Monday, April 28, 2025

The ethics of wealth and poverty

In my latest essay at Postliberal Order, I discuss what Christ, the Fathers of the Church, and Aristotle have to say about the moral hazards of riches.

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18 comments:

  1. AnonymousApril 28, 2025 at 4:39 PM

    Will the entire article eventually be free?

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    1. Edward FeserApril 28, 2025 at 8:12 PM

      They tend to drop the paywall on the articles after a few weeks

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  2. ThunderjerkyApril 29, 2025 at 10:45 AM

    An interesting history of this topic can be found in Peter Brown's "Through The Eye of the Needle." It has it's flaws (droning and tendency to go off on tangents) but is an astounding look at how the Church (and Churchmen) began to become wealthy.

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    1. AnonymousMay 2, 2025 at 5:25 PM

      Prof. Peter Brown , 89, is one of the world's greatest historians of Christianity. He has a reading knowledge of 20 languages.

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    2. ThunderjerkyMay 5, 2025 at 5:58 AM

      Of course! I love Peter Brown but TTEOTN is a little much imo lol - had a bit of fat that could be trimmed but is otherwise excellent and superb

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    3. AnonymousMay 5, 2025 at 2:18 PM

      He's professor emeritus at Princeton. This is a 2017 article in the about him. He is said to have invented the study of Late Antiquity.
      https://www.dailyprincetonian.com/article/2017/04/peter-brown-late-antiquity?utm_content=buffer38e35&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

      Although he writes scholarly works, he says he that he tries to write so that he can be understood by the readers who are not scholars.
      https://engelsbergideas.com/essays/the-many-worlds-of-peter-brown/

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  3. AnonymousApril 29, 2025 at 2:28 PM

    "But merely citing such texts hardly suffices to establish that the Christian tradition “minds if you are rich,” if that is meant to imply that there is something inherently wrong with being rich. For we need to know exactly why the rich are often criticized in scripture and in the broader tradition. Is the fact that they possess wealth in itself evil? Or is the problem rather with something that is commonly – but nevertheless only contingently – associated with riches?"

    This is such an tendentious way of framing the question. The Christian tradition teaches that there is something inherently *dangerous* and *morally fraught* with being rich, which is problem enough even if it is not inherently wrong to be rich. And if it is inherently dangerous, then it is not merely "commonly" or "contingently" dangerous.

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    1. The Great Thurible of DarknessApril 29, 2025 at 7:45 PM

      There's certainly no room for this kind of moderation on the issue if you believe that spiritual danger is the road to an eternity in Hell, as Dr. Feser does. Surely the risk isn't worth it?

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    2. TonyApril 29, 2025 at 8:47 PM

      The Church from of old taught that in effect, having the sexual faculty damaged by concupiscence is dangerous, and that more men fall due to sins of impurity than any other. But she did not teach that one should live without the sexual faculty itself (which is impossible), nor that maiming oneself by castration is the only safe and devout way to live. Nor can we, merely by willing it, cease to suffer concupiscence. We must live with the danger. The trick is to do so rightly.

      When you say wealth "is inherently dangerous", if we don't make distinctions properly, it could be the same extent of dangers as having concupiscence, of which there is no choice but to live with it. Like the Church's gradual development of doctrine whereby she eventually produced the expansive teaching on remote material cooperation with evil being morally licit and necessary in some circumstances, from the early teaching by St. Paul "do not do evil that good may come of it", so also the Church developed doctrine on wealth, on account of the fact that while it is a danger, it is impossible for the whole of society to live without any goods, so proper distinctions must be made as to when, how, where, and why wealth is to be used, in order to rightly handle the dangers.

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    3. The Great Thurible of DarknessApril 30, 2025 at 6:16 AM

      @ Tony

      But, the spiritual risks of the sexual faculty are inherent to fallen human nature (and as you said, unavoidable), whereas as the risks of wealth must be deliberately sought out. One does not become rich innocently; St. John Chrysostom makes that clear. And since it's entirely possible to live without the spiritual risks of wealth, why should we fool around trying to be rich "rightly?" The Kingdom of God is not a program for a well-ordered, prosperous society. Jesus was plain: God, or Mammon. None of this wishy-washy Catholic "both/and" stuff.

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    4. AnonymousApril 30, 2025 at 5:14 PM

      "One does not become rich innocently"

      Interesting take. What malfeasance does one commit when they receive a large inheritance as a child?

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    5. V83April 30, 2025 at 5:25 PM

      Tell you what, go ahead and gouge out your eyes and I'll consider abandoning the wishy-washy Catholic both/and stuff.

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    6. TonyApril 30, 2025 at 10:47 PM

      Your point has to do with great wealth. My point had to do with ALL wealth, of any sort or size, tiny or large: human life is not possible without material goods, and these are wealth. Having these goods is inherently dangerous given fallen human nature, as man is prone to the sin of placing our final good in some good other than God. Hence the holy life does not consist in doing without all material goods - without which life is impossible - but in using them rightly.

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    7. ArtIntoNihonjinMay 1, 2025 at 6:27 PM

      @The Great Thurible of Darkness

      One does not become rich innocently; St. John Chrysostom makes that clear.

      Yes you do. You become rich by becoming self-aware, and one of the proper accidents of self-awareness is manipulation. Only dumb potatoes think that manipulation is unethical.

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  4. The Great Thurible of DarknessApril 29, 2025 at 8:15 PM

    "That there is more going on here than Goff and other progressives suppose is evident from the fact that the Old Testament describes such figures as Abraham, Joseph, David, and Job as wealthy but also as righteous..."

    The problem with this argument should be obvious: the great heroes of the Old Testament were also frequently liars, murderers, adulterers, and thieves, and yet none of these things count against their righteousness either. In order for David to be considered righteous, must the spiritual dangers of murder and adultery be only "contingent?" Or should we (more reasonably, IMO) conclude that the reported "righteousness" of OT figures is usually archtypal or didactic, and not meant to stand up to close scrutiny? It's also important to recognize that Jesus made the moral demands of Jewish religion even more rigorous than they were in the OT; that's why his disciples are startled when he commands the rich man sell all he has (Mt. 19). A rich man may have been okay under the Law. That doesn't mean he's gonna get into the Kingdom of Heaven ("You have heard it said... but I say to you...").

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  5. ficino4mlMay 2, 2025 at 1:37 PM

    Somehow this comment trail is making me think of the old SNL episode where Charlton Heston, acting the part of God, steps out of the office tower elevator in a flash of light and demands, "Oral, do you have the money?"
    [After Oral Roberts had told his followers God would "call him home" if he didn't raise $8 million by the end of March, 1987]

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  6. ficino4mlMay 2, 2025 at 7:57 PM

    "The temptations of supreme power are more than any man can withstand (cf. Plato, Laws 875a-b), and long experience of this fact has led mankind rightly to regard the rule of one man with suspicion (cf. Plato, Politicus 301c-e). Absolute monarchy must fall into the ignorance that selfishness brings; and Plato's judgment is based upon the history of what were in his opinion some of the most promising ventures in
    Greek governance, the ancient states of Argos and Messene. Sparta was saved only because its monarchy was not absolute, being carefully limited by its having two kings instead of one, and by the power of the ephors. The history of Persia, that Asiatic
    Sparta, furnished abundant confirmation of this opinion. The Laws and Politicus both insist that the really important distinction between governments is not that between monarchies, oligarchies, and democracies ... but between governments that have a body of fundamental law which rulers as well as subjects respect and observe, and those in which the ruler ... is regarded as above the law." ~ Glenn Morrow

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  7. ArtIntoNihonjinMay 5, 2025 at 7:07 PM

    "One is as it were rich, when he hath nothing: and another is as it were poor, when he hath great riches." (Proverbs 13:7)

    Do you think Europe or American myths like Jeff Bezos own anything? They have nothing.

    Meanwhile every Japanese lives modestly, drives a beater, lives in small houses... and they control all the SUCCESS of humanity.

    You want to find out who's the prince and who's the pauper? Look to the Word of God!

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