + NX. In the last quarterly GDP report, Consumption and Government Spending were up. Investment was down. That means we have a good short-term economy, but a bad long-term economy, because there is not enough investment being made.
Adam and Eve ate the apple because they wanted to be God. That desire has not gone away, and recently, we are seeing even more evidence of it.
Our society is moving from “God to Government” and the implications don’t look great.
Worldview
Christian Worldview to secular worldview
The Christian Worldview says God created a perfect world, fallen humans have messed it up, and we find redemption through Jesus Christ. Support for abortion provides ample evidence that many people don’t believe humans are created by God; I will cite many examples of the denial of the fallen nature in the next few statements. If we’re not fallen, who needs a savior for redemption?
Fallen to not fallen
The defund the police movement was based in the assumption that humans are not fallen. If you just leave them alone, peace will break out. This is not a theoretical belief system. It’s been proven over and over again, that if you reduce punishments, crime increases, as it is in America today.
From serving God to being “god”
In the book The Rise & Triumph of the Modern Self Carl Trueman explains why people believe they are “A woman trapped in a man’s body,” or the opposite. The supposition is objectively false, but the concept of expressive individualism has led folks to believe they can do it. Maybe it’s the best evidence for the departure from the Christian Worldview, because people don’t believe they were created by God, so they can create themselves. Frightening.
Economics
Supply side to demand side
Keynesians believe that during an economic downturn, the economy should be stimulated by shifting the demand curve out. The measure of that effort is called the Philips curve, and it has been shown to work in the short run, but not in the long run. In the long run, you end up with employment returning to its natural rate, but with the added debt that was accumulated to shift the demand curve. When shown this, John Maynard Keynes agreed, and responded, “In the long run, we’re all dead.” What a selfish thing to say. In about twenty years, I might be dead, but my Dallas Baptist University sophomores will be in the middle of their careers, struggling to pay off the debt our country has accumulated. I’ve told them many times, that they will look back on the years from 2019-2023 and ask why the national debt moved from $20 to $30 trillion in just four years.
Free market capitalism to socialism
This is the most dangerous movement in economics. The title “Free Market Capitalism” reveals its intent in the title, because it calls for free exchange of goods and services. Socialism is based in power, where producers and consumers are coerced to exchange goods in a way the government wants them to.
From private investment to government crowding out
To help my sophomores at Dallas Baptist University do well on their weekly quiz, I ask if we should smoke cigarettes. The obvious answer is “no.” “So we should nix cigs!” is exclaim, which helps them remember the equation for Gross Domestic Product: Y = C + I + G + NX. In the last quarterly GDP report, Consumption and Government Spending were up. Investment was down. That means we have a good short-term economy, but a bad long-term economy, because there is not enough investment being made.
9 min