This paper revisits the forgotten kinship between economics and theology. It turns to the economic life in the marketplace and asks whether it can still bear traces of Divine grace.
It is not widely known that economics, as a discipline, was born in the quiet of the confessional. When liberty in the late Middle Ages propelled economic life forward, ever more people engaged in independent economic activity. After the discovery of the Americas in the 16th century, a flood of silver poured into Europe, causing sustained inflation – prices rose, currencies fluctuated, and economic life became increasingly uncertain. Ordinary merchants, artisans and goldsmiths sought understanding and moral guidance. They brought to confessors questions such as: What is the just price? How should one judge contracts, interest, wages? Theologians thus found themselves serving as moral guides of economic life.
It was the Dominicans of the School of Salamanca – Francisco de Vitoria and Domingo de Soto – who first formulated systematic answers to these dilemmas. Martín de Azpilcueta, and later the Jesuits Luis de Molina and Juan de Mariana, developed the discussion further. These late scholastics grounded their reasoning on Thomas Aquinas and extended his teaching on commutative justice into the commercial realities of their own age.
On the question of the just price, they taught that the just price is the price agreed upon by two parties, freely entering into exchange. The decisive element was neither the cost of resources, nor the amount of labor, nor the intrinsic value of metals – but the free will and mutual consent of the parties.
The theologians of Salamanca thus laid the foundations of what later became economic science – not by abandoning theology but by extending its concern for justice into ordinary transactions and by articulating nascent economic principles. Over time, however, economics parted ways with theology, and today this vast sphere of our lives – where we produce, cooperate, and exchange – seem completely cut off from its fundamental origins.
When we hear “Divine Mercy” in relation to economics, we tend to think of sharing, almsgiving, and generosity toward the poor. That field is well described; yet the relationship between economic exchange per ce and the Mercy of God rarely attracts attention.
This paper focuses on this neglected question and inquires, whether what is often dismissed as a profane sphere of self-interest may, in truth, be a domain in which Divine Mercy quietly unfolds.
So, let us follow its path, as Sister Faustina witnessed: “The two rays which emanated from the Heart of Jesus covered our chapel and the infirmary, then the whole city, and spread out over the whole world.” (Kowalska, 2005, p. 46) And so we go with trust, over the whole world, into the most ordinary acts by which we live.
Free exchange is an act whereby people with different talents, needs, and time preferences meet and agree to trade what they possess for what they need more. According to tradition, the first exchange took place between the farmer and the shepherd – and this new kind of relationship opened for humanity an era of the division of labour.
The earliest exchanges were simple and natural – grain for wool, milk for tools – and they profoundly raised what we today call “the standard of living.” The emergence of money allowed humanity to measure scarce resources, give uniform value to goods and save vast efforts and time. Money enabled to exchange almost any possession for almost any needed good through a universal equivalent, notwithstanding the possibility of exemptions. Both money and exchange fostered the creation of far greater prosperity and allowed people to focus on what they did best.
Although exchange is one of the greatest achievements of our civilization, over time it became surrounded by myths that stigmatize, and fail to render proper tribute to it. The reason lies not in the nature of exchange itself, but in human frailty, moral failings, and limits of understanding, which from a theological perspective point to our deep need for healing and mercy.
These myths can be summarized as follows:
– the law of conservation of energy implies that exchange is a zero-sum game;
– exchange is zero-sum, therefore what one party gains, another must lose;
– greed is the principal driver of exchange;
– to gain in exchange, one must act immorally and defeat the other party;
– exchange itself creates no value.
To address these persistent myths, we need to turn to a deeper principle that explains why they arise, how they shape popular thinking, and how Divine Mercy can lead us beyond them. In a multidisciplinary inquiry led by the author (Leontjeva, Vainė, Vyšniauskaitė, 2016) – spanning philosophy, anthropology, theology, history, and economics – one striking point of convergence emerges: lack – in the form of incompleteness, insufficiency, and limitation – is as elemental to being as matter and form.
Aristotle, in Metaphysics VII, called it steresis (privation): a state in which something is missing yet has the potential to be fulfilled. Far from being a mere deficiency, this principle of the “not-yet” drives every process of becoming and change. This structural incompleteness makes human striving both possible and necessary. We are finite, fallible, always in need – physically, intellectually, emotionally, spiritually. We are surrounded by a world that is not yet complete but entrusted to our creativity and care, as God commands in Genesis: “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it” (Gen. 1:28). Humanity could not assume stewardship over the world if it were already complete. Liberty unfolds in a constant dialogue with incompleteness, and it is within this dynamic that we make choices and advance.
As we come to understand this incompleteness, it becomes a space where Divine Mercy meets human freedom and invites it to cooperate in the unfinished work of creation.
Scarcity in the economic domain is one of the most visible expressions of this universal principle. It implies the need to measure and count, to economise – arranging means to meet ends. A monk seeks union with God amid distraction, a farmer wrestles with the limits of soil and season, an artist strives to give form to what words cannot express. Scarcity and limitation is not an accident but a constitutive feature of human life: it presses people to act, to envision a more fitting, better state of affairs, and to bring it into being. Seen in this light, lack becomes not only a trial but also a pedagogy of grace – a school in which we learn, as bearers of God’s image, to share in his creative care for the world through prudent and consistent efforts.
As Ludwig von Mises – a major twentieth-century economist – observed, scarcity is not merely an economic condition but an impetus of purposeful action. “Acting man,” he wrote, “is eager to substitute a more satisfactory state of affairs for a less satisfactory one. His mind imagines conditions which suit him better, and his action aims at bringing about this desired state.” (Mises, 1949, p. 13)
In this sense, limitation and lack becomes the grammar of striving and every human action aims at some betterment – as a person perceives it. Since the measure of value is seldom confined to our own, this striving may open out toward the other.
Betterment may have diverse aspects – in economic terms, it means gain. Physiologically every person must receive more energy than he expends – or, with rare hagiographical exceptions, he will perish. To live as a human being is to live in continual need of renewal. This implies the principle of self-responsibility – a baseline of existence that permeates all human activity. Gain is the minimal surplus that sustains life and also makes generosity and sharing possible.
Yet self-responsibility requires proportion – without measure the pursuit of gain easily degenerates into greed. Greed is not the law of exchange but its corruption. The golden mean is the key to avoiding the flaws of extremes: self-responsibility and economising, when unchecked, may lead to selfishness and greed; the opposite extreme leads to wastefulness and a mindset of dependency. Therefore, distinguishing between the economic institution of exchange itself and the moral quality of its human practice becomes crucial.
Beyond physical survival, humans are aim-seeking creatures – every action aims to improve the present state of affairs and to relieve what Mises called “uneasiness.” The teacher’s gain is his students’ knowledge and maturity; the doctor’s gain is his patients’ health and longevity; the shoemaker’s gain is both his livelihood and the confirmation that raw leather has been elevated in value as a finished pair of shoes. In all such cases, ordinary work becomes a hidden participation in God’s providential care.
Properly understood, the pursuit of gain implies service – every benefit is possible only if the other party benefits as well. In voluntary trade each side relinquishes what it values less to obtain what it values more; if mutual improvement were not expected, the exchange would not occur. The late scholastics captured this in their principle of the “just price” – the price freely agreed upon by two parties. Hence the paradox: when two people trade, both walk away richer in what they value.
This creation of value in exchange is not intuitive – and therefore requires closer examination of its causes. A helpful starting point is the principle of subjective value, first systematically formulated by Carl Menger, the founder of the Austrian School of Economics, standing in the tradition of the School of Salamanca. Carl Menger (2007, p. 116) has expounded the principle that the value of a good does not reside in the object itself – it is neither objective nor intrinsic but relational and perceptual. Though no extra calories are produced when bread is traded for shoes, and though the shoes remain of the same size, form, and colour, new value arises for both parties. This value lies in the significance the goods hold for different persons – thus the same goods acquire distinct value.
Our lacks are diverse and dynamic – what one person prizes highly, another may hold lightly; what one lacks, another has in surplus. Not only do our tastes differ; we differ in time preference, in personal history, and in circumstance. A person may be willing to pay what others consider a higher price – not only for material goods but for comfort, knowledge, security, or recognition.
The law of subjective value reveals that human diversity – of needs, talents, preferences, and situations – is not a source of conflict but a source of cooperation. Our very differences become the raw material of reciprocity.
The division of labour is a form of exchange extended through time and scale – it allows each to focus on his or her vocation, serving others in the field of their strength while receiving in return what they cannot produce themselves. Thus, limitation becomes opportunity, and difference yields reciprocity.
With these foundations in place, we can address the most persistent tendency to import the conservation of energy law into economics. Applied to exchange, it would mean that value does not emerge in exchange but only changes form, location, or possession – that if one party gains some value, another must have lost an equal amount. The analogy fails because it confuses closed physical systems with human creativity and cooperation. Value is not a conserved substance but a hierarchy of preferences, a scale of significance by which each individual ranks goods, makes choices, and acts.
In voluntary exchange, consent is evidence of expected improvement on both sides; absent that expectation, trade does not occur – or remains an exception rather than a sustainable institution. The paradigms of subjective value, scarcity-driven purpose, and reciprocal gain together disprove the zero-sum analogy.
When bread is traded for shoes, no new matter appears, yet both parties end up wealthier in what they value. The conservation law does not govern human ingenuity and cooperation.
Summarizing the foregoing arguments on the “zero-sum exchange”:
– Gain is a life-sustaining necessity, an intrinsic part of the human response to scarcity;
– The driver of exchange is need, not greed;
– Greed is not the law of exchange but its corruption;
– Voluntary exchange, rooted in differences and reciprocity, produces a positive-sum outcome;
– Exchange creates value for both parties and increases the overall wealth;
– The physics analogy invites the illusion that value, like energy, cannot be increased by exchange;
– Mutual benefit in exchange presupposes moral ground, not its negation;
– Understanding the grammar of exchange opens the way to moral practice and to a conscious cooperation with Divine Mercy in economic life.
Once these myths are dispelled, we can at last attend to moral practice within exchange – and to its implications for social coexistence and spiritual life.
If a mere act of exchange creates value, how does this relate to the biblical condition of labour? In Genesis, after the Fall, God pronounces: “By the sweat of your brow you shall eat bread.” (Gen. 3:19). For centuries that sweat was literal – ploughing, grinding, harvesting. But through the gift of exchange, humanity has been given another path: sustenance not only through solitary toil but through freely entered cooperation.
Here lies a paradoxical turn: not only hard toil may create value, but value can multiply through free and honourable exchange. Most importantly, reciprocal exchange frees human beings from the inertia to use force or fraud. To maintain existence no longer requires robbing, cheating, enslaving, or conquering. Within the institution of safeguarded free exchange, survival means serving another’s need while meeting one’s own.
Exchange thus becomes a field of redemption: it teaches fallen beings to seek provision through consent rather than compulsion. An exchange, though rooted in care for oneself, is elevated into an act in which both parties serve one another, so that both benefit and create new value without physical sweat and pain. It is here that we begin to discern signs of mercy.
This grace is so deeply embedded in our lives that we can hardly perceive it; worse still, we fail to recognize its meaning and seldom accept it in our conduct. The very freedom that allows cooperation also leaves room for refusal: it opens the space for moral choice.
Scarcity compels not only economic action but ethical choice. A person may respond through productive effort, synergy, and cooperation – or through force or fraud. The latter path seeks to relieve lack by malicious means: it deprives others and corrodes the trust on which free exchange depends. Every response to scarcity therefore carries a moral dimension – revealing a disposition toward others and toward the gift of reciprocity itself.
In history, fraud and predation have been pervasive: in slavery, feudalism, and the long reign of might over right, force was institutionalised and common. Although modern institutions safeguard liberty, property, and the justice of contract, the win-or-lose mentality endures. It is a residue of millennia when survival depended on conquest and domination. The predatory mindset sees others as instruments of gain; the victim mindset sees oneself as powerless within an unjust order. Both distort the meaning of free exchange: the first denies reciprocity, the second denies agency.
Under either mindset, economic life again appears as a zero-sum contest. Thus those who embrace this belief fall into a pernicious pattern: they refuse the gift embedded in exchange and turn cooperation into rivalry – blind to the grace they forgo.
Here the circle closes: when exchange is misperceived as struggle, it becomes one; when mercy is not recognised, it is not received. Recognising grace in exchange – as the practice of mutual service and the creation of mutual benefit – can reopen the path of moral practice.
In theological terms, this refusal mirrors the drama of freedom itself – grace offered and resisted, bestowed yet unreceived.
Each exchange involves vulnerability: one gives before precisely knowing what will be received in return, trusting that the other will respond with equal fairness. In this openness lies the possibility of wounding or being wounded. The injuries we cause are rarely acknowledged and quickly forgotten; the injuries we receive linger – and worse still, they continue to weaken trust in every later encounter.
Refusal of mercy does not arise only from hardness of heart or despair. It also stems from the spiritual blindness of self-interest: we see our own needs with clarity but overlook those of others. We all wish to buy low and sell high – and since this is an anthropological given, so does everyone else. When this symmetry is ignored, each transaction feels like a small injustice: we experience having paid too much, sold too low, and being treated unfairly. Scarcity, after all – which we hope to relieve through exchange – does not vanish, remaining the constant horizon of human action. If we fail to recognise this regularity, every exchange may appear unjust – even when the other party acts rightly.
Our perception of gain is also volatile and partial: what we value shifts with time and circumstance; what we desired a moment ago may soon appear misguided. Every benefit we gain still bears the mark of lack. Without understanding this and how our desire to “buy cheaply and sell dearly” is reconciled with the same desire in others, we remain blind to mercy at work within exchange. In moral philosophy, understanding has particular importance. If a person regards economic exchange as intrinsically immoral – or at least morally dubious, a tolerated necessity rather than a worthy practice – yet continues to engage in it daily, such conduct amounts to knowingly performing an act one believes to be wrong. Since almost no one can entirely avoid exchange in the network of economic relations, the scope of what can be healed and reordered in this domain is enormous.
Mutual service and mutual benefit may occur even without such understanding, yet comprehension deepens practice: to grasp the grammar of mercy is to become consciously capable of accepting the mercy of God and acting mercifully towards the other.
This is where the ancient Greek term katallaxis speaks to us. In classical usage, the verb katallassō meant not only “to exchange,” but also “to reconcile,” “to admit into community,” even “to turn an enemy into a friend.” Apostle Paul employs its noun form, katallagē, to describe the reconciliation of humanity with God through Christ (2 Cor. 5:18 – 20). Thus, from the outset, the word bore a relational charge: it named the movement from separation to communion.
Nineteenth-century Archbishop Richard Whately, in his Introductory Lectures on Political Economy (1831), proposed the term “catallactics” instead of “economics,” to remind his students that economic life concerns not merely the pursuit of wealth but the creation of community through voluntary relation. Ludwig von Mises later adopted catallactics as the analytical study of market exchange, and Nobel Prize winner Friedrich Hayek (1982, p. 107) coined “catallaxy” to describe the spontaneous order of the market itself.
Hayek’s choice was deliberate: he rejected the word oikonomia (from oikos, “household,” and nomos, “law” or “management”) because it evokes a single household governed by one plan and uniform interests. A catallaxy, by contrast, describes a spontaneous order in which countless individuals pursue distinct aims, adjusting their plans through the price system – the language of mutual coordination rather than command.
Seen in this lineage, katallaxis illuminates something essential: markets, at their best, are not merely arenas of transaction but orders of reconciliation. They draw strangers – even rivals – into relation through mutual adjustment and service. Each transaction becomes a small act of peace-making – an alignment of one’s purpose with the purpose of another. When safeguarded by rules and moral conduct, exchange spares humanity the recourse to force.
Hayek’s catallaxy describes a reconciliation of countless individual plans through price and coordination – a momentary equality within diversity that allows cooperation to bear fruit. We are reconciled in the instant parity of exchange – not despite our differences but because of them. Were we equal in needs and valuation, there would be no reason to trade. Diversity, therefore, becomes the condition of concord. To benefit, we must serve – our benefit comes on the condition of serving the other, and it is here that we may discern a clear call to communion.
Further, our inquiry points to a second, deeper reconciliation. Since humanity is frail and wounded, injustice may enter even into fair exchange. We must learn to distinguish between human misdeed and the institution of exchange itself. To engage anew, one must reconcile not only with those who have caused harm in the past but with the wider human community and the market itself.
This forgiveness reaches further – it purifies perception itself. We are called to forgive our debtors – those who trespassed against us – so that the Lord’s Prayer extends into everyday life. And the prayer, in turn, reminds us that we too have trespassed against others, often without noticing it.
We turn now to a different tension, no longer centred on good and evil but on finitude and fulfilment. Even in just exchange, we may feel that we have bought too dear or sold too low; and then the whole world seems to stand in our debt. This dissatisfaction is not merely emotional but structural: our every response to scarcity relieves it only in part, never abolishes it. The horizon of lack remains, and with it a lingering sense of imbalance. Thus the unease that follows exchange may arise not from injustice but from the condition of finitude itself – from the fact that no transaction can ultimately satisfy our thirst or secure completion. This tension belongs not to malice but to the human condition – yet without discerning its source, we mistake the residue of scarcity for a failure of justice. In theological terms, such restless longing points beyond all finite goods to God, in whom alone the heart finds rest.
Accepting the Divine Mercy of exchange means renouncing the false debts that we imagine others, the world, or even God owe us. It means recognising the poverty and blindness of self-interest – and reconciling not only with others but first of all with oneself, and with the Giver of Mercy. Only then can we become merciful in turn.
Such reconciliation is transformative. We are not merely released from the ancient command that sustenance comes “in the sweat of your brow.” The sweat changes form – from physical toil to spiritual and moral effort, to the labour of understanding, of learning to act consciously within reciprocity, and of striving to live at peace with both self and neighbour. Such comprehension allows us to receive the gift that sustains human life through peaceful cooperation.
Thus, the economic understanding that once emerged from the confessional may find renewed place within the dominion of God. Our daily acts of trust and exchange may be rediscovered as a participation in Divine Mercy, in which human freedom learns again to cooperate with grace.
The long journey from the confessional to the marketplace leads us back, by another road, to the same mystery. Human beings, finite and needy, meet in the field of exchange to serve one another’s lack, and in doing so, unknowingly participate in mercy. When seen through this double lens – of freedom and grace – economic exchange becomes once more a domain of cooperation under providence. Perhaps the most secular of all acts may thus quietly return to its source – a living sign of the mercy that sustains creation itself.
Seen in this way, our daily participation in economic life becomes a privileged space where our freedom may learn to receive Divine Mercy and cooperate with it.
Bibliography:
1. Aristotle (2018). Metaphysics. Translated by J.H. Mcmahon. Mineola, New York: Dover Publications, Inc.
2. Holy Bible. (2011). Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan.
3. Kowalska, M.F. (2005) Diary of Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska: divine mercy in my soul.Stockbridge, MA: Marian Press.
4. Leontjeva, E., Vainė, A. and Vyšniauskaitė, M. (2016) The Phenomenon of Lack: Being, Man and Community. A Synthesis of an Interdisciplinary Inquiry. Vilnius: LLRI. Available at: https://llri.lt/the-phenomenon-of-lack-being-man-and-community-a-synthesis-of-an-interdisciplinary-inquiry/.
5. Menger, C. (2007) Principles of Economics. Auburn, AL: Ludwig von Mises Institute. Hayek, F.A. (1982) Law, Legislation and Liberty. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
6. Mises, L. von (1949) Human Action: A Treatise on Economics. London: William Hodge and Company Limited.
7. Whately, R. (1832) Introductory Lectures on Political Economy. London: B. Fellowes.
Thank you for subscribing!
