Thomas Aquinas on Private Property

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Haeralis

Puritan Board Freshman
Thomas Aquinas: Founding Father of the Socialist Welfare State

"In cases of need all things are common property, so that there would seem to be no sin in taking another's property, for need has made it common."

"It is not theft, properly speaking, to take secretly and use another's property in a case of extreme need: Because that which he takes for the support of his life becomes his own property by reason of that need."

http://www.newadvent.org/summa/3066.htm
 
Whether or not we agree with every sentiment of Thomas Aquinas on these issues, the real question that emerges out of the OP is whether or not Libertarian Theology is an aberration from historic Christian teaching on the magistrate's duty to help the poor and weak. The answer to that question is a resounding "yes."

While we should oppose modern Leftist abuses of the welfare state that keep people needlessly dependent on welfare (in order to buy votes) when they could be working, the notion that we can do away with welfare entirely is a Utopian notion. Moreover, the idea that it is "theft" for the magistrate to use state funds to help the poor is theft is one that has no basis in scripture. It is, to use the Libertarian Theologians' rhetoric against them, a form of human autonomy in Christian ethics.

Aside from being wrong, Libertarian Theology distracts us from dealing with more pressing areas of concern: abortion, Cultural Marxism, Globalism, the LGBT agenda, and so on.
 
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