What is Life Worth?
The title of this article is also the title of a book. The subtitle of the book is The Unprecedented Effort to Compensate the Victims of 9/11.
The author of the book, Kenneth R. Feinberg, was appointed by the then-Attorney General of the United States, John Ashcroft, to administer a fund that had been created just eleven days after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Congress had set no limit on the size of the awards and had given Mr. Feinberg very few guidelines.
Of course, he had a staff, but every final decision about an appropriate amount to be awarded to those who lost loved ones and/or those who were scarred physically or emotionally by the attacks was his to make. The book gives some details (without disclosing any identities) about some of the individual and group interviews he conducted. Some of the decisions that he (and he alone) had to make were about things I had never considered before reading the book. If somebody was engaged to be married in a few days to a person who was killed, should he/she receive an award or only the victim’s parents – or both? What about the stepchildren of victims? What about ex-husbands or ex-wives? What about “undocumented workers?” Was the life of a millionaire more valuable than the life of a dishwasher? These are just a very few of the questions that Mr. Feinberg had to answer.
As I read the book, I thought of two things. First, I wondered how many times we say, “I wouldn’t take a million dollars for _________.” I wonder if we still would mean that if we were really put to the test. The average award was $1,267,880.49. Would you take that amount in exchange for your spouse, one of your children, or somebody else you consider to be very close to you? What about the largest award — $8,597,732.00? Is your love “negotiable” or do you really love those whom you say you love?
The second recurring thought I had was that each of us are in a similar position in which Mr. Feinberg found himself — only the “stakes” are much higher. We are around people every day whose souls are lost. We make a decision about how much time to spend with a certain individual, how seriously to talk to him or her about God’s plan of salvation, or the need to return to the Lord and to His people. In effect, the decisions we make in these areas reflect the value we put on eternal souls — including ours.
What is a soul worth? You can find our Lord’s answer to that question in Matthew 16:26:
For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul? (ESV)
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AUTHOR: Jim Faughn
