Redeeming Capitalism by Kenneth J. Barnes

Redeeming Capitalism by Kenneth J. Barnes

Author:Kenneth J. Barnes
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.


10

Common Grace,

Wisdom, and Virtue

Out in the open wisdom calls aloud, she raises her voice in the public square; on top of the wall she cries out, at the city gate she makes her speech.

PROVERBS 1:20–21

As I stated at the very outset of this book, capitalism is a subject, not an object. The capitalism we have is the capitalism we have created, and the moral code by which it operates is merely a reflection of society’s values. For those who wish to see postmodern capitalism redeemed it is important to keep in mind the highly complex, highly diverse, pluralistic society in which we live. While there may have been a certain degree of religious hegemony in the past, no such unanimity of belief exists today. The challenge becomes even more acute when we consider the landscape of global capitalism, where the complexities of cult and culture make it even more difficult to find common moral ground from which to operate.

Common Grace

While no consensus exists on the particulars of right conduct, areas of common ground across all religious traditions, and even among those with no religious faith, make it possible to construct a business ethic that is universally applicable. All human beings, whether they acknowledge it or not, possess both the image of God (imago dei) and a deep-seated sense of the divine (sensus divinitatis) that are the very building blocks of what theologians call common grace.

While John Calvin never used the term common grace himself, the concept is a natural extension of his theological system. Even as Calvin clearly professed what he termed the total depravity of humankind, he acknowledged the ability of humans to discern the difference between right and wrong without the benefit of law or revelation. In order to square the circle, Calvin argued that while humankind is indeed depraved from a soteriological perspective, we are not totally depraved from a strictly anthropological perspective. That is to say, because all human beings are created in the image of God, we all still possess certain attributes of the divine imprimatur. This is the first pillar of common grace.

Additionally, by allowing the human experiment to continue after the fall, God provided for certain undeserved benefits to be bestowed upon humankind in order for God’s ultimate purpose of redemption to be fulfilled. These include a limited degree of providential care across the entire created order, as well as the limited restraint of sin, thereby allowing life to continue in an imperfect, yet functional, even civilized, manner.

The next pillar of common grace is another legacy of our creation pedigree: a universal sense of the divine, or “some sense of the Deity,” as Calvin put it.1 Religious belief exists everywhere in the world, and while Calvin wrote some five hundred years ago, his words anticipate the objections of Enlightenment, modern, and even postmodern skeptics when he says:

It is most absurd, therefore, to maintain, as some do, that religion was devised by the cunning and craft of a few individuals, as a means of keeping the body of the people in due subjugation.



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