Program / Course 22: Christian Ethics / Lesson 5.3
What you will learn
- Explain Aquinas’s account of private property and its limits.
- Describe the Reformation idea of vocation and how it changed the view of ordinary work.
- Summarize the main themes of modern Catholic social teaching, from Rerum Novarum onward.
- Compare Protestant, Catholic and Orthodox approaches to work, property and economic life.
The big idea
Christian thinkers have long held that private property is lawful but not absolute, since the goods of the earth are given for the use of all. Aquinas argued that property is justified because it serves order and care, and that in need, goods are common. The Reformers taught that ordinary work is a calling from God, and modern Catholic social teaching has built on both ideas, defending workers’ dignity, property, subsidiarity and the common good. The traditions differ on the roles of the state and the market, and the lesson states their reasons.
Key terms
- Private property
- The right of persons or groups to own, use and dispose of goods, within limits set by justice.
- Vocation (calling)
- A role in which God places a person to serve others. In the Reformation it includes family, work and civic life, not only church ministry.
- Common good
- In Catholic teaching, the sum of social conditions that allow persons and groups to reach fulfilment more fully and more easily.
- Subsidiarity
- The principle that larger bodies should not take over what smaller bodies can do well, while supporting them when needed.
- Just wage
- A wage sufficient to support a worker and family in dignity. Catholic teaching has insisted on it since Pope Leo XIII.
- Usury
- In older usage, charging interest on loans, which medieval teaching forbade. Later it came to mean excessive interest.
- Sphere sovereignty
- A principle developed by the Dutch Reformed thinker Abraham Kuyper that family, church, state and business each have a distinct authority under God.
Background
Property and work are old moral questions. Genesis places work before the fall: the man was put in the garden to dress and keep it (Genesis 2:15), though after the fall work became toil (Genesis 3:17-19). The commandments forbid theft and coveting. The New Testament praises honest labor (Ephesians 4:28; 2 Thessalonians 3:10-12). At the same time, the Fathers taught that goods are meant for all. Medieval and modern writers built these insights into theories of property and economic life.
Three developments matter. In the thirteenth century, Aquinas gave a classic defense of private property that kept the common destination of goods. In the sixteenth, the Reformers reshaped the idea of work as a calling. And from 1891, with Pope Leo XIII’s encyclical Rerum Novarum, the Catholic Church developed a body of social teaching in response to industrial society, which Protestants, Orthodox and others have discussed and sometimes adapted.
Step-by-step explanation
Step 1: Aquinas on property
In the Summa Theologiae (Second Part of the Second Part, Question 66), Aquinas asks whether it is lawful to possess things as one’s own. He answers that, by natural law, God gave all things to humanity for use, but that it is lawful and even necessary for particular persons to own them. He gives three reasons: each person takes more care of what is his own, affairs are better ordered if each has a task, and peace is better kept when each is content with his own. But in the use of goods, he says, a person should hold them as common, ready to share with those in need.
He draws a bold conclusion: in cases of urgent need, taking what is needed to survive is not theft, because the need makes the goods common. He also taught that surplus is owed to the poor as a matter of justice. On interest, he followed Aristotle and the church in forbidding usury, seeing money as barren and the charge as selling what does not exist, a teaching that later changed as credit and investment developed. Scholars debate how far this was a mistake or a response to different conditions.
Step 2: Vocation in the Reformation
Luther taught that every honest work is a calling from God. A farmer, a maid and a magistrate serve God and neighbor in their stations as much as a priest does. He rejected the idea that monastic life was a higher way, and a saying often attributed to him is that God milks the cows through the milkmaid. The doctrine gave dignity to ordinary work and families, and it has shaped Protestant societies. Luther was also critical of commerce driven by greed and of the monopolies of his day.
Calvin likewise stressed calling and also the duty to use goods for the community. He allowed moderate interest under conditions, a change from the older teaching. The sociologist Max Weber, in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1905), argued that Reformed ideas of calling and worldly asceticism helped to shape modern capitalism. The thesis has been widely discussed and criticized by historians, who point to earlier commerce in Catholic cities, and it is best seen as a debated hypothesis. Puritan writers developed the idea that work is service to God, and later the Wesleyan tradition added a stress on giving: earn all you can, save all you can, give all you can.
Step 3: Modern Catholic social teaching
Rerum Novarum (1891) defended private property against socialism and also defended workers’ rights to a just wage and to form unions, against unrestrained capitalism. Quadragesimo Anno (1931) set out the principle of subsidiarity. John XXIII’s Mater et Magistra (1961) and Pacem in Terris (1963), the Second Vatican Council’s Gaudium et Spes (1965), and Paul VI’s Populorum Progressio (1967) widened the discussion to development and global justice. John Paul II’s Laborem Exercens (1981) taught that work is for the person, not the person for work, and that labor has priority over capital. His Centesimus Annus (1991) assessed the market economy, affirming its value when ordered by law and morality, while criticizing consumerism. Francis’s Laudato Si’ (2015) addressed ecology, and Fratelli Tutti (2020) addressed fraternity and economic life.
The core principles are the dignity of the human person, the common good, the universal destination of goods, subsidiarity and solidarity, with a preferential option for the poor. Catholics apply them differently. Some stress the market and enterprise, others state intervention and labor rights, and the church itself has said that it offers principles, not a technical economic program.
Step 4: Other traditions and debates
Reformed thinkers in the Netherlands, notably Abraham Kuyper, developed the idea of sphere sovereignty and encouraged Christian engagement in politics, labor and education. In the United States, Walter Rauschenbusch and the Social Gospel urged the church to address industrial injustice, while many evangelicals concentrated on personal charity and mission. Later evangelical movements have taken up both. Anglican and Methodist traditions have a long record of social reform, such as the abolition of the slave trade and the factory acts.
Orthodox social teaching, expressed for example in the Russian Orthodox Church’s 2000 document on social concept, affirms that property is conditional, that work is a participation in God’s creative activity and that the church should speak about poverty and the dignity of labor, while avoiding identifying itself with a particular economic system. Liberation theology, which arose in Latin America in the 1960s and 1970s with Gustavo Gutierrez, stressed the church’s solidarity with the poor and structural sin. The Vatican criticized elements of its use of Marxist analysis while affirming the preferential option for the poor. Christians still debate the roles of markets, taxation, unions and the state, even where they agree on principles.
- On what ground does this view defend private property, and what limits does it set?
- How does the view understand work: as burden, as vocation, as service or all three?
- What does it say about the duties of employers and employees?
- What role does it assign to the state, the market, the church and the family?
- What would this view say to someone in urgent need?
- Which part of the view depends on facts about economics that can be tested?
Examples
Need and theft
A father whose children are starving takes bread from a baker who has plenty. Aquinas holds that in extreme need, the act is not theft, because the goods are common in such need. Many moral theologians qualify this by requiring that the need be urgent and that no other help be available. Critics worry about abuse, defenders say that law itself recognizes necessity. (A constructed example.)
A calling in ordinary work
A nurse tells her pastor that she sometimes wonders whether her work has anything to do with God. He tells her, as Luther might, that caring for the sick is serving God and neighbor, and that she needs no other proof of a calling. She finds this a comfort but also asks whether a calling can be changed. Reformed writers say that it can, with prayer and counsel. (A constructed example.)
Subsidiarity
A neighborhood association organizes a food pantry that serves local families. A city proposes to replace it with a central agency. A defender of subsidiarity argues that the city should support the pantry and step in only where it fails. Others reply that the pantry cannot meet the need alone and that coordination may help. (A constructed example.)
Different perspectives
Catholic
Catholic teaching defends private property as a natural right that is subordinate to the universal destination of goods, defends workers’ dignity, just wages and unions, and holds that the state and the market must serve the common good. It teaches subsidiarity and solidarity. The church claims no technical expertise and encourages debate among Catholics on policy.
Orthodox
Orthodox teaching holds that human beings are stewards of creation, that work is cooperation with God and that the church must serve the poor and speak for justice. Orthodox churches have often lived under states that limited their social role, and so have less developed social programs than Western churches, though recent documents and charities show growth.
Protestant
Protestants teach that work is a calling and that property is held as a trust. Reformed thinkers such as Kuyper developed an engaged approach to society. Evangelicals stress personal responsibility, charity and entrepreneurship, and mainline churches stress structural justice and social reform. These emphases have sometimes become political camps, though many Protestants hold both.
Secular and scholarly
Economists and philosophers disagree about the right balance of markets and government. Some defend property rights and free exchange as the best means to prosperity and liberty, and others stress distributive justice and the risks of inequality. Historians of religion and economy debate the Weber thesis. Christian ethics can learn from empirical studies without taking them to settle moral questions.
Why it matters
Most people spend most of their waking hours working, and their relation to property and money is a main test of Christian life. The tradition’s insistence that work is a calling and that property is a trust offers a way to think of both with meaning and limits. The history also shows that Christian teaching on economic life has changed, as with interest, and that it draws on principle and prudence together.
Common misunderstandings
Misunderstanding: Catholic social teaching is socialism.
Correction: Rerum Novarum and later documents reject socialism’s denial of private property while criticizing unregulated capitalism. The church teaches a path between them, grounded in the dignity of persons.
Misunderstanding: The Protestant work ethic means that wealth shows God’s favor.
Correction: Reformers and Puritans taught that work is a calling and that riches are a danger as well as a blessing. Weber’s thesis concerned the effect of certain ideas on economic habits and not a claim that the wealthy are saved.
Misunderstanding: Christianity has always condemned all interest.
Correction: The church forbade usury in the medieval period, but later Catholic and Protestant teaching allowed interest under conditions. The history is an example of how the application of principle can change.
Misunderstanding: Calling applies only to ministry.
Correction: The Reformers taught that all lawful work is a calling. Catholic teaching also recognizes vocation in marriage, work and public life, in addition to priestly and religious vocations.
Knowledge check
Why does Aquinas defend private property, and what limit does he set?
He argues that people care more for what is their own, that affairs are better ordered when each has a task, and that peace is better kept. The limit is that goods remain common in use: the owner should share with those in need, and in extreme necessity taking what is needed to live is not theft.
What did the Reformers teach about vocation?
They taught that every honest work is a calling from God through which a person serves the neighbor, and that this includes ordinary labor, family and civic life. They rejected the idea that the monastic life is a higher state. The idea has shaped Protestant views of work.
Name three principles of modern Catholic social teaching.
Examples are the dignity of the human person, the common good, the universal destination of goods, subsidiarity, solidarity and the preferential option for the poor. The church applies them to wages, property, unions, the state and global development, and leaves much room for debate on policy.
What is the Weber thesis and how is it regarded?
Max Weber argued that Reformed ideas of calling and disciplined work helped shape the spirit of modern capitalism. Historians have widely criticized it, noting commerce in Catholic regions earlier, and it is best treated as a debated hypothesis.
Think it through
- Do you think of your work, paid or unpaid, as a calling? What would change if you did?
- Where is the line between lawful ownership and hoarding? Who decides?
- What role should churches have in economic debates, and what should they leave to others?
- Which principle of Catholic social teaching seems most helpful to you, and which most contested?
Independent assignment
Vocation and property in a case
In your notebook, write 400 to 600 words. Describe a real or imagined person with a job, a family and some savings who is asked to help a relative in need. Using Aquinas on property and the Reformers on vocation, explain what each would say the person owes. Add one point from modern Catholic social teaching, and say where the traditions would agree or differ. Do not send this to anyone or post it anywhere.
Further study
- Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae Read Questions 66 and 77 to 78 of the Second Part of the Second Part, on theft, cheating and usury.
- Martin Luther, The Small Catechism Read the table of duties and the seventh commandment.
- John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion Read the passages on calling and on the use of earthly goods in Book 3.
- Catholic Church, Catechism of the Catholic Church Read the section on economic life and social justice.
- Genesis 2:15 Put in the garden to dress and keep it.
- Ephesians 4:28 Let him labour, working with his hands.
- Colossians 3:23 Whatsoever ye do, do it heartily.
- Leviticus 19:13 The wages of him that is hired shall not abide with thee.