Wealth and the Will of God

Albert Keith Whitaker, Paul G. Schervish

Description

The meaning of wealth and giving in Christianity

Wealth and the Will of God looks at some of the spiritual resources of the Christian tradition that can aid serious reflection on wealth and giving. Beginning with Aristotle—who is crucial for understanding later Christian thought—the book discusses Aquinas, Ignatius, Luther, Calvin, and Jonathan Edwards. Though the ideas vary greatly, the chapters are organized to facilitate comparisons among these thinkers on issues of ultimate purposes or aspirations of human life; on the penultimate purposes of love, charity, friendship, and care; on the resources available to human beings in this life; and finally on ways to connect and implement in practice our identified resources with our ultimate ends.

Contents
Preface
Acknowledgments

Introduction: Moral Biography
1. Aristotle: "Being-in-Action" and Discernment
2. Aquinas: "Distinguish Ends and Means"
3. Ignatius: All Things Ordered to Service of God
4. Luther: Receiving and Sharing God's Gift
5. Calvin: Giving Gratitude to God
6. Jonathan Edwards: Awakenings to Benevolence
Conclusion: Classical Wisdom and Contemporary Decisions: The Contribution of Western Christianity to Discernment about Wealth

Selected Readings
Index

Sujets

• Charities
• Philosophie et théologie
• Religión
• Charitable organization
• Ethics in religion
• Philanthropy
• Ethics
• Christianity
• Religion

Informations

• Publié par: Indiana University Press
• Date de parution: 22 mars 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780253004062
• Langue: English

Extrait

Wealth and the Will of God
Philanthropic and Nonprofit Studies
Dwight F. Burlingame and David C. Hammack, editors
Wealth and the Will of God

Discerning the Use of Riches in the Service of Ultimate Purpose
Paul G. Schervish and Keith Whitaker
INDIANA UNIVERSITY PRESS
BLOOMINGTON INDIANAPOLIS
This book is a publication of
Indiana University Press
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Bloomington, IN 47404-3797 USA
www.iupress.indiana.edu
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2010 by Paul G. Schervish and Keith Whitaker
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The Association of American University Presses Resolution on Permissions constitutes the only exception to this prohibition.
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992.
Manufactured in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Schervish, Paul G.
Wealth and the will of God : discerning the use of riches in the service of ultimate purpose / Paul G. Schervish and Keith Whitaker.
p. cm. - (Philanthropic and nonprofit studies)
Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index.
ISBN 978-0-253-35407-5 (cloth : alk. paper) - ISBN 978-0-253-22148-3 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Wealth-Religious aspects-Christianity-History of doctrines. I. Whitaker, Albert Keith. II. Title.
BR115.W4S34 2009
261.8 5-dc22
2009022813
1 2 3 4 5 15 14 13 12 11 10
To Jen, for the gift of time
KW
To Terry Chipman, for wisdom better than gold
PS
Contents
Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Moral Biography
1. Aristotle: Being-in-Action and Discernment
2. Aquinas: Distinguish Ends and Means
3. Ignatius: All Things Ordered to Service of God
4. Luther: Receiving and Sharing God s Gift
5. Calvin: Giving Gratitude to God
6. Jonathan Edwards: Awakenings to Benevolence
Conclusion: Classical Wisdom and Contemporary Decisions
The Contribution of Western Christianity to Discernment about Wealth
Selected Readings
Index
Preface
This book is about disposition and doing. It is about vocation-the intersection of thinking, feeling, and acting in regard to the specifics of the will of God for a particular individual, in a particular place, at a particular time. We ask the six teachers from Aristotle to Edwards just what they have to offer to help shape a spiritual vocation of wealth for our time. We seek to guide today s wealth holders (and ultimately all people) and those pastors, counselors, financial professionals, and fundraisers who associate with them. We offer a contemporary lens on the spiritual nourishment provided by Western Christian religious traditions. This fresh approach provides a new reading of these traditional figures. Our aim is not to gather norms to be imposed on wealth holders. We are not engaged in an effort to ferret out and organize the mandates of religious founders on the use of wealth for doing good in the world. Instead, we seek to locate what is unfamiliar in six familiar authors. This is to uncover what these founders can offer those seeking to live a contemporary rather than a conventional religious biography of wealth.
The difference is to look for what the authors would have to say were each writing within the framework of a contemporary theory of agency. Such a theory of agency considers agents as reflective actors. They possess enough everyday working awareness to make conscientious choices about how to move forward with their desires within the hand of enablements and constraints they have been dealt. Today, what makes a biography of wealth religiously grounded is not submission to tenets enunciated by religious figures of the past or their followers in the present. Rather it is approaching religious traditions in a fresh way, one by which religious adherents discover from within their traditions of choice the array of responsibilities that they are called to figure out for their own circumstances, time, and place. In a word, they are reflectively putting together the meanings and practices of a calling particular to them.
There was an ancient tale in the Middle East about a beautiful ring with magic powers. It made the man who wore it rich, for the ring opened to its owner the door of wealth, God s love, and the love of other people. This man wished to pass his good fortune to his descendants. He gave the ring to his oldest son and then told his other children to look to that son for guidance and help. That son did the same when he grew old, and so the family enjoyed happiness and wealth for years and years.
Many generations later, however, one inheritor was in a quandary: he had three virtuous sons whom he loved the same. When it was time to pass on the beautiful ring, he could not choose. So he had a jeweler fabricate two exact copies of the ring. He then took each son aside and secretly gave each of them one of the three rings.
When the father died, each son produced his ring and claimed title as master of the family and its fortune. But no one knew which of the three rings was the authentic one. The sons quarreled and with their own supporters divided into camps. Instead of the love of others they found hatred. And none found the door to wealth, for they were too busy arguing about the beauty and authenticity of their rings.
But others recalled the ring s power and searched for the door of wealth. To their surprise, they found that each of the rings could locate the door. But it could open the door only to him who possessed a certain frame of mind. A seeker of wealth had to view the ring with indifference and refrain from grasping at wealth or quarreling over it. The others found that when they had this attitude, they could find the door merely by tracing the outline of the ring. 1
Like any good story, this one adds meaning to our experience and suggests inner questions that we have. The dazzling ring is said to bring to its owner love, for example. How many beautiful possessions appear to do just that! People do find this idea tempting. But as the story reminds us, people also hope to use their treasure for something more than themselves. Wealth inspires thoughts of legacy, such as an inheritance, which is what the ring symbolizes. But a legacy is not only monetary in nature; it encompasses values and even a way of life. The value of caring for others is seen, for example, in the old man s wish to keep the doors of wealth and love open to his descendents.
While wealth can instruct and inspire union and, in the tale, family happiness, it can also incite discord. Because we are human, ownership of riches can generate claims of privilege, prestige, and power that are at odds with love, as shown by the father with three sons. He wants to take care of his family, but he tries to improvise a solution to his dilemma without making a decision. Chaos ensues. And the sons show that while beauty (here, that of the ring) can elevate us, it can also make us put appearances before reality.
In the end, none of the rings were truly valuable in themselves. The other people found that by adopting a peaceful attitude, they could find the door of wealth by tracing the outline of the ring. True wealth, they learn, depends not on things but on our attitudes toward things, on a stance and not on stuff, inspiration rather than inheritance. Ultimately, the apparently prized possession of the ring was but a sign, a marker, pointing toward the real prize, and available to everyone.
There is also a religious interpretation of the story, which may explain why it was retold for centuries. Recall that the ring was said to bring the love both of other people and of God. In this reading, the first patriarch is God. God gives His seal and ring, which stands for true religion or a sort of natural faith, to humankind. People preserve this faith through many generations, until we come to the father with three worthy sons. The eldest would symbolize Moses, the middle son Jesus, and the youngest Mohammed. The descendents or followers of each son have their virtues, but the religious camps that develop around them fall to squabbling over which is the chosen branch of the family. In doing so, they lose sight of the true worth of the gift.
Confounding orthodox adherents of the three Abrahamic faiths, none of the sons in the story can prove his ring is the true one. (And perhaps even the original ring is not the true prize.) Its mere outline opens the door to wealth to whoever adopts a mindset of love and faith. Even the ring copies do this, for they have the outline and beauty of the original. The story teaches, then, that each of religious traditions contains truth. To find that truth, one must overcome temptations to ownership and preeminence.
What is wealth, how do we recognize it, and what it is for? How do we understand it in the context of faith, which assigns ultimacy to God alone? These are some of the broader questions the story poses, and they are the focus of this book. To explore answers, we consider six great theologians, philosophers, and spiritual leaders and their thoughts on life and wealth, especially how riches can serve ultimate purposes. We turn first to Aristotle, then to five Christian thinkers: Thomas Aquinas, Ignatius of Loyola, Mart