Intro to Biblical Axiology [Pt.1]

The Foundation & Nature of Value

In the Beginning — Value

Axiology is the branch of philosophy that investigates the nature of value, as well as valuation itself. As Samuel L. Hart explains, axiologists ask things like —

What is the common nature of values? What is the status of values? Are they mere responses of man to a value-neutral nature or are they results of an ongoing interaction of reality and man? Is the scientific method of inquiry applicable to value judgments? What is the distinctive nature of value propositions? Are values relative to the social environment which sanctions certain valuations or do we have a standard of values which transcends given individual and social idiosyncrasies? Can there be a gain in knowledge of values?¹

Among axiologists, the answers to these questions vary widely. Some philosophers think that an object’s value is determined by the subject, others by the object itself, and still others by the relation of the subject to the object.² What they all have in common, however, is the assumption that objects are either intrinsically valuable, instrumentally valuable, both, or neither.

Now while we can hardly deny that most objects are instrumentally valuable and others are not, we cannot affirm that this is the only kind of value that they possess. If x possesses instrumental value, it possesses that value as a consequence of its intrinsic properties of (a.)existing and (b.)serving a particular function relative to the subject. Instrumentality, in other words, is impossible apart from existence, which necessarily implies that x is intrinsically valuable as a potentially instrumentally valuable object.

While not all object possess instrumental value for us, then, this does not render them intrinsically valueless. Rather, we see that intrinsic value precedes instrumental value. This is a truth we also learn from the very onset of the Bible. Genesis 1 uses the word טוֹב (ṭôḇ, pronounced tobe) a total of seven times, identifying all that God has created as “good,” and does so in ways that are informative as to what kind of goodness they possess.

In this short introduction to axiology, we will be looking at what the Scriptures mean when they declare creation to be good, and how that ought to inform our thinking about objects and the value they do or do not possess.

Chaos & Order, Darkness & Light: Intrinsic and Functional Goodness

“In the beginning,” the Holy Spirit tells us, God created the heavens and the earth.³ In verse 2, we are told that the earth was “without form and void, and darkness covered the deep.”⁴ God’s act of creation addresses these negative descriptions, as he creates light,⁵ forms the earth,⁶ fills the earth with ample vegetation,⁷ fills the earth and sky and sea with animals,⁸ places luminary bodies in the heavens,⁹ and, finally, gives man the task of reflecting his image in further bringing order and fullness to the earth.¹⁰

Though the word “good” used here is used in a moral sense elsewhere, in this foundational passage creation is good for two reasons —

1. The first reason is ontological, as creation exists in accordance with God’s decree to bring it into existence.

2. The second reason is functional, as creation exists harmoniously to achieve the ends for which God created it.

These two kinds of positive value are reiterated by the apostle Paul in 1st Timothy 4:4-5, where we are reminded that

…everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, for it is made holy by the word of God and prayer.¹¹

Although he is explicitly referring to animals which God has given to man to eat (harmonious functionality),¹² he is also, via implication, referring to the whole of creation (ontology). This is further demonstrated by the fact that God delights in that which reflects his own character, and he is a God of order.¹³ As Augustine explains in his Handbook on Faith, Hope, and Love —

By the Trinity, thus supremely and equally and unchangeably good, all things were created; and these are not supremely and equally and unchangeably good, but yet they are good, even taken separately. Taken as a whole, however, they are very good, because their ensemble constitutes the universe in all its wonderful order and beauty.¹⁴

A closer look at Genesis 1-3 shows us that the harmonious functioning of creation is also part of what constitutes its goodness. Firstly, as already noted, it is not until the heavens and the earth have been fashioned and filled that God declares all of his work to be very good. Secondly, we see that what is left incomplete is either not declared to be good or outrightly declared to be “not good.” Thus, the second day of creation on which God divides the waters above from those below does not contain the statement “God saw that it was good.” It is not until the third day, when the waters below are gathered together that God resumes the use of the phrase. As John Gill helpfully explains —

…and God saw that it was good, is not used at the close of this day's work, as of the rest: the reason some Jewish writers give is, because the angels fell on this day; but it is a much better which Jarchi gives, and that is, because the work of the waters was not finished; it was begun on the second day, and perfected on the third; and therefore the phrase is twice used in the account of the third day's work…¹⁵

The omission of the statement indicates that what is incomplete is not good, although its parts may be intrinsically good. Inversely, in Genesis 2:18 we have an explicit declaration from God that man being alone is “not good.” That is to say, it is not good for man to be without a suitable helpmeet with which he can fulfill the creation mandate given to him in Gen 1:28.¹⁶

Lastly, in Genesis 3 we see that sin — in which man’s behavior is not in harmony with God’s commandments — results in the breakdown of functional harmony individually (i.e. in how creatures operate individually) and collectively. Regarding the individual breakdown of functional harmony, we see that the body and soul of man — which had been united in Gen 2:7 — are divorced.¹⁷ Man’s labor and its consequences, moreover, have been divorced from one another. He will engage in hard labor but not be correlatively fruitful.¹⁸ Similarly, the labor of the woman will be painful¹⁹ and will also be less fruitful.²⁰ Additionally, the harmony that existed between the woman and her husband prior to the Fall would be dissolved. The breakdown of the functional harmony of the individual and the social body is clearly is a deconstruction of the functional harmony of creation mentioned in Gen 1 & 2. It is definitionally not good.

Instrumental Goodness, Humanly Conceived

The creation, as that which God exists in accordance with God’s decree to bring it forth, has an intrinsic value. It is “very good.” Prelapsarian²¹ creation was also instrumentally very good in functioning harmoniously to achieve the individual and collective ends for which God created it. The Fall of man into sin brought about God’s curse on creation. Sin broke the individual and collective harmonious functionality of creation, rendering the creation inconsistently good. Postlapsarian²² creation now fluctuates between fecundity, unity, and order on the one hand, and barreness, division, and disorder on the other hand.

Nevertheless, there is a second order of instrumental goodness of which Scripture speaks. This is firstly implied by God’s creation having value for man. The creation, that is to say, is good not only ontologically and functionally, but is also proleptically functionally good for man. God declares a present truth about the creation that has yet to be realized, doing so by “the application of an adjective [e.g. goodness] to a noun [e.g. light] in anticipation of the result of the action of the verb.”²³ For example, the light created on the first day, John Gill explains, that the it is declared to be good because it is —

Very pleasant and delightful, useful and beneficial; [God] foresaw it would be good, of great service…²⁴

This notwithstanding, the first explicit example of the instrumental goodness of creation for man can be found in Gen 1:29-30. God identifies the intrinsically good vegetation as good “for food” for men and animals. In Gen 2:11-12 God identifies the gold of Havilah as good, i.e. of higher quality and usefulness to man. And in Gen 2:18-24 woman is shown to be not only ontologically and functionally good, but also instrumentally good as man’s helper in his fulfillment of the creation mandate. Man is also presented as having instrumental value for woman as provider, protector, and necessary partner in procreation.²⁵

Negative Value — Privation of the Good

Given that all God has created exists in accordance with his will, this implies that all creation is ontologically good. Prelapsarian creation has a harmonious functionality that renders it functionally good; however, postlapsarian creation functions in harmony with God’s decree to achieve the ends he has purposed and so is ultimately instrumentally good. This also holds true of creation with respect to man’s appropriation of it before and after the Fall. Creation is ontologically good, as well as instrumentally good.

Negative value, then, is a consequence of that which is ontologically good no longer functioning harmoniously toward the creational and/or moral ends for which God has created it. We have shown this above when touching upon the second day of creation and man’s individual and social state prior to Eve’s creation, but we may go a bit further in this short section. Perhaps more than any of the other church fathers, it was Augustine who drew his readers’ attention to the fact that creation participates in being and non-being. God alone is immutable; creatures are, by dint of being creatures, mutable. This means that creatures can become more or less good by means of moving toward, or moving away from, the will and desire of God for them as regards their mechanical and moral functionality. It this moving away from what God wills and desires for his creation that is negative. Put another way, badness/evil/worthlessness is a privation of the good — ontologically, stucturally, and instrumentally.

In Genesis 1-3, we see this pretty clearly. The creation is very good up until Adam sins. It is at the point of the Fall that creation becomes inconsistently good, becoming structurally and instrumentally less valuable to God and man as regards natural functionality. This does not mean that these things are useless to God or to man. God uses that which is fallen to achieve his ends. Likewise, the righteous find instrumental value in all things (even evil), and the lost also utilize the fallen creation to achieve their own natural and sinful ends. What is does mean, however, is that creation cannot be absolutely characterized as possessing only positive or negative functional and instrumental value. All of creation is good by dint of it existing in accordance with the will and desire of God for it to exist. All of creation — with the exeception of the elect angels²⁶ — is not good in that it lacks harmony and order, fails to meet the original ends for which it was created.

To speak of “possessing” negative value, then, is not entirely accurate. Negative value is that quality of a being or state of affairs that deviates from the prescriptive will, desire, and purpose of God regarding the structure and functionality of his creation. A second order of negative value respects the instrumental utility any existent object or state of affairs has for man. Those things which do not help him achieve a particular end have less value than those things which do help him in his endeavor. It follows, then, that an object or state of affairs that does not hlep him at all in his attempt to achieve some end are without positive value at all (instrumentally speaking).

God also identifies some things as “worthless,” by which is meant “lacking instrumental value as regards their natural functionality.” Regarding land and vegetation, for instance, God states that land that consumes rain and does not produce crops is “worthless.”²⁷ Regarding men, God states that those who fail to meet their natural and ecclesiastical duties to him are “worthless.”²⁸ Regarding idols, he states that they, too, are worthless.²⁹

[Continued in Part 2]

Intro to Biblical Axiology [Pt.2]

1. “Axiology — Theory of Values,” in Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Vol. 32, No. 1 (Sep., 1971), 30.

2. ibid., 31.

3. Gen 1:1.

4. Gen 1:2.

5. cf. Gen 1:3.

6. cf. Gen 1:9-13.

7. cf. Gen 1:11-12

8. cf. Gen 1:20-23.

9. cf. Gen 1:14-18.

10. cf. Gen 1:26-30.

11. Emphasis added.

12. cf. 1st Tim 4:1-3 & Gen 9:1-4.

13. cf. Ecc 3:1-11a & 1st Cor 14:33a, 40.

14. https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1302.htm. (emphasis added)

15. https://www.christianity.com/bible/commentary/gill/genesis/1. Luther is more hesitatnt in this regard, writing —

But here another question presents itself. To the works of all the other days there is added the divine sentence of approbation, "And God saw that it was good." How is it then that the same sentence is not added to the second day's work, when the greatest and most beautiful part of the whole creation was made? To this question it may be replied, that this same divine sentence is added at the end of the creation of all things on the sixth day and more fully expressed thus, "And God saw everything that he had made, and, behold, it was very good." And these words apply to the heaven also. Lyra is inclined to think with Rabbi Solomon, that as this divine expression, "And God saw that it was good," is uttered twice during the third day's work, one of the divine sentences refers to the second day's work; which was perfected on the third day, when the waters which are "under" the heaven were more distinctly divided from the waters which were "above" the heaven. But it is by far the safest way not to be too curious and inquiring on these subjects; because they exceed our human capacity.

(Source)

Calvin, however, is largely in agreement with Gill’s interpretation. He writes —

Yet Moses has not affixed to the work of this day the note that God saw that it was good: perhaps because there was no advantage from it till the terrestrial waters were gathered into their proper place, which was done on the next day, and therefore it is there twice repeated.

(Source)

16. 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.”

17. cf. Gen 3:19 & James 2:26.

18. cf. Gen 3:17-18.

19. cf. Gen 3:16a.

20. This is implied by the reality of infertility.

21. i.e. Prior to the Fall, or “characteristic of or belonging to the time or state before the fall of humankind” (Source).

22. i.e. After the Fall, or “of, relating to, or characteristic of the time or state after the fall of humankind described in the Bible” (Source).

23. Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary Online, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/proleptic#other-words.

24. https://www.biblestudytools.com/commentaries/gills-exposition-of-the-bible/genesis-1-4.html. (emphasis added)

25. cf. Gen 2:24 & 1st Cor 11:11-12.

26. cf. 1st Tim 5:21. The elect angels stand in contrast to the angels who sinned (cf. 2nd Pet 2:4).

27. cf. Heb 6:7-8.

28. For example, see Deut 13:12-15; Jud 9:4-6, 11:3, 19:22, 20:13; 1st Sam 1:16, 2:12, 10:27, 25:17 & 25, 30:22; Rom 3:12.

29. For example, see Ps 31:6, 96:5, & 97:7.