In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
- Genesis 1:1
In his 2020 encyclical Fratelli Tutti, Pope Francis wrote, “The right to private property can only be considered a secondary natural right, derived from the principle of the universal destination of created goods.”
Listed under the heading “Re-Envisaging The Social Role of Property,” Francis’ comments are not, as some of his more free market critics suppose, out of the mainstream of Roman Catholic economic thought. Rather, the Pope’s attack on private property is simply a restatement of Rome’s long-held unchristian, erroneous, and socialist understanding of private property.
To underscore Francis hostility to private property, we need look no further than the paragraph quoted at the top of this post, “The principle of the common use of created goods is the ‘first principle of the whole ethical and social order; it is a natural and inherent right that takes priority over others.’” In Pope Francis view, collectivism is “ethical” while holding to the Bible’s view of private property, that it is lawful for a man to do what he wishes with his own things, is not.
Contrary to Pope Francis, the common use of created goods, far from being the “first principle of the whole ethical and social order,” is a guarantor of poverty and tyranny. One would think the many failed socialist states over the past 100 years, and the economic and political disasters suffered by those unfortunate enough to live in them, would make this clear. But far from slowing them down, it’s almost as if the economic disasters suffered by the Soviet Union, Venezuela and a host of other nations embolden the socialists, including Pope Francis, to double down on calling evil good and good evil by pushing for more economic collectivism.
In one of his lectures, John Robbins made the important point that systems of thought tend to go wrong from the g
very beginning. That is to say, systems of thought, in this case economic thought, tend to begin with faulty premises which then lead their adherents to faulty conclusions.
This can be seen in the economic thinking of Pope Francis, who begins with the unbiblical notion of the “the principle of the universal destination of created goods” which in turn leads him to attack private property and capitalism – God’s economics – and to promote the form of coveting we know as socialism or collectivism.
But while at least some Christians understand that capitalism is the economic system of the Bible, it may come as a surprise even to them that one must begin in Genesis to have a sound understanding of economics, specifically, the origin of private property.
The Universal Destination of Goods
In the first paragraph above, I quoted Pope Francis writing about the “universal destination of created goods.” Unless you’ve previously studied Roman Catholic economic thought, this may be a new term for you. As is often the case with new terms, it’s easy to read past them and instead focus on more familiar ideas. But “the universal destination of created goods” – sometimes this same idea is expressed as “the universal destination of all goods” or simply “the universal destination of goods” – is the most important concept in Roman Catholic economic thought. As such, it’s worth pausing here to discuss it.
In Ecclesiastical Megalomania, John Robbins wrote the following about the universal destination of goods,
The Thomistic notion of original communism – the denial that private property is part of the natural law, but that common property is both natural and divine – is foundational to all the Roman Catholic arguments for various forms of collectivism, from medieval feudalism and guild socialism to twentieth century fascism and liberation theology. The popes refer to this original communism as the “universal destination of all goods” (38).
Robbins went on to note that the principle of the universal destination of goods is so important in Roman Catholic social thought that “all rights are to be subordinated to it.” Robbins quotes Pope Paul VI writing, “All other rights whatsoever, including those of property and of free commerce, are to be subordinated to this principle [the universal destination of goods].”
This quote from Pope Paul VI, found in his 1967 encyclical Populorum Progressio, exposes as false the contention that Pope Francis is somehow, of all the popes, uniquely anti-capitalist. Responding to charges of Marxism stemming from his anti-capitalist 2013 Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, Pope Francis denied the charge and added that, “there is nothing in the exhortation that cannot be found in the social doctrine of the church.” In this case, Francis is telling the truth. One can go a step further and say that there is nothing in Francis’ subsequent writing which cannot be found in the social teaching of the church. This includes Francis’ statement about the fundamental importance of the principle of the universal destination of created goods from his encyclical Fratelli Tutti. Far from being uniquely anti-capitalist, Pope Francis’ hatred of free markets and his love of collectivism puts him solidly within the tradition of Rome’s social teaching.
Original Communism or Original Capitalism
Rome’s doctrine of the universal destination of goods, as important as it is in the Church-State’s system of social teaching, itself rests on a prior erroneous idea, that communism, not private property, was the original pre-fall economic order.
According to Rome, God gave the world to man collectively, not severally, to each man individually. In his Trinity Review “Ronald Sider – Contra Deum,” John Robbins refutes this idea as expressed in the work of Ronald Sider, an ersatz Evangelical whose economic thought has more in common with the Popes of Rome than with the Bible. Writes Robbins,
Sider would have us believe that when God put man on Earth, he gave the Earth to men corporately, not severally. Nowhere does he present any evidence for this idea. God, holding ultimate ownership of the Earth, gave it to men severally, not collectively. The argument for this may be found in the works of the seventeenth-century Christian thinker, Robert Filmer, of whom, presumably, Sider has heard.
What Robbins is saying here is that contrary to the false teaching of Rome, the original economic order was one of private property, capitalism, not communism, that is to say, collective ownership.
Since Robbins cites Robert Filmer, it is worth noting that Robbins’ 1973 doctoral dissertation from Johns Hopkins University is titled The Political Thought of Sir Robert Filmer. With that in mind, let’s take a look at what Filmer had to say about the original, pre-fall property order.
Wrote Filmer,
[F]or it is not possible for the wit of man to search out the first grounds or principles of government (which necessarily depend upon the original [origin] of property) except he know that at the creation one man alone was made, to whom the dominion of all things was given, and from whom all men derive their title (203-204, Patriarchy and Other Political Works, emphasis mine).
The idea here is that God, being the ultimate owner of all things, gave ownership of all the world to Adam, who parceled out his dominion to his sons, who did likewise for their descendants and so on and so forth. Writes Robbins,
Filmer argues for private property in the state of innocence in the same way that he argues that paternal and regal power are one: first, both power and property, which in effect are but different names for the same thing, were granted by God in Genesis. Second, respect for both power and property is commanded in the moral law. Just as obedience to governors is subsumed under the Fifth Commandment, so private property is established by the Eight Commandment, “Thou shalt not steal.” In a sense, Filmer is much more loyal to the Scriptural account than the Fathers, who posit a “natural” community of goods before the Fall, despite the fact that, as Filmer points out, this would make the law changeable. All other commandments are acknowledged to be valid both before and after the Fall; indeed, the Patristic doctrine was that the Ten Commandments were given because of the perverting effect sin had had on the law written in the hearts of men, and were not an addition to the effaced innate law. It is the divine law as revealed in the Ten Commandments which Filmer substitutes for the natural law regarding community of goods [the universal destination of goods] which the Fathers had evidently adopted from the Stoics (Robbins, The Political Thought of Sir Robert Filmer, 277).
As did Adam, so too did Noah who, as Robbins notes, “was more or less a second Adam,” dividing the world among his three sons after the flood.
In summary, both Robert Filmer and John Robbins taught, and taught correctly, that the original economic system at the founding of the world was capitalism, not communism.
The Pivotal Role of Genesis
As noted in Part 1, the goal of this series is to apply the lessons of Genesis to the many, serious, and seemingly insoluble problems America, and more broadly, the nations of the West, face in the early 21st century. And one of the most important lessons we can learn from Genesis is that the original economic system of the world, before the Fall, was, contrary to general consensus of the church Fathers and the teaching of the Popes of Rome, one of original private property, not original communism.
It is said that the worse fate than can befall and idea is not to be brilliantly attacked, but to be incompetently defended. By tracing the private property order back to the foundation of the world, one can establish that capitalism is the economic expression of Christianity and thus and idea that can and must be defended against those who would push communism, fascism or any other economic system that attacks the institution of private property.
But private property has suffered at the hands of incompetent defense. John Locke, for example, believed in private property but struggled to account for it. For example, in his Second Treatise on Civil Government Locke explicitly denied Filmer’s contention that all titles to private property originated in Adam and agreed with the church Fathers that God gave the world to mankind collectively. As such, he had to find some way to get from collective ownership to individual ownership. Locke solved this problem by arguing that collective property became private property when men mixed their labor with it. “Whatsoever then he removes out of the State that Nature hath provided, and left it in, he hath mixed his Labour with, and joined to it something that is his own, and thereby makes it his Property” (Locke, Second Treatise on Civil Government, 288, Laslett, ed.).
So for Locke, it is the mixing of one’s labor with property held in common that makes it one’s own. But where, we may ask, does one get the permission to mix his labor with property held in common? Would this not be stealing from the commons? Locke cites no Scripture for his argument.
This is not a competent defense of private property, but it is a very common notion among those who would seek to defend capitalism against the predations of the Popes and other socialists.
Reprove, Correct, Instruct
In his second letter to Timothy, the Apostle Paul wrote that all Scripture is God breathed and, “Profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.” This includes the good work of defending private property and limited government, what John Robbins called constitutional capitalism, “the economic and political consequent and counterpart of Christian theology.”
Whether it is the Antichrist Popes of Rome, a president, prime minister, or member of Congress, anyone who teaches a form of economics that undermines private property and seeks to use government to steal from one man in order to give to another, Christians have a moral obligation to rebuke, correct and instruct them in the truth of the Word of God.
Economics is not an independent science. It is a branch of theology. But, unfortunately, many Christians today are nearly as in the dark concerning what the Bible says about private property as unbelievers. This needs to change.