Why I choose to be a Christian--What is mine?

Series Title: Why I choose to be a Christian—some self-reflections of an economist

Article Title: What is mine?

Charles Leung

(I am not particularly good in English, and I can write in Chinese, but since I do not know how to type Chinese, writing in English is my only option at the moment.)

Please allow me to provide some background and explain the Series Title.

More than half a century ago, famous Mathematician Bertrand Russell gave a widely discussed talk on “Why I am not a Christian.” It seems to reflect that at that time, being a Christian was very natural and therefore a well-educated figure like him needed to “explain” why he was not.

Time flies. And things change.

Later, Theologian Hans Kung wrote a book, Why I am still a Christian, as if being a Christian is something to be explained. 

For someone like me who has worked for more than a decade in the “university circle,” being a Christian may indeed be something un-usual. I have read many surveys saying that most social scientists and scholars in humanity subjects (history, philosophy, literature…) are not Christians. And for many natural scientists who “believe in God,” they do not go to church. I was in one of the staff canteens with several faculty members at the UC Berkeley once. One of them said, “I am a Catholic, but I am not practicing.” To me, that was a new discovery, on top of the Fulbright scholarship (2004-05). I wonder if I had a son, and he told others, “I am a son of Charles, but I am not practicing.” How should I react to that?

My Dear friends, I am clearly not even 1% of the two great minds mentioned above. What I try to say in this series of articles is simply that I am a Christian, I am practicing (although I fail in different dimensions from time to time, for instance, sometimes I would lose patience…). And I choose to be one.

You may wonder, economics is all about “self-interest,” calculations, mathematics, and a lot of statistics. How would I still be a Christian after all that?

Well, first of all, I find that several teachings in the bible are amazingly confirmed in modern economics. For instance, the book of Ecclesiastes talks about idiosyncratic shocks much earlier than macro-economists,

The race is not to the swift,

Or the battle to the strong,

Nor does food come to the wise,

Or wealth to the brilliant,

Or favor to the learned;

But time and chance happen to them all.

(Ecclesiastes, chapter 9, versus 11; or simply Ecclesiastes 9:11)

More importantly, it is related to some personal and subjective experiences.

For today, perhaps we can start with some discussions that are “less emotional” but perhaps still “personal.”

Now, let us get to the article title:

What is mine?

Well, a standard answer from economics textbook will be related to the property right and whether the goods are rival goods or non-rival goods. For instance, my enjoyment in a public park will not hinder you from enjoying it, as long as the park has not reached its capacity (so-called “congestion effect”). Thus, a public park is a non-rival good. Most economics research is related to rival goods, and a sub-field called public finance will study non-rival goods.

Yet in our daily dialogue, we often say “my family,” “my school,” “my classmates,” even “my country.” Do I own them? No. And clearly, I do NOT own “my colleagues” and I can NOT control them. Yet in some sense there is an implicit “contract” there. Let us imagine that in a particular year, the university announces that whatever department excels in the research will give every faculty member 5% bonus in the salary. And just for the argument sake, let us say I did nothing that year. And at the end my department wins. What would I feel? I will feel guilty. I feel that I owe my colleagues who worked hard something. Similarly, if some students accuse me unfairly and no colleague stands up and say something for me, I will feel betrayed. I will feel hurt. Did I sign a contract with my colleagues with all these? Certainly not. And can we sign a legal contract about “no betrayal and no emotional hurt, or some redistribution of wealth will happen”? Probably not. Yet there is an implicit contract there.

What point am I trying to make?

I just want to say that in our social relationship, there is a lot more than simple property right assignments and financial contracts. We cannot and probably will not survive with only economics.

In fact, the examples we just discussed suggests that we want to not only owning something, but also belonging to something. For instance, I do not own my school, but I want to belong to a school. This is almost like the reverse of the conventional economics. In my opinion, this kind of phenomenon is difficult to be explained by evolutionary theory. We probably need a different perspective to the world we live.

If you agree with that, we have found some “common ground” for further discussion.

Let us talk more next time.

Charles Leung,

First Draft: 17^th January, 2011, Hong Kong.