Profit, Penury, and the Impieties of Inequality? A Retrospective on Martin Luther's "On Trade and Usury" for Our Times (original) (raw)

Martin Luther on Usury and the Divine Economy

Human Flourishing Economic Wisdom for a Fruitful Christian Vision of the Good Life, 2020

One reason for categorizing Luther’s economic thought as scholastic is his unrelenting condemnation of usury. The judgment his view usury represents a scholastic line of thought is not entirely wrong. He deploys a version of a scholastic argument that usury contradicts the natural law, as epitomized by what we now call the “golden rule:” do to others what you would have them do to you. Here, Luther’s ethic of the natural law breaks with the dominant scholastic habits of thought, offering an economic ethic grounded in a theology of creation that conceives of the world as a sheer gift of God. In what follows, I will argue that Luther’s view of the world as created—that is, divinely blessed and abounding with the generosity of God—gives shape to his economic thought. Based on this theology of the world as divine gift, the goal of economic exchange is the flourishing of humans as neighbors in community. The Christian thus enacts practices of generosity to root out the besetting sin of greed and join in the divine economy.

Martin Luther and the making of the modern economic mind

International Review of Economics, 2018

Martin Luther has, in the modern economic as well as historian's literature, often been portrayed as a mediaeval ignoramus helplessly shouting against the forces of modern capitalism, with little meaningful economic insight or contribution made to modern economic reasoning. In my paper, I would like to challenge this view. A first section provides a brief sketch of the evolution of economic knowledge in Europe during the centuries of capitalism's ascendancy, 1250s-1850s. I would like to suggest that what today is claimed as having been the past "mainstream" does not necessarily correspond to what the mainstream way of thinking about the market process really was in the past or the centuries of European capitalism in its ascendancy, 1250s-1850s. A second section then discusses the intellectual origins of Martin Luther's theology and market theory in the light of the remarks made in section one. It argues that to fully understand Luther's economics also means we have to engage with the origins of his theology, not only because his economics and theology were intrinsically related and built upon one another, but because in a historical context it makes little sense to analytically disentangle theology from economics. A third section provides a sketch of Martin Luther's economics, also demonstrating how Luther fits into the genealogy of modern economic knowledge. The fourth section concludes.

Globalization in Light of Luther's Eucharistic Economic Ethics

Dialog: A Journal of Theology, 2003

This article suggests that Christ "filling all things," and abiding in a special way in the assembly of believers, offers moral agency for faithful response to economic structures that gravely threaten Earth's regenerative capacities. That claim is explored through Luther's theology of Christ indwelling creation held together with his eucharistic economic ethics, his call to certain practices, his refusal to minimize the pervasiveness of human sin, and his insistence that in brokenness and defeat the saving God is present and calls forth power. The trends designated by the term "globalization," as used in this essay, are clarified. Dangers posed to the Earth community by that constellation of trends are illustrated.

Economy and Modern Christian Thought. Leiden: Brill, 2022.

Brill Research Perspectives, 2022

This work presents key features of the engagement of Christian theology, ethics, and related disciplines with the market and economic concerns. It surveys ways that the dialogue has been approached and invites new models and frameworks for the conversation. It contends that economy and Christian thought have long been interconnected, and recounts aspects of this relationship and why it matters for how one might engage the economy ethically and theologically. Finally, it highlights a number of sites of emerging research that are in need of development in light of pressing social, political, economic, and conceptual issues raised by modern life, including money, debt, racial capital, social reproduction, corporations, and cryptocurrency.

Did Calvin Have a Better Understanding of Modern Economics as Luther? Max Weber's Ideas to the Test

Research in World Economy, 2015

For the Christian tradition there seems to be a critical attitude towards economy, it's perspective and it's logic. But it can be shown that not only the language of Luther and Calvin is dominated economically, but even the language of the Bible itself. Purpose of that is to bring the Christian faith in the "everyday life" of each era. And thus just Luther and Calvin had made use of economic terms and have dealt engaged with economic (everyday) questions. But by the works of Max Weber it became quite popular to estimate Luther low compared to Calvin concerning economic relationships. In this paper these ideas of Max Weber shall be tested: namely concerning the representative economic topics "property", "vocation/ profession" and "interest". It will be shown that there is nearly no reason to estimate Luther low compared to Calvin

Did Calvin Have a Better Understanding of Modern Economics as Luther

Research in World Economy, 2015

For the Christian tradition there seems to be a critical attitude towards economy, it's perspective and it's logic. But it can be shown that not only the language of Luther and Calvin is dominated economically, but even the language of the Bible itself. Purpose of that is to bring the Christian faith in the "everyday life" of each era. And thus just Luther and Calvin had made use of economic terms and have dealt engaged with economic (everyday) questions. But by the works of Max Weber it became quite popular to estimate Luther low compared to Calvin concerning economic relationships. In this paper these ideas of Max Weber shall be tested: namely concerning the representative economic topics "property", "vocation/ profession" and "interest". It will be shown that there is nearly no reason to estimate Luther low compared to Calvin