If you examine the Scripture within its own cultural and philosophical context, you’ll find a wealth of practical wisdom. You won’t get a big pile of theory. The Hebrew language is not ore carts carrying treasures of reason; it is symbolic signposts on how to find a usable answer. How does God intend for us to live in this fallen world?
Sometimes, you can find a few examples of people shooting holes in humans who take themselves too seriously. This post argues that every economic system can work in the right setting. The writer provides solid examples. But he also mentions a principle that is not widely known:
In sociology, Dunbar’s Number dictates that the theoretical limit of stable social relationships a human can maintain is roughly 150. This biological boundary doesn’t just apply to your Christmas card list — it completely dominates economics.
No economic system works beyond a certain small scale. Every attempt to increase efficiency by scaling it up for larger numbers always fails. The bigger the population, the greater the necessity of decentralizing. It’s a matter of human nature.
Over several centuries of experience, church pastors who were paying attention noticed this number (150) was the point at which you really need to subdivide the body of people so that someone can be assigned the shepherd’s duties. The methods varied, including assigning elders, subordinate staff ministers, lay-led cell groups, or simply breaking off a portion to form a new congregation.
The main thing we should get from the article is that decentralization is the key to managing human problems. The real difference between each of the economic systems the author mentions is a matter of culture against which economic system is built.
Humans cannot manage effectively beyond a certain level. The recognition of this arises most clearly in the failures that manifest when intellectuals seek to discover grand theories that solve human problems at massive scale. They simply refuse to recognize that their insights are not universal.
Back in the 1980s, there was a debate within clinical psychology of which therapeutic modality was most effective. As a result, researchers spent years collecting data on thousands of patients and dozens of modalities. The goal was to determine, once and for all, which form of therapy would rule them all.
But the study found that all forms of therapy barely work at all. In fact, it found that trained clinical therapists do not, on average, produce better outcomes than talking about your problems with a random person. And, in fact, even more surprisingly, giving therapists more training does not improve the outcomes of their patients at all. The entire field of clinical psychology, one could argue, was a marginal upgrade, at best, from having a beer and an honest chat with a friend.
This is the failure to which human-centric thinking leads. It’s a primary facet of Hellenism. Fallen men are not capable of solving their problems. Divine revelation is the only answer.
Human-centric thinking insists everything must be reduced to an abstract within reach of human reason. Genuine biblical mysticism rejects this. Faith says the best you can hope for is a pragmatic approach, a simple matter of what you need to do here and now. Even theologians get caught up in trying to nail down the ontology of every little thing in Scripture.
Today I read something from Dale Moreau (whose substack is behind a subscription gate) discussing the Kenosis Theology from Philippians. Paul’s letter says that Christ “emptied (kenosis) Himself by taking on the form of a slave”. Moreau feels obliged to blather on and on in an attempt to define what Christ did and did not surrender in order to be born a human.
This not a Hebrew approach. The proper Hebraic answer to such a question would be the simplest and most pragmatic: the Lord set aside His glory. As Moreau himself has said, “glory” is a Hebrew concept of weight, substance, or prominence in personal presence. When God is present, all eyes on are on Him simply because it is irresistible for all creatures. Notice how this does not require theological blather.
So, if Christ set aside His glory, that means He didn’t force everyone to pay attention to Him by His glory — the sheer magnificence of His Presence. Instead, He called to those who are going to listen to that still, small voice in their hearts. People who were inclined to faith would recognize Him.
It is not necessary to debate every idea thrust upon us by others. All we really need to do is assert the most obvious pragmatic answer to the cacophony of human-centric reasoning. That stuff is a million ways to say anything except what God says. Biblical mysticism teaches you not to take yourself seriously. Thus, it is not necessary to generate precise clinical definitions of everything. Just take a moment to sound out your own convictions and go with that.
