Creativity and Property
page 1 of 3by Udo Middelmann
Reprinted from HIS magazine 1973
Note: The theology of land is an important topic these days, as the church struggles for the right responses to crises involving the Palestinian Arabs; the ecological crisis and its attendant crises of famine and destitution; along with the perennial struggle for justice in the face of mutually exclusive ethic claims to land. Theology of land was a major issue for Christian thinkers in the beginning and middle of the last century - as a response to the rise of communism, with its disavowal of private property. This article is 30 years old, but it remains biblically relevant: the author is writing from the perspective of decades of scripture research until his time; thinkers have gone on different roads in the last 30 years and much of this collective knowledge has faded from memory - in part because Middelmann and peers answered the questions to everyone's satisfaction at the time.
In 1848, Karl Marx in the Communist Manifesto cried out against private property because he saw how capitalism had exploited men. He saw the abuses of child labor and of poor wages. Today the cry is no longer against private property (or the basis of the misuse of capitalism) but rather against anything private - property, life or human individuality. How does the Bible speak to this issue?
Property and Creativity
Scripture points out that property is intimately tied to creatorship. The creator owns that which he has created: "The earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof, the world, and those who dwell therein" (Psalm 24:1). God owns the world, he is its creator.
Another psalm expresses the same idea in a different context - the notion that the Jewish nation could approach God by fulfilling the law legalistically. The Pharisees felt that men could establish a relationship with God through a series of sacrifices offered self-righteously. But God says this will not do (Psalm 50: 9-12). God, as the Creator, is the proprietor of the earth. We cannot, therefore, come to God with something which is already his and succeed in pleasing him.
We might note in passing that the Bible never pictures animals as creators or owners of property; as far as we know they have no capacity to create, no ability to imagine or to externalize what they imagine even if they could imagine. Thus animals can own nothing in the ultimate sense. On the other hand, the Bible emphasizes that man, like God, is a creator. Man too has rights that extend to the things that he has made. They originate in his creative activity. He has put his stamp upon them. They are his property.
The Ten Commandments, especially in those laws that govern property, bear this out: "You shall not steal" and "You shall not covet" (Exodus 20:15 and 17). The latter specifies that one shouldn't covet his neighbor's house, wife, servants, animals or "anything" that is his neighbor's. The laws that cover property presuppose property rights. You shall not steal because what you steal belongs to - somebody else. And if it belongs to him, it is his to use, and the enjoyment and the fruits of its use are his as well.
Two of Jesus' parables likewise affirm the value of property: the parable of the talents (Matthew 25:14-30) and the parable of the unjust steward (Luke 16:1-13). The second is especially important for there we are told that men are the stewards of the property they receive from God as a natural outflow of their own creativity. That the steward deals unjustly is not the point of the parable. Rather Christ is speaking to the Christian to work now in such a fashion that after the Christian's own death there will be significant results. For the steward, even though unjustly, creatively affected events which took place after his dismissal from stewardship.
Property rights, therefore, exist in Scripture. But what is really protected is man's creative mental activity - his ideas which are externalized into the things he owns and has a right to possess and to enjoy. Property includes both the tangibles and the intangibles, things as well as ideas. Moreover, true communion and true community are based on property rights. For unless a person owns something he can share, there can be no community. Social justice in the community at large and real sharing in smaller groups are both based on that principle.
As Christians speaking the gospel into the world today, we must never forget this: The right to own property is presupposed in Scripture, and it is established on the ground that man is a creator. This becomes the basis for our struggle as Christians against social injustice.
The limitations of property
The concept of property and property rights can, of course, lead to a great deal of injustice. But God has not left us without some very careful limitations to prevent us from turning the affirmation of property into something harsh and inhuman. First, we are to be content with what we have. Paul writes to Timothy: "There is great gain in godliness with contentment; for we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world; but if we have food and clothing, with these we shall be content" (1 Timothy 6:6-8). The Greek word translated here as content means "sufficient," and the word translated as godliness is "piety" in a good sense, namely, true faith in the God of the Bible. What Paul is saying, then, is that to be content with the things that we do have is indeed to be godly. The understanding of the existence of God and of God's goodness brings this contentment, the realization that what we have is really sufficient.
Unless otherwise noted, all materials on the urbana.org web site are Copyright InterVarsity Christian Fellowship / USA. All rights reserved.
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