Reflection on the Church's Use of Money

I was reflecting on the age-old critique of Christianity that it has spent more money on beautiful churches than for the poor. The following insight (Lonergan!) resulted.

Aristotle's naturalism is not what we commonly think of as materialism/physicalism today, which is reductionistic and usually, but not always, mechanistic (despite apparent difficulties posed by, for example, the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, Gödel's Incompleteness Theorems, and mesoscopic brain dynamics among other possible critiques). I personally don't think it's the best strategy to critique reductionistic physicalism by reference to scientific or mathematical postulates because the analysis remains simply on that order of abstraction, namely, the scientific (Physica) or mathematic (Mathematica) while neglecting to address the deeper metaphysical (Metaphysica; the third level of abstraction according to Jacques Maritain and other Thomistic-Aristotelian thinkers) principles at work, but it at least suggests that, prima facie, reductionistic physicalism is not so straightforward as many cultural physicalists would like to suggest it is.

Naturalism of the Aristotelian sort still makes room for non-physical being, but physicalism/materialism does not. Hence one of Aristotle's categories of being is quality, not simply quantity. Substance has an intelligible core/essence that, while supervening upon the physical order, transcends it. With physicalism, which seems to go in hand with nominalism--the denial of an actually-intelligible core to reality that we can access and study, there no longer is an intelligible core nor space for non-physical or trans-physical orders of being, and hence is there place for quality? It seems that there is room only for quantity, or the concrete measurement of stuff.

But how does the critique of Christians that they spend more money on building churches than on helping the poor really stand? There are multiple ways of answering.

We can recall that it was Judas who objected to the repentant woman's "wasting" of costly ointments to anoint Jesus. As the Gospel of John records:

But Judas...said, "Why was this ointment not sold for three hundred denarii [day's wages] and given to the poor?” This he said, not that he cared for the poor but because he was a thief, and as he had the money box he used to take what was put into it. Jesus said, “Let her alone, let her keep it for the day of my burial. The poor you always have with you, but you do not always have me.” (John 12:4-8)

The words of Jesus here suggest that an act of reverence to Him is more pressingly important than materially helping the poor. On supernatural principles, it is clear that the reverence of God in sacred objects has a kind of permanent, even infinite, value, whereas helping the poor is good but transitory and of finite value. Worship of God, of the Creator, ultimately, in some sense, "trumps" the assistance of creatures. But we also know that Jesus links the two Great Commandments so that the fulfillment of one entails the fulfillment of the other and vice versa. Nevertheless, everything has a proper order, and the New Testament suggests that the authentic worship of God will inevitably lead to the assistance of the poor and a love of neighbor.

But the materialists reject the supernatural and hence recourse to principles of faith are futile in dialoging with them. The materialist objection to such use of money makes logical sense; a Christian's critique of Christianity's practice, ultimately, does not make sense because the Christian is critiquing the practice through a materialist lens rather than a supernatural one, which is self-contradictory. It's claiming to have faith while acting and processing reality without faith. For the materialist, there is no such thing as quality but only quantity; no such thing as grace and supernatural charity, but only money. Morality for the materialist commonly becomes a form of utilitarianism or pragmatism, a fruit of the post-Enlightenment, industrial mentality of production, consumption, efficiency, and finally, capitalism.

But it seems to me that we can respond with reason even to a naturalist or perhaps even a materialist without recourse to supernatural principles. One possible response would be: certainly giving money to the poor through charitable programs helps, but sociologically, charities are reactive, not proactive, correctives to the social problem of poverty. Charities, while mitigating the problem, will not solve the problem. Hence, money itself cannot solve the problem of poverty. I even think that a reasonable materialist will certainly not hold that the only way to help the poor is through material donation but also through the sharing of personal initiative and social reformation and reorganization (if possible).

So what can solve the problem (aside from the fact that Jesus suggests that until the Kingdom is definitively established, there will always be poverty on earth)? Well, there is an entire social structure that reinforces poverty, both culturally and institutionally. But social structures are made up of individuals who have agendas, who work with zero-sum mentalities. So long as there is a zero-sum mentality, the mentality of competition without moral or ethical limits, so long as there is the notion of radical individualism and the assertion of personal rights over all else, there will be poverty. As long as one person anywhere asserts that he is entitled to something at the expense of someone else, that it's simply "their problem" but not his, there will be poverty. In short, so long as there is what is commonly and traditionally called sin, there will be poverty. On a sociological-psychological analysis, sin is nothing other than narcissism, the elevation of the self. But we cannot understand others, we cannot stand under others humbly and with affectionate support, if we are above them. If it is true that we have more than enough resources to spare, then it must be the collective inertia of sinful, social structures that extinguish any hope that an individual can actually change anything, and hence the collective mass who may care about doing something ultimately gives up trying.

Even better than giving money to charities is the consistent and arduous practice of personal, moral excellence--the practice of virtues, such as compassion, mutual support and consideration, prudence and courage, self-control and a sense of justice, etc. The best thing for an addict is not more money but social support from people who care to help him. The best thing is time invested with personal interest in another person, not money invested so that I don't have to look at him or think about him for the rest of the day, week, month, or year.

But of course, the materialist will critique the practice of building churches anyway since they don't believe in the supernatural purpose of that building in the first place. But this gets to a second sub-critique of the materialists that usually is not even consciously articulated in their minds. What is strange is that many materialists consistently have a very shallow and uneducated view of human anthropology and history, specifically, the fundamental ritual consciousness of humanity that has been present universally among humans since the paleolithic era. This is not to tell the materialist that they are wrong about God (I think they, in fact, are), but to suggest that religion, despite its abuses, is 1) a fundamental structure to human society that protects a value that has always been important to humans, namely, cultic-ritualistic action that is necessary for any civilization; and 2) can, like any structure that attempts to protect a value, be abused, even severely so.

The materialist doesn't realize that the value that religion protects does not, strictly speaking, require adherence to a supernatural deity or articles of faith. Historically, in the West, that value has taken on supernatural overtones, however. But in itself, the value of cultic action in human society is fundamentally linked to the dialectical, historical structure of the human mind, meaning that our personal and collective identity is tied up with our historical memory that situates us here and now, with these values, with this culture, with this government, etc. Everyone, whether they believe in God or not, has a whole slew of rituals that protect and direct their daily living and keep it coherent and stable, everything from brushing their teeth, to eating at generally-established times, to following traffic laws, to common social courtesy, etc.

Therefore, the materialist critique of Christians' imprudent use of money is almost hopelessly muddled: there are so many different sub-critiques going on that aren't even addressed, much less articulated. Plus, as the atheist philosopher Slavoj Žižek pointed out: once you do away with a structure as large as, say, a world religion or world economic system (such as capitalism), what will you do then? It's so easy to think that we need to tear this and that down, replace this or that. But replace it with what? And most people never think that through (e.g. the Occupy Wall Street movement). They never think of the consequences of such an action and the vacuum that they will create that will need to be filled in order to preserve a certain level of global, social tranquility.