“The outer is ordained for the sake of the inner; economic goods are instrumental--sicut quaedam adminicula, quibus adjuvanur ad tendendum in beatitudinum. ‘It is lawful to desire temporal blessings, not putting them in the first place, as though setting up our rest in them, but regarding them as aids the blessedness, inasmuch as they support our corporal life and serve as instruments for acts of virtue.’ Riches, as St. Antonino says, exist for man not man for riches.” ReligionWealthSocietyEthicsCapitalism Author:RH Tawney
“The contrast between nature and grace, between human appetites and interests and religion, is not absolute, but relative. It is a contrast of matter and the spirit informing it, of stages in a process, of preparation and fruition. Grace works on the unregenerate nature of man, not to destroy it, but to transform it. And what is true of the individual is true of society. An attempt is made to give it a new significance by relating it to the purpose of human life as known by revelation.” SpiritualReligionHumanityPoliticsGraceSocietyHuman NatureMarkets Author:RH Tawney
“Character is social, and society, since it is the expression of character, spiritual.” CharacterSpiritualSocietyEthicsMorals Author:RH Tawney
“A religious theory of society necessarily regards with suspicion all doctrines which claim a large space for the unfettered play of economic self-interest. To the latter the end of activity is the satisfaction of desires, to the former the felicity of man consists in the discharge of obligations imposed by God. Viewing the social order as the imperfect reflection of a divine plan, it naturally attaches a high values to the arts by which nature is harnessed to the service of mankind. But, more concerned with ends than with means, it regards temporal goods as at best instrumental to a spiritual purpose, and its standpoint is that of Bacon, when he spoke of the progress of knowledge as being sought for ‘the glory of the Creator and the relief of man’s estate.” ReligionPoliticsSocietyEthicsCapitalismEconomicsSocialismMorals Author:RH Tawney
“Society is a hierarchy of rights and duties. Law exists to enforce the second, as much as to protect the first. Property is not a mere aggregate of economic privileges, but a responsible office. Its raison d’etre is not only income, but service. It is to secure its owner such means, and no more than such means, as may enable him to perform those duties, whether labour on the land, or labour in government, which are involved in the particular status which he holds in the system. He who seeks more robs his superiors, or his dependants, or both. He who exploits his property with a single eye to its economic possibilities at once perverts its very essence and destroys his own moral title, for he has ‘every man’s living and does no man’s duty.” PoliticsRightsSocietyEconomicsPropertyHierarchyDutiesRights Of Man Author:RH Tawney
“The saints do not contemplate in order to know, but to love. And they love not for the sake of loving but for the love of Him that they love. It is because they are in love with God that they aspire to that union with God which love desires, loving themselves only for his sake. Their aim is not to exult in their own intelligence or nature and so abide in themselves: it is to do the will of Another and contribute to the good of Goodness. They do not seek for their soul. They lose it, they have it no more. If in entering into the mystery of divine sonship, in becoming somewhat of God himself they gain a transcendent personality, an independence and a liberty which nothing in this world can touch it is by forgetting all this so that not they but their Beloved lives in them.” PhilosophyReligionSpiritualitySaintsScholarsSaints And Scholars Author:RH Tawney