by Jurgen Brauer, July 2005
Copyright: J. Brauer. No reproduction without permission.

The other day an unusual email came across my electronic desktop. On an economics network, a professor from Illinois wrote that he likes to introduce the "no free lunch" concept by challenging students to come up with examples of resources they believe are completely free for the taking, resources that are available in unlimited quantities so that absolutely nothing has to be given up in exchange for their use. For example, clean water is plentiful but not unlimited; water needs to be cleaned, hence it is costly, and hence it must be purchased by giving something up (usually money). Thus, there is "no free lunch" with regard to water. Likewise, clean air is plentiful but not unlimited, and if we want to breathe it we pay plenty of money (we give up something) to travel to far-off, traffic-free places to inhale to our heart's delight. Outer space is not unlimited either. For example, the number of slots available to put communications satellites in geostationary orbit is highly limited and orbital parking fees are steep.

Are "God's love," "salvation," or "another person's unconditional love" unlimited resources, free for the taking? No.

On occasion, this professor writes, students come up with more challenging examples. "God's love," "salvation," or the "unconditional love of another person," they suggest. But "God's love" is ruled out for the non-believer. If "God's love" were an unlimited free-lunch resource, the non-believer could partake in it without giving something up - but at a minimum he'd have to give up his disbelief. (You might say that's a fair deal, and perhaps it is, but the question is not whether faith is a fair deal but whether it's free.) The prospect of "salvation" is not a free lunch either. Depending on which theology one follows, there is a considerable price to be paid for its acceptance. Indeed, the more stringent the doctrine that grants salvation, the higher the price, and the more exclusive - and usually misguided - the club of believers.

Neither does "unconditional love of another person" qualify as an example of an unlimited resource. Wait long enough or push the wrong button hard enough and every lover, spouse, or parent has a limited pool of love to give. When we are tired we are cranky. We experience "unconditional love" at particular moments in time, to be sure, but not continuously over time. Just hound an "unconditionally loving" person long enough and the "unconditional love" resource will run dry.

The same argument holds for "spiritual faith." When put to the test, the apostle Peter (the "rock") cracked. If faith were an unlimited resource why have organizations whose purpose it is to shore up the flagging faith of the faithful? Why the biblical exasperation "oh, ye, of little faith?" If even one person fails to have faith, faith is not unlimited. Faith "is a human response to the Divine," writes a second economics professor on the network, but humans' capability to respond is a scarce resource, not an unlimited one, rightly retorts a third.

Spiritual faith is like a household vegetable garden. Users are both the producers and the consumers. How much faith I produce in "response to the Devine" depends on how much I wish to consume.

Limited or unlimited, what is a resource, anyway? A resource is anything material or immaterial available for use in the production of well-being. My capacity to work is a resource that I sell in the labor market. In exchange I get a little money that I use to produce my and my family's well-being. Natural resources produce well-being, be it as material goods (timber, ore, water, etc.), or as aesthetic goods (e.g., nature parks). Is faith used in the production of well-being? Sure. But in the production of one sort of well-being, the believer gives up the production of other sorts of possible well-being. Faith thus comes at a cost because faith that does not change lives is empty faith. Faith - to be faith - must affect something in the believer, it must come at a cost, usually in the form of behavioral requirements (e.g., adherence to the ten commandments, a dress code to be followed, or social mores to be lived up to). If the behaviors that faith demands are too costly, people stop "purchasing" faith. Televangelism requires no commitment - no cost - and is widespread; martyrdom is not. And that's a good thing, or else the number of faith-based suicide bombers would be larger than it already is. Obviously, faith is costly. Since it is costly, it is not free. And since it is not free, it is not an unlimited resource.

Spiritual faith is like a household vegetable garden. Users are both the producers and the consumers. How much faith I produce in "response to the Devine" depends on how much I wish to consume. And how much I wish to consume depends on how much I desire it, what it'll cost me in light of other desires that I will need to sacrifice, and how much I have available to spend on all of my desires.