Home
/
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
/
Natural Resources are Human Resources
Natural Resources are Human Resources
Mar 16, 2025 11:29 PM

If the PowerBlog has a favorite atheist libertarian economist, it’s probably George Mason professor Don Boudreaux. Although he isn’t a believer, he sometimes stumbles upon what I would consider to be Christian insights. Consider, for instance, his take on the term “natural resources”:

In nearly all contexts, words and phrases inevitably convey not only information (such as, as Deirdre would say, “telephone numbers”), but also ideas – notions – interpretations – perspectives – biases – prejudices – spins -approval or disapproval – informal theories – attitudes and judgments – unconscious conclusions. And much of all this that is conveyed by our words and phrases goes unnoticed. This fact is neither good nor bad; it’s simply part of the human condition.

Take the term “natural resources” … This phrase suggests that some things of value to human beings occur naturally – without any human effort or creativity. But that suggestion is wrong. Nothing is naturally a resource; nature alone invests nothing with resourcefulness; ultimately, resources – all resources – are created by human beings. Nature creates raw materials, but never creates resources. Raw materials and human artifacts are made into resources only if, and only when, and only insofar as, human creativity figures out a way (or ways) to employ those materials and artifacts in ways that satisfy genuine human desires.

The point, here, is that the term “natural resources” can be misleading about the role of nature in creating human bounty. Nature exists, to be sure; but human bounty is created by human creativity; nature in matters economic is not the prime mover. Nature’s role in determining who is and who isn’t materially wealthy is much smaller than we are sometimes led to believe when focusing on “natural resources.”

Here’s why I think this is a biblical insight.

Christians not only believe that God created the entire natural world, but that he gave mankind a role as overseer and caretaker of the Earth. As it says in Gen. 1:28:

And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” (ESV)

In the Reformed tradition, mand is often referred to as the “cultural mandate.” As Nancy Pearcey explains in her book Total Truth:

In Genesis, God gives what we might call the first job description: “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it.” The first phrase, “be fruitful and multiply” means to develop the social world: build families, churches, schools, cities, governments, laws. The second phrase, “subdue the earth,” means to harness the natural world: plant crops, build bridges, pose music. This passage is sometimes called the Cultural Mandate because it tells us that our original purpose was to create cultures, build civilizations—nothing less.

It is this harnessing of the natural world that transforms natural materials into natural resources, that is, into an asset that can be used to produce goods and services that meets human needs and wants. That is not say, of course, that natural materials are only valuable because if they are used or valued by humans. The natural world has an intrinsic value that was imbued by its creator (Gen. 1:31). But such materials only have value as a resource because of human creativity.

As Boudreaux notes, misunderstanding this concept can lead to a misunderstanding of the role of nature in creating human bounty. Believing this mistaken idea can even impede human progress. Many nations, particularly in Africa and the Middle East, confuse their country’s ‘wealth’ with natural materials like oil or gas that is buried in their lands. What they fail to recognize is that the wealth created is due to the creativity of those who turned the material into a valuable resource for powering jet planes or heating skycrapers. Without the mixing of such material with human ingenuity, their “natural resources” are of almost no value at all to mankind.

Understanding this fact helps us to understand why the first part of the cultural mandate – be fruitful and multiply – is essential to flourishing. Humans, with their God-given abilities of creation and innovation, are the most important resource any country can develop. Human resources are not only the most valuable natural resource, they are the only real natural resources on the Earth.

Comments
Welcome to mreligion comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
On Call with Dr. Pamela Casson
Dr. Pamela Casson, a pediatrician in Colorado Springs, knows what it means literally to be “On Call.” This week she shares with us in this video interview with Jon Hirst how she sees God working through her in her work with families, children and the world around her. Thank you Pamela for giving us an inside look at how you see your work as blessing the world. ...
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the Two Kingdoms, and Protestant Social Thought Today
Jordan Ballor’s paper, “Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the Two Kingdoms, and Protestant Social Thought Today,” just made the Social Science Research Network’s current Top Ten download list for Philosophy of Religion eJournal. From the abstract: Last century’s Protestant consensus on the rejection of natural law has been quested in recent decades, but Protestant social thought still has much work to do in order to articulate a coherent and cogent witness to contemporary realities. The doctrine of the two kingdoms has been put...
Rev. Sirico on Life, Work, and Human Flourishing
J.Q. Tomanek of Ignitum Today interviewed Rev. Sirico about life, work, human flourishing, and his new book, Defending the Free Market: JQ Tomanek: Back in the day, holiness was misinterpreted as a cleric or religious life thing. How can a lay Catholic practice their faith? What are some ways to sanctify our work as lay Catholics? Is “ora et labora” just a monk thing? Reverend Sirico: Yes, religious people are often tempted to e so “heavenly minded they are no...
Stop Apologizing for Our Liberties
You cannot apologize to a fanatic, says Lee Harris. It only serves to convince him that he was right all along: The last few weeks have witnessed a peculiar and disturbing spectacle: An American administration that has spent a great deal of time and energy apologizing for our liberties—in particular, for what many would regard as the foundation of all our other liberties, namely, the freedom to express our minds as we see fit. This signature freedom, of which Americans...
Is it really ‘aid’ if it goes to relatively wealthy nations?
Alan Duncan, an aid minister in the UK, says his government is “forced” to hand over large amounts of money to the EU’s foreign aid budget, but has no say in how the money is spent. The problem is that much of the $2 billion+ “aid” money (one-sixth of the British budget) goes to projects such as making a Moroccan water park more eco-friendly, an art project in St. Petersburg, and building a hotel and plex in Barbados. Britain’s International...
Want to Help the Poor? Promote a Free Market in Health Care
Want to help the poor? Promote a free market in health care. That’s the argument made by John C. Goodman, author of the new book Priceless: Curing the Healthcare Crisis. Timothy Dalrymple recently talked with Goodman about the best approach for restoring free-market pricing mechanisms into the market for medical care and health insurance: Aren’t there some people, however, who have little of money and lots of time, and would prefer to wait in order to receive cheaper care? There...
Counting the Profit of a Third Party Choice
Joe Carter recently highlighted the discussion at Ethika Politika, the journal of the Center for Morality in Public Life, about the value of (not) voting, particularly the suggestion by Andrew Haines that in some cases there is a moral duty not to vote. This morning I respond with an analysis of the consequences of not voting, ultimately arguing that one must not neglect to count the cost of abstaining to vote for any particular office. One issue, however, that I...
Dodd-Frank: The Other Serious Threat
At least es at us head on. The greater legislative threat may be the one that most Americans have never heard of. Economist Scott Powell and Acton friend Jay Richards explain in a new piece in Barron’s: While Obamacare received more attention, the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, also known as Dodd-Frank after its Senate and House sponsors, … unleashed a new regulatory body, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, to operate with unprecedented power. Dodd-Frank became law in...
Did 2,362 Millionaires Get Unemployment Checks in 2009? (Answer: Yes they did.)
The Congressional Research Service (CRS), a group that works exclusively for the U.S. Congress, issued a report with one of the greatest titles I’ve ever seen on a government document: Receipt of Unemployment Insurance by e Unemployed Workers (“Millionaires”) Now the first nine words are nothing special, typical policy-wonk speak. But whoever added in the word “millionaires” with scare quotes and parentheses is a genius. Most people would have been nodding off around the word “Insurance” but seeing millionaires (that’s...
Acton Commentary: Obama Administration Leaves Human Trafficking Victims Out in the Cold
“Most of us enjoy an economy where we can purchase with ease the things we need and enjoy. However, there is no moral justification for mercialization of some things; human beings are not products to be bought and sold,”writes Elise Hiltonin the latest Acton Commentary (published October 3).The full text of his essay follows. Subscribe to the free, weekly Acton News & Commentary and other publicationshere. Obama Administration Leaves Human Trafficking Victims Out in the Cold By Elise Hilton Imagine...
Related Classification
Copyright 2023-2025 - www.mreligion.com All Rights Reserved