The Earth Is the Lord's: A Natural Law Theory of Property (Emory University Studies in Law and Religion (EUSLR))

What does the Christian tradition have to say about property and ownership?

The Earth Is the Lord’s offers compelling answers to this question. In this timely and thought-provoking book, author Liam de los Reyes presents a counterpoint from within the Christian tradition to both Lockean and utilitarian theories of property. Combining strong textual evidence and clear reasoning, de los Reyes sets forth a natural law theory of property based on key patristic, scholastic, early modern, and contemporary theological sources. This theory posits that all things belong properly to God; that God has given human beings the power to use the things of the world for their own flourishing; and that property as a convention ought to govern and distribute the things of the world in accordance with this divine purpose.

More specifically, de los Reyes argues that within the Christian tradition, property is a convention that gives expression to the political nature of humans by protecting certain principles of justice in how humans govern the material order, while leaving the determination of any one property regime open to a people’s political reasoning that takes into account that people’s historical, cultural, and environmental contexts.

De los Reyes’s theory is general enough to support a wide array of philosophical and theological theories of justice but also concrete enough to clarify many of the related critiques of capitalism and markets, making it of particular interest to scholars of ethics, religion, philosophy, law, and economics.