21 The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them.22 And the Lord God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.” 23 So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. 24 After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.
Genesis 3:21-24; NIV
Consider three sets of plans or projects (p) that we can pursue in this life.
T= Those that are technologically possible.
E= Those that are economically feasible.
M= Those that are morally enriching.
These need a bit of clarification. T describes the set of plans that you imagine can be built given the limitations of natural law. These plans violate no general natural principle such as Newton’s Laws. We slowly refine our knowledge of which projects reside in this set as we grow in scientific knowledge. E contains the set of plans that if undergone would come to full fruition. We refine our knowledge of the particulars of time and place for the relevant resources over time. While T is about general rules, E is about particular circumstances. Is this within my current budget constraint? M contains the subset of plans that if pursued and if they come into their maturity are looked on with approval by the Divine, Most High, and Impartial Spectator.
As Peter Boettke likes to say, Property, Prices, and Profit & Loss, the constellation of guiding stars that guide those under the system of free enterprise will sort out the economically feasible plans from the merely technologically possible ones. A socialist planner can have general technical knowledge but not particular economic knowledge sans prices. E is a subset of T.
But I am curious about M. First, what is the relationship between M and T? If T and M are subsets of one another they are equal. Everything we can do, we should do. This would be meaningless. Morals are tools to guide our hearts, heads, and hands. If all is permitted, morals aren’t at all. Our morals must be derived in such a way to guide and making them equivalent to the possible doesn’t point anywhere. This logic also applies to the question of whether or not T is a subset of M. God, being merciful and loving, assures us that there is no p in M that is not in T. M is a subset of T.
Now, what is the relationship between M and E? The same logic above applies to whether or not E and M are equivalent or whether or not E is a subset of M. Again, if E and M are disjoint, we are doomed and God withdraws his loving hand. Now, we have another option. E and M are both subsets of T, but could they not be subsets of one another and not disjoint?
I will show that M is a subset of E with a proof by contradiction. Assume that E and M are subsets of T and that E and M are not disjoint. Also, assume that elements now exist in these three sets: M and ~E, M and E, ~M and E. Hold it right there, cowgirl. The existence of p such that p is in M and not in E is a contradiction with Axiom GE3:24. What is that you ask? Oh, why the truth of Genesis 3:24. God appointing the angel to guard Eden is evidence that he disapproves of attempts to do the infeasible. The Angel of Scarcity mandates that man toil for his food. Attempts to get to Eden, where beauty is plenty, but work is unnecessary are attempts to get around the mandate. Thus elements still exist in both M and E, and some exist not in M but still in E. M is a subset of E.
Prudence is a virtue. Prudence is the act of sorting out what is and is not in E. There is no honor in doing things you can’t, even if in your God approves in your imagination. Striving for goals that are in M and not in E is not love at all but shallow romance.
Edit: From Pascal’s Pensee No.431: We cannot conceive Adam’s state of glory, or the nature of his sin, or the way it has been transmitted to us. These are things which took place in a state of nature quite different from our own and which pass our present understanding. Knowing all this does not help us to escape. All that it is important for us to know is that we are wretched, corrupt, separated from God but redeemed by Christ’ and that is what is wonderfully proved to us on earth.
