A Christian Examination of Free Will and Free Markets

Avarice is the root of all evil. 1Ti 6:10.

Avarice, philargyria in Greek, is usually translated ‘the love of money’. I’ve no doubt that a greedy desire for money is at the heart of many evils done in the world. This leads me to a moral question regarding the Christian’s role in a society of personal liberty and free markets.

St John Cassian wrote that ‘avarice is a passion deriving, not from our nature, but solely from an evil and perverted use of our free will.’

We choose this. Assuming that we are individually responsible for the use of our resources, we are obligated to use them in a manner befitting our calling. We are called to ‘choose that which is right’ and to ‘know among ourselves what is good.’ Job 34:4.

Jeffrey A Tucker wrote an article about the sentence, ‘We should all volunteer our time in charitable causes and give back to the community in a labor of love.’ He extracts from this sentence three words/phrases and brings them into the light of moral enquiry: ‘volunteer’, ‘give back to the community’, and ‘labor of love’, and this article is the spring board for my post here. 

He presents a good case for reevaluating the morality of ‘this sentence out of the civic pieties of our time.’ All too often many equate the Christian concept of charity with the materialistic philosophy of socialism.

My interrogation of socialism would involve a serious question of free will. Is there room for volition in its system? My current understanding of it says, ‘No.’ It requires the individual to involuntarily give up his/her resources for ‘the common good’.

Socialism is a collectivist philosophy where the individual’s free will is insignificant compared to society. In fact, the individual endowed with the ability to choose is generally considered incompetent. Is this something that the Christian should embrace?

In the Protestant west there is a similar struggle between what is generally called Calvinist and Arminian views of soteriology (the theology of how we are saved). The chief aspect of this dispute is not the question of God’s role, but of man’s role in salvation.

One of the chief attributes of the Orthodox Christianity of the east, however, embraces man’s free will as an expression of God’s love:  

Salvation cannot be earned, being a free gift from God. Its acquisition, however, requires man’s cooperation with God, because God will not violate the free will of man. Thus, a life of repentance and participation in the sacraments is the means by which man cooperates with God. This cooperation is termed synergeia (synergy). [OrthodoxWiki]

What does this have to do with economics? It’s my view that, like in socialism, Calvinism through its doctrine of total depravity downplays the role of individual choice in the matter as incompetent.

Contrarywise, free market captitalism embraces the idea that man is competent enough to understand and choose what is good and right for society. The basic philosophy of capitalism is a pro-life philosophy recognising the value of free individuals and their potential for positive contributions to ‘the common good’.

For the Christian there is always the possibility of being driven to ‘covetousness’ which St Paul equates with ‘idolatry’. Col 3:5. We are exhorted to not fix our love on the images of men on greenbacks or coins or even bank statements with images of digits that please our appetites, but on God.

I’ve come to realise that value cannot be put on dollar amounts alone, but that life itself is a precious treasure. We are given a wonderful opportunity to use our lives freely to do good, willfully, out of love.