MEDIA RELEASE: Peter Costello: Bible suggests we should be expected to make our own decisions and live with the consequences

Passages from the Bible suggest that people should be expected to make decisions about their lives, including economic decisions, and be expected to live with the consequences, The Hon Peter Costello AC, former federal Treasurer and current Chairman of Australia’s Future Fund said today.

Speaking at the Centre for Independent Studies, Mr Costello cited a parable in the Gospel of Matthew and asked: Could this parable be illustrating a truth that is in short supply today? Could it be suggesting that people should be expected to make decisions about their lives, including economic decisions, and be expected to live with the consequences? Could it be telling us that a big part of being human is to make choices and to live with the consequences? Could it even be that we need no Nanny-State to watch over our behaviour and to protect us, in our own best interests, from the consequences of our own actions?

Full transcript of speech by Peter Costello

Matthew’s Gospel Chapter 20 Verses 1-15 (Appendix 1) records a Parable told by Jesus. A parable is a story with a higher meaning. There is always a point or a moral to the story in a Parable.

Most of us hearing this story would feel some sympathy for those who murmured against the householder. How unfair that labourers who worked only one hour were paid the same as those who worked all day? The first lot of workers complain they were treated no better than the latecomers, when in the magisterial language of the King James Bible, they had “…borne the burden and heat of the day”. So much for effort. It would have been hot in the middle of the day in that Middle Eastern Vineyard.

So those who worked twelve hours feel they have been underpaid. Quite likely they also think that the latecomers have been overpaid since they were only hired at “…the eleventh hour”. This expression is now an English idiom which means doing something just before it is too late. Leaving things to the eleventh hour- study for an exam, campaigning for an election-means leaving something so late as to nearly miss doing it at all. The last lot of workers just scraped in for pay day.

Whilst we are thinking that something unfair is going on here, the tables are turned to illustrate a deeper point. A Parable always has a higher meaning.

Before I come to that let me ask you to notice what is NOT the moral of the story. This is not a story designed to advocate comparative wage justice. It is not trying to suggest the labourers form a Union to agitate for better terms and conditions. It is not trying to say that Palestine should set up a Fair Work Commission. Jesus’ point is not to suggest the householder has done something wrong. He seems to think is perfectly sensible for the householder to say: “Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own?”

The response to a comment like that these days would be a Picket and the demand for an apology.

But the whole point of this story is that nobody has been wronged.

Each Labourer has received his entitlement. The early ones were entitled to no more and the later ones were entitled to no less. The terms on which they were hired have been honoured. One labourer’s entitlement is not re-written in the light of what others have accepted. An offer is made to each individual who decides for himself whether he wishes to take it up. The reward is set by the individual’s agreement. People are free to enter contracts of their choosing. The honouring of the contract is all any party can expect. This is the classic doctrine of “freedom of contract”.

Now the moral of the story is that when it comes to the Kingdom of Heaven, the person who has laboured all his life is on the same footing as the person who makes a deathbed confession “… at the eleventh hour”. You are either in the Kingdom of Heaven or not. And those that have been there longest cannot turn around and complain that the latecomers get the same reward. The Jews who obeyed the law for generations were not to complain when the Kingdom of Heaven was thrown open to Gentiles, even though, living under the Mosaic law, they had “borne the burden and heat of the day.”

I will leave aside further theological reflection. The point I want to draw is that Jesus, in this Bible story, puts a very high value on the idea of contract. A contract- a labour contract no less- is here used to illustrate the way that the Kingdom of Heaven works.  Shock horror, God is likened to an employer. A contract is used to illustrate the way in which God deals with his people. Once people make a contract they are expected to abide by it. Sometimes the common law has been said to respect the “sanctity of contract”

All through the Bible we see the theme of Covenant between God and man. There is the Old Covenant with Adam, Noah, Abraham, and Israel. Eventually there is the New Covenant through Christ.

Under the Old Covenant there are mutual obligations. And to disregard the Covenant, to break a contract, is a serious thing. Human beings, being fallen and sinful as they are, are always falling short, breaking their covenants and contracts. When they do it ends badly for them. But it is in the nature of God to keep a covenant.

The English common law developed a notion of contract to underpin commercial transactions and trade. The Common Law is quite different to Roman Law, or Continental Law. Under common law a promise made and accepted for valuable consideration (offer and acceptance) is a binding contract. Because a contract is a serious promise and binding, the wronged party is entitled to be compensated if it is not performed.

The Courts did not try to re-write contracts, or rewrite the consideration under a contract to make it “fair”. It was thought that parties were best placed to decide what was in their respective interest. They were free to strike a bargain or refuse to do so. Once they had contracted however, each party was entitled to have the contract observed or to be compensated if it were not. The doctrine of “freedom of contract” was developed by the English Common Law Courts of the 18th and 19th Century. Those Courts would have approved the story of the labourers in the Vineyard.

Of course at this time Britain was going through an enormous flowering of trade and economic development. Its legal and economic doctrines spread around the world to Colonies in the Americas and in Australia. Maybe the law followed trade originally but as it developed it subsequently facilitated and promoted it enormously. It gave certainty to transactions. They could be entered into, they would be performed or, if not, the wronged party would be compensated as if it had been performed. People felt confident to extend credit, to invest for long term return, to underwrite companies and to insure ventures. The whole modern commercial world began to develop under these concepts.

I suggest the English common law doctrine of contract grew out of the Judeo-Christian notions of Covenant and obligation. Those lawyers and Judges who developed it were culturally and religiously steeped in the Bible. At the time, they thought they were developing law according to Biblical principles. Sir Matthew Hale, author of History of the Common Law (published 1713) claimed “Christianity is parcel of the common law of England”. In his Commentaries on the Laws of England (1765-1768) Sir William Blackstone claimed that Natural Law is “dictated by God himself”.

These days the origins of the common law has become something of a battleground between Liberals and Conservatives in the United States. It all has to do with the First Amendment guaranteeing freedom of religion. It is not my purpose here to traverse that ground. My point is to argue that far from being hostile to freedom of contract, the Judeo-Christian framework is entirely comfortable with it. Quite likely, it even inspired it.

In Christian thought human-beings have a very high status. They have a much higher status than animals. They are made in the very image of God. They make choices and they are expected to account for those choices. Entering a contract and keeping it is expected. One of the most binding commitments, Marriage, is sometimes described as a “Marriage Contract”. Choice and responsibility for choices started in the Garden of Eden.

Why should people who are expected to account for their moral choices, who are entrusted with developing the moral choices of their children not be trusted to make economic choices? Obviously there are people of unsound mind who might not have the capacity. But for adult people with full capacity the making of choices and taking responsibility for them is the very essence of being adult and human.

These classic doctrines of freedom of contract and freedom to trade once had the broad support of the Church and of Christian leaders. But it is not the case now.

I suggest that the rise of the State has changed the attitude of many of those leaders. State power can be very intoxicating to those who see the opportunity to wield or influence it.

The rise of the State throughout the Twentieth Century meant that it developed far greater capacity to influence private transactions. Whereas the Courts of the 18th and 19th Century left it to parties to agree on a bargain and restricted themselves to enforcing it, the Courts of the 20th and 21st Century developed doctrines to set aside unfair contracts, as they judged unfairness. They were given powers by Parliament to set aside contracts that offended various criteria and the Parliaments began stipulating terms that had to be included in various types of contracts. The State began to stipulate the terms of contracts between parties because it could. Power is seductive. Very rarely does a person with power voluntarily choose not to exercise it.

At present in Australia it would be illegal to enter into the householder-labourer contract described in the Gospel of Matthew. For starters it is an individual employer-employee contract. That’s banned. It is clear that it covers monetary remuneration only- with no pro-rata provision for entitlements such as sick leave, holiday leave, parental leave etc. It was a contract that allowed 12 hours of work in one day without penalty rates. There is no safety training provided to the Labourers before they start work, no safety gear provided to them, no OH&S delegate on the site. That is exactly the kind of contract that would be void under current law and rewritten according to terms decided by Fair Work Australia exercising power delegated to it by Parliament.

Modern progressive opinion believes that the State, or its delegate, should write these kinds of contracts rather than let the parties agree with each other. The reach of the State has made this possible. It is the prospect of using State power to achieve altruistic ends that modern thinking finds so attractive. After all isn’t better for informed and educated people to decide these things than to leave it to the common man who doesn’t really know what is in his own interests?

In the parable it is the householder who asks: “Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own?” In the modern world it is not up to the householder (the employer) to decide these things. It is not up to the labourer either. It is up to the State to decide these things, just as it decides so many other things how a person lives and works. The State also decides what part of the wages will be left to the labourer to spend or save after it has taken out his taxes and prescribed payments for superannuation.

The modern mind might doubt the existence of God, but it sure believes in the presence of the State. In a post-Christian society the State stands in loco Dei.

The traditional Christian belief was that each person would account on the day of judgement to an omnipresent, omniscient God. Your progressive Churchman is more inclined to see the State as omniscient and, in an ideal world, omnipotent to order things for good and direct the ways of mankind in much the same way as they once expected the Almighty to do.

Your modern progressive churchman has a high and trusting view of the State. He/she is far more worried by collective sins — the treatment of unlawful Asylum seekers, the warming of the Planet — and collective judgements — the rising of sea levels — than individual morality. And the solution to these collective problems is the agency of collective power — the State. Individual faith and conduct is never going to get the results we need on redistributing income or reducing carbon emissions.

There is a tendency amongst those who believe in big government to think that since people can’t be expected to know what is good for them they need those who are better informed to take care of their interests. Having the State intervene is in their interests even if they don’t understand that. That’s where people with their interests at heart come in. They mobilise State power to work in the interest of people who can’t help themselves which now means just about everybody. “Do unto others as you would have them do to you” is not so much a personal injunction as a collective one. It means mobilizing public opinion and engaging in advocacy efforts to bring the use of State resources behind programs and services and benefits and laws.

This month an Australian Theological College I am associated with wrote to its supporters to announce an achievement Award for a Christian Journalist. The recipient is to be recognized as “…a truthful, fearless and prophetic voice in the media”, principally at Fairfax. I make no quarrel with this award. What caught my eye in this announcement was the use of the word “prophetic”.

I was once a Fairfax Columnist and (for as long as they could bear it) wrote from a free-market point of view.  There is no danger that any modern theologian would suggest my columns were “prophetic”. That’s because the description “prophetic” has acquired a very specific meaning in modern Christian thought. It means calling for greater Government intervention against social ills particularly collective ones. Commonly this involves calling for greater redistribution of income and a greater role for the State in doing it. To the extent it involves criticising the Government being “prophetic” means criticising it from the Left. If you believe in limiting the State in the interest of maximising liberty and personal responsibility then you are not….well “prophetic”. Of course you could not be truthful either. You must be self-interested or heartless or have some other moral failing!

There is no danger, for example, that Lyle Sheldon of the Australian Christian Lobby would ever be recognised as a “prophetic” voice. He opposes Gay marriage on biblical grounds. That really takes some fearlessness. But to be biblical is not to be prophetic. “Prophetic” does not mean banging on about some conservative issue even if it happens to be traditional Christian teaching. “Prophetic” means advocating redistribution in some form or other.

As one of their former Columnists I think I am qualified to say that you don’t have to be too fearless down at the Age to write in favour of income redistribution and interventionist Government. That is the in-house line. You don’t have to be too fearless to do that on the ABC. It is the zeitgeist.

Now a modern might look back on Sir Matthew Hale or Sir William Blackstone and say they were merely products of the times. They echoed the laissez fare attitude of the day and assumed it to be Christian.

Is it not entirely possible that the same could be said of today’s opinion makers? Is it possible that today’s theologians with their belief in State power and Government intervention are just reflecting the spirit of the Age?

I once heard a Christian leader say that one of the reasons for reading the Bible is it speaks to us from a different time and a different culture. Stripping out time and place, including the vanity of moderns about themselves and their assumed superiority over previous generations, can lead us to truths that are universal. That’s why I am fascinated by this Parable in the Gospel of Matthew.

Could this parable be illustrating a truth that is in short supply today? Could it be suggesting that people should be expected to make decisions about their lives, including economic decisions, and be expected to live with the consequences? Could it be telling us that a big part of being human is to make choices and to live with the consequences? Could it even be that we need no Nanny-State to watch over our behaviour and to protect us, in our own best interests, from the consequences of our own actions?

I have heard plenty of sermons extolling the “prophetic” view of the world and how much the Welfare State should be doing to make lives better. I can’t remember ever hearing a Sermon on Matthew’s Gospel Chapter 20. Forgive me therefore for giving one!

Appendix 1

Matthew 20 King James Version (KJV)

20 For the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is an householder, which went out early in the morning to hire labourers into his vineyard.

2 And when he had agreed with the labourers for a penny a day, he sent them into his vineyard.

3 And he went out about the third hour, and saw others standing idle in the marketplace,

4 And said unto them; Go ye also into the vineyard, and whatsoever is right I will give you. And they went their way.

5 Again he went out about the sixth and ninth hour, and did likewise.

6 And about the eleventh hour he went out, and found others standing idle, and saith unto them, Why stand ye here all the day idle?

7 They say unto him, Because no man hath hired us. He saith unto them, Go ye also into the vineyard; and whatsoever is right, that shall ye receive.

8 So when even was come, the lord of the vineyard saith unto his steward, Call the labourers, and give them their hire, beginning from the last unto the first.

9 And when they came that were hired about the eleventh hour, they received every man a penny.

10 But when the first came, they supposed that they should have received more; and they likewise received every man a penny.

11 And when they had received it, they murmured against the goodman of the house,

12 Saying, These last have wrought but one hour, and thou hast made them equal unto us, which have borne the burden and heat of the day.

13 But he answered one of them, and said, Friend, I do thee no wrong: didst not thou agree with me for a penny?

14 Take that thine is, and go thy way: I will give unto this last, even as unto thee.

15 Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own? Is thine eye evil, because I am good?