It’s Not About GDP

Philosopher Ed Feser examines classical and Christian teaching on wealth and poverty, and reflects on the spiritual reasons why good governance avoids two extremes of economic thinking.

Is it immoral to be rich? Are the poor virtuous simply because they are poor? One would think so from the use some make of certain scriptural passages. The socialist philosopher and self-described “heretical Christian” Philip Goff asks “Does the Bible mind if you are rich?” He answers by quoting scriptural passages such as Christ’s warning that “it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God” (Matthew 19:24, RSV), and the parable of Lazarus and the rich man, in which poor Lazarus is saved while the rich man is damned (Luke 16: 19-25). Goff’s attitude is common among progressive Christians. And it can hardly be denied that criticism of the rich is indeed a longstanding theme of Christian preaching, perhaps most famously exemplified by St. John Chrysostom’s sermons on the Lazarus parable.

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? 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, and commands that “you shall not show partiality to a poor man in his dispute” (Exodus 23:3, NKJV). Then there’s the fact that after warning of the dangers of wealth, the Book of Sirach immediately goes on to say:

Blessed is the rich man that is found without blemish… He that could have transgressed, and hath not transgressed: and could do evil things, and hath not done them: Therefore are his goods established in the Lord, and all the church of the saints shall declare his alms. (31:8,10-11, Douay-Rheims)

Even just from a cursory reading of the Bible, then, it is evident that Christianity does not in fact hold that the rich are evil simply by virtue of being rich, or that the poor are always to be favored simply because they are poor…