The first important thing to note about this virtue, then, is that it is precisely concerned with the right use of money: money is a means which we acquire and keep in order to expend in the pursuit of various ends (i.e. providing for our needs and those of others). If money ever becomes an end in itself, something we seek just for the pleasure of acquiring it or having it, then we are no longer using it in the right way.
At the same time, St Thomas, following Aristotle, considers virtue to be the mean between two extremes, and warns also against the profligate spending of money: if liberality is concerned with the right use of money then yes, first of all we must use it, not horde it for its own sake, but we must also pay attention to what we use it for. We expend money in the pursuit of various ends, as noted above, and so in order to use it properly we need both to select the right ends to pursue and how money can best be spent to achieve those ends. Thus, for example, we may conclude that giving food, rather than money, to the beggar we meet on the street is the better way to help him, if we feared the money might otherwise be spent on something less beneficial.
In the Gospel account of the widow’s mite (Mark 12: 41-44), Jesus praises the poor widow who gives all that she has to the temple, saying the she has given more than all those who had given much larger sums, which were for them, however, only a small proportion of their wealth. This should remind us that liberality is not so much concerned with the amount we give away, but the attitude we adopt towards money: as St Paul says (2 Cor 9: 7), ‘God loves a cheerful giver.’ In talking of virtue as a mean, too, this doesn’t imply that our expenditure and our giving should be in some kind of arithmetical balance between ‘too much’ and ‘not enough’, even relative to each person’s means: there are some things for which it might be right to give away every penny we have (e.g. supporting a sick relative or, for that matter, entering religious life). Rather, just as the virtue is concerned with our interior attitude to money, so the balance is to be in our attitude: on the one hand not getting obsessed about money in itself, but on the other not ignoring the consequences of our disposal of it.
Not in any way wanting to derail your point, which is admirable, nor wanting to argue with S.Thomas : but I wonder slightly about virtue being the mean between two extremes in this particular case.
ReplyDeleteSurely God Himself is the ultimate example of liberality; and yet His generosity almost amounts to prodigality - He gives us not only what we need, but so much more - filled up, pressed down, and flowing over; and He also gives us the ability to choose what to do with what He gives - and some of those choices may well not be for our good.
I admit that I'm prone to giving beggars food rather than cash; but I do sometimes wonder whether I have the right to decide what is best for them. After all, many of the pious ladies of Rome would probably have thought it right to give S.Benedict Labre clothes and good meals; which would not have suited him and his remarkable vocation at all.
I do take your point about not ignoring the consequences of our disposal of money, and clearly we shouldn't knowingly dispose of it in ways which will harm people; but on a more one-to-one level, do you think there's an argument for suggesting that true liberality means emulating the generosity of God, and giving freely, leaving it to the beneficiary to determine what use to make of what we have given ? After all, in the account of the Widow's Mite, Our Lord passed no comment on what the Temple Treasury would use the money for.