Often placed, more or less justifiably, in the lineage of John Courtney Murray S.J. (1904–1967), Michael Novak (1933–2017) distinguished himself through systematic efforts in the direction of building a theology of economics. At the risk of making a statement that may seem too daring, I believe that Michael Novak’s work can be considered one of the most important contributions of this kind since Max Weber. The following lines are an argument in support of this assertion.
The American dream: An Unusual Course of Life
The history of Novak’s formation is a winding one, beginning with his enrollment as a potential candidate for the priesthood during the years 1955-1960, when he earned a bachelor’s degree in theology at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome. What followed, rather surprisingly, was his decision to become a professional writer. Despite these vocational shifts, he came to be recognized as one of the most prolific political thinkers of recent decades.
If his participation in the second session of the Second Vatican Council gave him a theological perspective on the world, explored in the monograph The Open Church (1964), his studies at Harvard—where he obtained an M.A. in the History and Philosophy of Religion in 1966—helped him discover the sources of modern political and economic thought. In this way, a path was opened for him toward a conception indelibly shaped by classical Catholic theology.
From the long list of more than fifty books authored by Novak, I note here substantial works on the theology of economics and social doctrine, such as Catholic Social Thought and Liberal Institutions: Freedom with Justice (1987), The Catholic Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism: What Max Weber Missed (1993), The Fire of Invention: Civil Society and the Future of the Corporation (1997), Universal Hunger for Liberty: Why the Clash of Civilizations is Not Inevitable (2004), along with an important work dedicated to the religious underpinnings of the thought of the first American president: Washington’s God (2006).
Engaged in political debates, such as the legitimacy of the Iraq war, Novak consistently demonstrated a commitment to American conservative values, even when he collided with the official position of the Vatican. From a Catholic perspective, the way the American thinker interprets the Social Doctrine of the Church sometimes seems inadequate, even critical of the official stance of ecclesiastical authorities often inclined toward the left. A close reading reveals a clear intention behind his economic work: to propose an interpretation of the doctrine from the perspective of the New World, creatively incorporating the individual freedom foundational to Anglo-American political life. The question he constantly seeks to answer in many of his books and lectures always stirs unexpected passions and energies:
What is the most concrete and effective way to increase the wealth of nations?
Rephrased, what exactly causes wealth? Critically analyzing Max Weber’s contribution, Novak reveals the primary gap in the thinking of his illustrious predecessor—the inextricable relationship between economic freedom and political freedom was not adequately emphasized. This, then, is the starting point of his entire argument.
To present Michael Novak’s conception in a relevant manner, I have chosen two significant works. The first, already mentioned in the brief bibliography above, is The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism (published in 1983, the work earned him the Templeton Prize in 1994) and Will It Liberate? Questions about Liberation Theology (1986). I will start with the latter, due to its special significance, a significance that also concerns post-communist countries like Romania. Certain themes and issues raised by the problem of poverty in Latin American countries are likewise specific to countries liberated from the grip of the Soviet bloc.
The Illusions of Freedom and the ‘Latino’ Way of Thinking
The monograph Will It Liberate? directly and critically addresses the most controversial theological-political movement ever born in South America: liberation theology. Although condemned by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and harshly criticized by Pope John Paul II, this strange amalgam of theology and Marxism has exerted a constant influence on the minds and hearts of those living in countries like Brazil, Argentina, and Colombia. It is illustrated by thinkers among whom the poet Ernesto Cardenal, the Franciscan friar Leonardo Boff, and especially the Peruvian priest Gustavo Gutiérrez, stand out.
Liberation theology claims to arise from a synthetic exigency similar to that of St. Thomas Aquinas when confronted with Aristotelian philosophy. This cultural synthesis imperative was clearly expressed by Archbishop Hélder Pessoa Câmara. While visiting the University of Chicago, the prelate invoked the need “to do with Karl Marx what St. Thomas did with Aristotle in his day.” Displaying a political zeal devoid of philosophical discernment, Cardenal also made even more astonishing statements: “Christ led me to Marx” or “For me, the four Gospels are equally communist.” Faced with such assertions, after overcoming the initial shock, any Catholic thinker will have serious questions about their origin. Eager to delve into the essence of such a fatal attraction to Marxist ideology, Michael Novak devoted an entire volume to the thought of the ‘liberation’ theologians, aware of the debate’s importance.
The first observation he patiently deconstructs relates to the anti-American perspective specific to this ideology. Whether it concerns South American theologians, such as those already mentioned, thinkers in the United States, or certain hierarchs of the Catholic Church, the usual discourse constantly invokes the notion that American ‘imperialism’ undermines the interests of poor countries. In other words, the idea of the malevolent interference of an external imperialist agent is, as with Romanian nationalists of all eras, an inevitable ingredient.
Delving deeper, constantly providing quotes such as the one from Father Miguel d’Escoto (Nicaragua’s Foreign Minister) who claimed that “all capitalism is inherently flawed from the ground up,” Novak reveals the deepest motivation behind the anti-American discourse of the ‘liberation’ theologians: before being pro-Marxist, the vast majority is anti-capitalist. As seen in Juan Luis Segundo’s A Theology for Artisans of a New Humanity (5 vols., 1973–74):
The only option left to us is to choose between two forms of oppression. And the history of Marxism, though oppressive itself, now offers more hope than the history of existing capitalism… Marx did not create the class struggle; international capitalism created it.
The first thing those like me, who have lived in countries under the tyranny of communism for decades, can observe is the blindness of the ‘liberation’ apologists to the testimonies coming from the Soviet gulags or from Romania’s sinister prisons before 1989. For none of the South American thinkers are these real facts, just as for Jean-Paul Sartre and his followers, the crimes of the communist “jailer state” (as Ioan-Petru Culianu aptly called it) were nothing more than the fantasies of a nihilist thinker like Emil Cioran. By denying the malevolent consequences of Marxist-Leninist ideology, they are fundamentally following the logic of the void described with genius and surgical precision by Alain Besançon in Les Origines intellectuelles du léninisme (1977).
The question Novak persistently asks the proponents of liberation theology opens the door to both theological and political reflections on the sources of social injustice: “But will it liberate?” This is the title of the second chapter of his book, where he addresses an issue that may be based on Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger’s essay Eschatology and Utopia published in 1977.
Michael Novak clearly distinguishes between two intellectual perspectives capable of guiding a theology of political economy: utopian and realistic. To illustrate the utopian discourse, he cites Bishop Desmond Tutu from Africa. When asked about the model he envisions when proclaiming the need for Africa’s liberation through the construction of a just world, Tutu acknowledged that he could not point to a real society like the one he recommended. Similarly, none of the apostles of Latin America’s liberation can point to a real social model. This is simply because such a thing does not exist. Without exception, they all rely on a ‘vision’ that is supposed to be realized in an undefined historical future. In my opinion, this mode of thinking is the direct result of the kind of doctrine that can be called ‘ideology.’
Displaying his critical attitude towards utopian projects, Novak introduces the discussion of the political-social model provided by the supposed enemy of liberation: the United States of America. Speaking openly about the three fundamental freedoms of American civil society, he systematically lists them:
Liberation from tyranny and torture in the political sphere; liberation from the tyranny of poverty in the economic sphere; freedom of conscience, information, and ideas in the spheres of religious, cultural, and moral life.
Discussing the diagnosis made by liberation theologians of the situation in Latin America, Novak rejects the idea that their economic order is truly capitalist. In fact, as he shows in several pages where he records economic statistics, the reality is quite different. In all South American countries, we are dealing with a pre-capitalist social and economic order, where the middle class is almost entirely absent. The leading segments are limited to government officials, landowners, and career military officers. The bulk is made up of a poor population, incapable of claiming their fundamental rights and obstructed in manifesting their economic creativity. Under such conditions, it is easy to understand why the discourse of class struggle, fueled by fiery declarations from ideologues like Gustavo Gutiérrez (“The class struggle is a current fact, and neutrality on this point is absolutely impossible”), is dominant.
Economy and Creativity: Six Principles for a Theology of Economics
In the encyclical Sollicitudo rei socialis (1988), Pope John Paul II stated that the denial of the right to economic initiative “reduces or even effectively destroys the spirit of initiative, that is, the creative subjectivity of the citizen” (art. 15). Insisting pertinently on this aspect, the massive Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church (2004) emphasized the following in article 337:
“The creative dimension is an essential component of human activity, even in the area of business, and it is especially manifested in the areas of planning and innovation.”
Intersecting at this point with the Social Doctrine of the Church, Michael Novak denounces the inhibition of economic creativity by any centralized, statist, or Marxist-inspired system as the main deficiency of economic life in Latin America. He emphasized this idea at length in his masterpiece The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism, where he proposes the elements of a possible theology of economics.
First, at the beginning of all things, is the Holy Trinity. Novak considers that a God whose being is embodied by three fully equal persons—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit—principally opposes any form of isolation suggested by a solitary divinity such as the Aristotelian “Prime Mover.” The Trinitarian doctrine undoubtedly underpins the idea of community, which, as suggested by both Holy Scripture and Christian Tradition, represents the highest social value. This Trinitarian principle is at the origin of any valuable political system. Its purpose is to guarantee the freedom of individuals who can freely associate to create institutions.
A second element of a theology of economics is the incarnation of the Savior Jesus Christ. The way Michael Novak interprets this principle—which he also symbolically applies to modern political-economic life—is surprising. His interpretation begins with one of the moments of great tension recorded in the New Testament: the arrest of Jesus Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane. Prohibiting Peter from intervening with force, the Savior uttered a few memorable words that do not exclude the idea of armed defense:
Do you think that I cannot call on my Father, and he will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels? (Matthew 26:53).
From this, Michael Novak deduces that angelic armies can intervene directly in the course of historical events. However, he goes even further, interpreting the negative aspect of this declaration by the founder of the Christian religion. Since Jesus Christ refused to use His divine prerogatives, this fact contains a message, a lesson that must be understood in the context of our social life. Here is how Novak interprets this aspect:
If God Himself did not send legions of angels to change the world for Him, why should we indulge in such a vain dream of sudden change made for our sake? Christian hope is realistic.
The incarnation of God the Son in history does not justify the hope of achieving Paradise here and now on Earth. Any political movement and any economic institution that aim for such a goal should be avoided. After Babel, the confusion of languages testifies—until the end of the world and history—to the curse cast by God on humanity after the original sin was committed. We are not the ones who, by our own powers, can remove it. Our hope must be reasonable. If we can hope that God will not abandon us despite our mistakes, the aspiration for a world without classes and inequalities, which would correspond to the sublime dreams of Marxist-Leninist ideologues, is completely exaggerated:
The Incarnation obliges us to reduce the dimensions of our noble expectations.
The third element proposed by Novak is that of competition. If in the lives of the saints we encounter the model of a true competition in the pursuit of virtues, then the desire to excel in secular human competencies, moderately aimed at achieving a decent life during earthly existence, is also legitimate. The only point where his argument falls short is the ascetic principle of “detachment from the world,” which, according to the teachings of the saints confirmed by the Church, should lead us to a complete detachment from fleeting, transient things. Viewed from this perspective, competition in the secular order of things suddenly becomes quite problematic.
The fourth necessary principle, in Novak’s vision, for a future theology of economics, concerns original sin. Although rejected by ideologies that view man as a supreme being in a world without a Creator, this principle is necessary to diminish any utopian trust in the intrinsic goodness of human nature. Recognizing the peccability and inclination toward evil in man, as well as the universal consequences of original sin, a healthy social thought will always know to reject the excesses of demagogues who believe they act infallibly in the name of a perfect ideal. Similar to the principle of the Incarnation of the Son of God, that of original sin is meant to temper any enthusiastic fervor of authors touched by the utopian illusion of a sublime society.
Following the same logical progression, the fifth element proposed by the author of The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism implicitly considers the separation of powers between the spiritual and secular worlds as a top priority:
Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s, and unto God what is God’s (Matthew 22:21).
By invoking this well-known verse, Novak believes that “the political system of democratic capitalism cannot, in principle, be a Christian system.” Through this statement, he implies that each sphere of human life—politics, economics, culture, etc.—has its own autonomy, rules, and ethical values. Even though these can be deeply harmonized with Christian morality, they remain distinct from religious, i.e. supernatural values themselves. But this autonomy, of course, does not exclude the organization of these spheres of life in a way that pays attention to the supreme good and the ultimate destiny of every human being: the eternal life into the heavenly realm of Paradise.
Finally, at the end of this path marked by a series of elements that could build a theology of economics, Novak concludes by mentioning charity as the keystone of an integral vision. An active and concrete form of love for one’s neighbor, charity represents, in a certain sense, the soul of a world that freely breathes the fundamental values of the Christian religion. Without it, neither political life, nor economic life, nor culture, nor any art would truly contribute to a dignified life for people in today’s society.
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The featured image is “Marketplace in Vitré” (1877), by Oscar Kleineh, and is in the public domain, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
