“The market system depends on the logic of exchange, quid pro quo (this for that). No one can doubt the great benefit of exchange relationships in the distributing of goods and services. On the other hand, the history of economies that are ruled exclusively by the logic of exchange shows that the accompanying logic of debt becomes destructive of the social fabric.
“As over against the logics of exchange and debt, the social Trinity point to the Triune Community’s freeing of human giving from the reality of debt. This freeing of human giving is apparent first in the way God gives in creation. God gives without the guarantee of return…. God’s pleroma (fullness, totality) lacks nothing we could pay back. We have nothing more to return than what God has already given us.
“In the cross God cancels the possibility of debt itself and therefore debt economy as the source of obligation and security. If God accounts us as having no debt, the possibility of our being restored to God’s economy of graceful giving is opened up. In this sense God’s redeeming work transforms the economy of debt into the economy of grace. The appropriate prayer to be prayed in the economy of grace is, ‘Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.’ To be the homo economicus (economic man) in God’s economy of grace means that we are shaped by God’s giving rather than by maximizing utility…
“For the houshold of God, the tendency of property to create domination is to be overcome in oikos (household) relationships of mutual self-giving in which possessions are used for the realization of God’s will in the community. The self-giving life of the trinitarian community of God is a criticism of the self as private property. Human possession of all kinds is basically a means to nurture koinonia (fellowship); hence, under whatever arrangements of ownership, the primary communal purpose of human goods ought to be safeguarded. Property is not only a right against community but also a right to the life-giving powers of community. Ownership is a means of fulfilling our calling to be God’s stewards through community with God, other human beings, and nature. Property is a function of the community, a performance of a social funtion.”
M. Douglas Meeks, “The Social Trinity and Property.” God’s Life in Trinity, ed. Miroslav Volf. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2006.
