The Theology of Giving

This week, a quiet war is taking place in houses across America (and indeed, across much of the world). Will it be be a time of thanksgiving, giving honor and glory to God for the many blessings with which He has blessed us? Or will it be a time of Black Friday sales and buying more, more, more? Will this Sunday mark the beginning of the season of Advent, a time of sober preparation for the coming of Jesus? Or will it mark the beginning of the secular “Christmas season,” marked by unbridled materialism? One of these visions of the season is dedicated to giving and forgiving; the other is consumed by consumption. The Vatican directory on popular piety (which describes some of the ways that we ordinary Catholics can live out the liturgical year in our own homes) says:

Advent is a time of waiting, conversion and of hope: [….] Popular piety, because of its intuitive understanding of the Christian mystery, can contribute effectively to the conservation of many of the values of Advent, which are not infrequently threatened by the commercialization of Christmas and consumer superficiality.

Popular piety perceives that it is impossible to celebrate the Lord’s birth except in an atmosphere of sobriety and joyous simplicity and of concern for the poor and imarginated. The expectation of the Lord’s birth makes us sensitive to the value of life and the duties to respect and defend it from conception. Popular piety intuitively understands that it is not possible coherently to celebrate the birth of him “who saves his people from their sins” without some effort to overcome sin in one’s own life, while waiting vigilantly for Him who will return at the end of time.

So if we really want to prepare for Christmas day, we should do that not by rushing to the store to buy the latest gadget, but by caring for the poor and marginalized. The Poor Family of Nazareth was once turned away by the preoccupied denizens of Bethlehem. The Christ Child now comes to us in the guise of the poor (cf. Matt. 25:40), and we must decide whether to welcome Him or reject Him anew.

So with that said, we need to take a serious look at how we give. More specifically, what’s the difference between tithing, almsgiving, and charity? You could be forgiven for not knowing that there was a difference between those three, but there is, and it’s important that we understand why we need all three.

I. Tithing

Let’s take tithing first. We have a moral duty in justice to tithe, for virtually the exact same reasons that we have a moral duty to pay our taxes. We receive from the Church, we’re part of the family of the Church, and so we have a need to cooperate in meeting the material needs of the Church that enable her to continue her spiritual mission. As the Catechism explains:

The precepts of the Church are set in the context of a moral life bound to and nourished by liturgical life. The obligatory character of these positive laws decreed by the pastoral authorities is meant to guarantee to the faithful the very necessary minimum in the spirit of prayer and moral effort, in the growth in love of God and neighbor: [….] The fifth precept (“You shall help to provide for the needs of the Church”) means that the faithful are obliged to assist with the material needs of the Church, each according to his own ability.

(Sidenote: the Vatican’s website actually misprints CCC 2043 twice, in different ways, so you may see it worded or numbered differently; I confirmed the proper text in the paper version).

In other words, the difference between tithing and charitable giving is (a little bit) like the difference between paying your taxes and giving to charity. It’s true that some of your tithe money, like some of your tax money, goes to help the poor and needy. But that doesn’t mean it’s the same thing. At the Last Judgment, if Our Lord asks you what you’ve done for the poor, you don’t want to be left saying only, “well, I paid my taxes,” or “well, I sometimes tithed.” The Church is very clear that when you financially provide for the needs of the Church, you’re not “charitably giving,” you’re doing “the very necessary minimum in the spirit of prayer and moral effort, in the growth in love of God and neighbor.”

The moral duty of the faithful to contribute to the Church is also recognized in the Code of Canon Law:

Can. 222 §1. The Christian faithful are obliged to assist with the needs of the Church so that the Church has what is necessary for divine worship, for the works of the apostolate and of charity, and for the decent support of ministers.

Comparatively little is said in the New Testament about tithing, but two things are worth noting: first, that Jesus pays the Temple tax (cf. Matt. 17:24-27); and second, that both Jesus and St. Paul stress the faithful’s need to materially care for preachers on the Gospel, on the grounds that “the laborer deserves his wages” (Luke 10:7; 1 Tim. 5:18).

II. Almsgiving

In addition to the moral duty to tithe, there’s also a moral duty to give to the poor. Nota bene: this is a moral duty in justice; we’re not yet talking about over-and-above charity.

Can. 222 §2. They [the Christian faithful] are also obliged to promote social justice and, mindful of the precept of the Lord, to assist the poor from their own resources.

Because “social justice” has a bad rap these days (and is misused), it’s worth looking back on what Jesus, the New Testament, and the earliest Christians have to say on the subject.

Jesus says, “He who has two coats, let him share with him who has none; and he who has food, let him do likewise” (Luke 3:11). The Apostle James warns (James 5:1-3):

Come now, you rich, weep and howl for the miseries that are coming upon you. Your riches have rotted and your garments are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver have rusted, and their rust will be evidence against you and will eat your flesh like fire. You have laid up treasure for the last days.

After quoting this passage, the Catechism adds:

St. John Chrysostom vigorously recalls this: “Not to enable the poor to share in our goods is to steal from them and deprive them of life. The goods we possess are not ours, but theirs.” “The demands of justice must be satisfied first of all; that which is already due in justice is not to be offered as a gift of charity”:

“When we attend to the needs of those in want, we give them what is theirs, not ours. More than performing works of mercy, we are paying a debt of justice.” (St. Gregory the Great).

To modern readers, this probably is confusing. If it’s my money, and I didn’t attain it immorally, why do the Church Fathers and the Catechism say that I’m giving to the poor what’s rightfully theirs and not mine? We’ll get into that below, in the last section. For now, just realize that there is a duty in justice, and that this duty is distinct from the duty to care for the Church, and also distinct from what we’re motivated to by charity.

It’s significant that canon law actually specifies that we need to give from our own resources. Giving someone else’s money (either by raising taxes, or distributing from some existing fund that somebody else raised) might look like almsgiving, but it’s important that we have our own skin in the game.

III. Charitable Giving

Hopefully, you’re starting to see why it’s important to distinguish tithing and social justice from charitable giving. These are acts of justice, not charity, as Pope St. Gregory reminds us. Léon Bloy (1846-1917) illustrates the difference:

You have an income of three hundred thousand francs, you give a few pennies at the church door, then you dash off in an automobile to devote your attention to vile or silly doings. This is called giving to charity. Ah, some day God, who made man’s tongue, will have terribly to avenge that outraged organ! [….]

Charity is patient, benign, in no way envious or malicious, having no vanity, no ambition, not even seeking what belongs to her, equally a stranger to anger and to every thought of evil; in a way, that Charity is God Himself!

Bloy concludes, ◦“The Saints give alms, the Bourgeois alone give to Charity.” In other words, claiming that your giving is charitable is asserting that you’re acting out of divine love. To claim this while giving a pittance, or doing it for the tax write-off, or because it looks good, etc., is blasphemous. Indeed, the etymology of the word pittance points to this: the word comes from “pity,” and refers to religious donations. But the amount given in “charity” was often so small that it came to mean “a small portion, scanty rations.”

Having said that, we are called to give (and live) charitably. This is particularly true in regards to the works of mercy. From the Catechism again:

The works of mercy are charitable actions by which we come to the aid of our neighbor in his spiritual and bodily necessities. Instructing, advising, consoling, comforting are spiritual works of mercy, as are forgiving and bearing wrongs patiently. the corporal works of mercy consist especially in feeding the hungry, sheltering the homeless, clothing the naked, visiting the sick and imprisoned, and burying the dead. Among all these, giving alms to the poor is one of the chief witnesses to fraternal charity: it is also a work of justice pleasing to God.

Charitable actions are thus much broader than writing a check. It includes caring the soul of my brother, not just his body. Perhaps that charitable gift you’re called to make is smiling at an unlikable relative at Thanksgiving, or forgiving some past injury.

But that doesn’t mean that we don’t also need to care for the bodies of our marginalized neighbors. In doing so, we can meet both the demands of justice and (if we’re doing it with a loving and merciful heart) the invitation of charity. Christ both calls us to give alms and warns us about giving alms in the wrong spirit (Matt. 6:2-4). The solution isn’t to stop giving, but to give better.

IV. The Theology of Giving

Why is there such an emphasis on tithing, almsgiving, and charitable giving? It turns out, there’s a rich theology of giving. It’s important that we know this theology, because there are two pernicious errors, one from the Left, and one from the Right. On the Left, there’s a war on inequality, particularly economic inequality. On the Right, there’s an idea of absolute private property. The theorist Murray Rothbard explained the defining features of right-wing Libertarianism this way:

Whatever their numerous differences, all “right-wing libertarians” agree on the central core of their thought, briefly, that every individual has the absolute moral right to “self-ownership,” the ownership and control of his own body without aggressive interference by any other person or group. Secondly, libertarians believe that every individual has the right to claim the ownership of whatever goods he has created or found in a natural, unused state: this establishes an absolute property right, not only in his own person but also in the things that he finds or creates. Thirdly, if everyone has such an absolute right to private property, he therefore has the right to exchange such property titles for other titles to property: hence the right to give away such property to whomever he chooses (provided, of course, that the recipient is willing); hence the right of bequest — and the right of the recipient to inherit.

In response to these two extremes, the Christian response is that inequality is (or at least can be) good, but that private property isn’t absolute.

From a Christian perspective, the first thing to note is that inequality comes from God. That is, inequality is not just found after the Fall. It’s found at the dawn of Creation, and it’s found in Heaven. In Heaven, we find ranks of angels, differing in glory (Scripture speaks of Seraphim, Cherubim, Thrones, Dominations, Virtues, Powers, Principalities, Archangels, and Angels). On earth, we find humans, animals, plants, and inanimate objects. St. Thomas Aquinas points to this to argue that inequality isn’t of sinful origin; rather, it’s from God:

Hence in natural things species seem to be arranged in degrees; as the mixed things are more perfect than the elements, and plants than minerals, and animals than plants, and men than other animals; and in each of these one species is more perfect than others. Therefore, as the divine wisdom is the cause of the distinction of things for the sake of the perfection of the universe, so it is the cause of inequality. For the universe would not be perfect if only one grade of goodness were found in things.

Imagine an orchestra composed only of tubas, or a bouquet with only daffodils, and you’ll see what Aquinas means – it’s better, on the whole, to have a mix of different things, with different strengths and features. In this way, a diverse creation gives greater glory to God.

This is true amongst humans, as well. St. Paul likens the Church to the Body of Christ, and says, “if the ear should say, ‘Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,’ that would not make it any less a part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would be the hearing?” (1 Cor. 12:16-17). In the parable of the talents, Jesus does not pretend that everyone have received equally from God: rather “to one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability” (Matt. 25:15).

The second thing to understand is why God desires inequality. We can understand the beauty and purpose of this inequality if we look at grace.
Aquinas points out that God

dispenses His gifts of grace variously, in order that the beauty and perfection of the Church may result from these various degree; even as He instituted the various conditions of things, that the universe might be perfect. Hence after the Apostle had said (Ephesians 4:7): ‘To every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the giving of Christ,’ having enumerated the various graces, he adds (Ephesians 4:12): ‘For the perfecting of the saints . . . for the edifying of the body of Christ.’

Everything you have was ultimately given to you by God, and the purpose of these gifts is not simply for your own private enjoyment but for His glory, and for building up the Church.

As a giver, you grow in generosity. You also grow in trust of God. After all, one of the biggest reasons that we don’t give is that we’re afraid of what’ll happen if we give and then it turns out later that we really needed the money. As a recipient of a gift, you also learn to grow in trust, as you see that God will care for you (through others) amidst your poverty. You also grow in humility, since you’re placed in the humble position of having to accept the generosity of others. And so the poor exist for the sake of the rich, and the rich exist for the sake of the poor. Together, we can grow in charity, and draw each other closer to Heaven.

Third, recognize that property is rooted in Creation, and we have no absolute right over Creation. You didn’t create yourself, and you didn’t create the world around you. You may have discovered it or improved upon it in some way, but that’s not enough to give you an absolute right to do with it as you will. Contrary to the Libertarianism described by Rothbard, St. Ambrose of Milan (340 – 397) criticized the philosophers of his day for exaggerating the distinction between public and private property:

Next [these philosophers] considered it consonant with justice that one should treat common, that is, public property as public, and private as private. But this is not even in accord with nature, for nature has poured forth all things for all men for common use. God has ordered all things to be produced, so that there should be food in common to all, and that the earth should be a common possession for all. Nature, therefore, has produced a common right for all, but greed has made it a right for a few.

It’s for this reason that Aquinas goes so far as to say it’s not theft to take another man’s bread in the case of extreme necessity:

Things which are of human right cannot derogate from natural right or Divine right. Now according to the natural order established by Divine Providence, inferior things are ordained for the purpose of succoring man’s needs by their means. Wherefore the division and appropriation of things which are based on human law, do not preclude the fact that man’s needs have to be remedied by means of these very things. Hence whatever certain people have in superabundance is due, by natural law, to the purpose of succoring the poor. For this reason Ambrose [Loc. cit., Article 2, Objection 3] says, and his words are embodied in the Decretals (Dist. xlvii, can. Sicut ii): “It is the hungry man’s bread that you withhold, the naked man’s cloak that you store away, the money that you bury in the earth is the price of the poor man’s ransom and freedom.”

Since, however, there are many who are in need, while it is impossible for all to be succored by means of the same thing, each one is entrusted with the stewardship of his own things, so that out of them he may come to the aid of those who are in need. Nevertheless, if the need be so manifest and urgent, that it is evident that the present need must be remedied by whatever means be at hand (for instance when a person is in some imminent danger, and there is no other possible remedy), then it is lawful for a man to succor his own need by means of another’s property, by taking it either openly or secretly: nor is this properly speaking theft or robbery.

To conclude, consider the intersection of these three strands of thought: God created the world for our good and for the sake of His glory. To enrich its wonders, He fills it with creatures of different degrees of glory, and with different gifts and talents. In humans, this is true not only in terms of our circumstances (e.g., being born in the contemporary West rather than in Europe during the Black Plague), but also in terms of our natural gifts, and even our supernatural gifts. As St. Paul says (1 Cor. 12:4-7),

Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of working, but it is the same God who inspires them all in every one. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.

We should start thinking of everything that we have – our money, our talents, our knowledge of the faith, any charismatic gifts we may have, etc. – in this way. How might God be using these things for the upbuilding of His Kingdom? How might I use these things in the service of His Church?

Of course, we still have all sorts of reasons that we’re afraid to give. Next time, I plan to look at some of our most common excuses and why they don’t cut it. But for now, just notice how your own life has been enriched through the generosity of others. Offer thanksgiving for that, particularly as we celebrate Thanksgiving. And then ask how God might be calling you to enrich the lives of others through your own generosity this Advent.