He Became Poor: The Poverty of Christ and Aquinas’s Economic Teachings by Christopher A. Franks (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 329 He Became Poor: The Poverty of Christ and Aquinas's Economic Teachings. By CHRISTOPHER A. FRANKS. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2009. Pp. 207 $27.00 (paper) ISBN: 978-0-80283748 -6. This is an interesting book with an underdeveloped argument. A significant part of the book's interest is that Franks turns the light on a crucial topic, the moral standing of credit. As the West ponders the guiding principles of its banking system, the topic could not be more timely. To show that Thomas might have much to say on this topic is, of course, very welcome. The point is crucial to the book. Catholic social thought has Thomas's ideas at its moral center and He Became Poor wants to show why Thomas remains a touchstone for the Church's continuing engagement with the social arena. The reasons for the West's 2008 credit problems are multiple and still not well understood. One of many unsavory parts of the story, however, is usury: Some lenders only released credit at exorbitant interest rates. Franks makes the interesting claim that Thomas's arguments about lending at interest are a central front in the persuasiveness of his natural-law reasoning in toto. Natural law's deep teaching is that humans are from the outset placed in a moral order. It is also, says Franks, an order of provision, wherein God has lovingly crafted a natural fecundity to meet our "natural human needs." Some might wonder at this dual construction of natural law but Franks cleverly puts it to use in the matter of lending at interest. Franks argues that usury is unjust because it is a sin of presumption. Contracting the borrower to pay interest even when the foreseen benefits of the loan are swallowed up by adverse circumstances is an injustice to the borrower; the entire exchange relies on the presumption of security in God's continuing material beneficence. Contrasting investing and usury, Franks writes: "While the investor entrusts his money at his own risk, the usurer transfers risk to the borrower.... The usurer thus claims a title to a return that neglects any attempt to conform to God's actual provision" (81). This strikes me as Franks's deeper argument but he has another on which he relies. He wants to argue against a consensus that Thomas's comments on usury lack power because they mischaracterize the nature of money (77). Thomas's image is well-known: The use of money is like drinking wine. Renting a house is permissible because the rent is the sale of the use of the house; after the rental period the house is returned. Renting money is not comparable, however. Money's use is its consumption; I spend the money and it is gone. It is just like when I pay for the wine, use it, and it is gone. Who would pay both for the wine and, separately, for its use? If the use of something is its very consumption, to charge for the use and to also expect the borrowed original returned is unjust: one thing has been charged twice and this is thus stealing from the borrower. When I borrow money at interest, and must return the original money and also pay interest, then I have been charged twice for the same thing; so the lender has stolen from me. 330 BOOK REVIEWS To the modern mind, something seems wrong with Thomas's analogy: borrow money at interest to put it to work on my behalf; I borrow money, and pay to do so, because money's function isn't consumption, but generation. Money has a genuine use value, therefore: I pay back the loan, I pay the interest, and I keep what the money generated. This is the role of a mortgage, for example, or a business loan. Of course, not everyone relies on credit with its generative capacity in mind, and there is risk all around, but the main point is that the money borrowed isn't simply like wine. Franks thinks this typical response to Thomas-that he assumes money's sterility-misses his real point. The standard critical account...