Renz's Thesis No. 6 - "The Church Fathers Categorically Condemned Usury"

In his Sixth Thesis, Thomas affirms that the early fathers of the church uniformly and categorically condemned usury. Following a simple and direct statement of the Thesis, he devotes the bulk of his remarks to explaining the emphasis of their condemnation and the context in which it occurred. His procedure seems to suggest to the reader that the early fathers’ condemnation of usury cannot be taken straightforwardly, but must be nuanced by various factors.

Thomas cites Gonzalez [though he has put “Gonzales”] “Faith & Wealth”, p. 175: “..the main business of usurers was not so much earning interest on their capital as it was expropriating lands and other property that had been offered as security against loans that could not possibly be paid.” What first must be noted is that expropriation of collateral, and even enslavement or imprisonment of the debtor, was the consequence of default in the Ancient world, usury or not. That is, it was not only loans upon usury in which default meant horrible consequences for the debtor. Even if one managed to negotiate a loan free of usury, still the consequences of default were very dire. Usury made loans more difficult to repay. However, it was not usury per se that led directly to expropriation and enslavement. These dire consequences were what the Ancient legal structure provided for default on loans in the nature of the case.

The next thing to note is that Gonzalez’s statement is open to misinterpretation. His statement is in the form of a contrast: Ancient lenders pursued not interest on capital, but expropriation of property under terms of default. This could be read as Gonzalez saying that the avenue of pursuing interest on capital was open to Ancient lenders, but that they uniformly chose the avenue of lending to destitute people instead, so they predictably could expropriate their property upon default. It seems that Thomas has read it in this way, as his Thesis No. 1 would prompt him to do. However, I believe that the contrast Gonzalez meant was between familiar Modern practice and Ancient practice. In contrast to Modern practice of pursuing interest on capital, the Ancient lender’s business was limited to lending to the destitute and gaining by expropriation of property upon default.

Thomas majors on the point that the early fathers mainly were concerned with the misery and poverty of borrowers, whose condition was exacerbated by usury. Conversely, he notes that, “Their sermons make it abundantly clear that they do not have business loans in view, neither condemning them nor commending them.” In other words, the early fathers were silent on the matter of “business loans.” With this assertion as stated I have no quarrel. However, the importance of such an assertion lies fully in its implications. The early fathers were silent. How shall we interpret this silence? It seems to be Thomas’s concern to establish that the early fathers reserved their passionate condemnation of usury for cases involving the misery and destitution of debtors in default. In this event, the early fathers’ silence on the matter of “business loans” is supposed to imply that such activity was not within the purview of their condemnation. Such is not stated in so many words in context of the present Thesis alone. However, if we look forward to Thomas’s conclusion, where he states that, “…I very much doubt that the church fathers would have put their finger on interest-bearing bank accounts,” the direction of his argument is made quite clear. But this is not a valid argument from silence.

The argument from silence is a minefield of fallacy. One must proceed with great care in an effort to discern valid implications of silence. There are only three possible explanations for the silence of the early church fathers on the matter of “business loans.”
1) The matter did not present itself since the practice of borrowing for commercial purposes was not common in Ancient times. 2) Borrowing for commercial purposes was common in Ancient times, but the early fathers were not aware of the practice and therefore neglected it. 3) Such borrowing was common, and the early fathers were aware of the practice, but uniformly felt that there was no need for them to comment on it. Right away, we see that a particular historical consideration narrows the field. Thomas’s argument from silence depends entirely upon the soundness of his Thesis No. 1. If affirmed, the Thesis requires the third of the enumerated possible explanations of the early father’s silence (explanation 2 is ruled out because it implies an incompetence that cannot be ascribed to early fathers as a whole). However, if Thesis No. 1 falls, then the first explanation is required. For reasons explained above, I have dismissed Thesis No. 1, and therefore argue here that the correct explanation of the silence of the early fathers is the first of those enumerated. They did not comment on the practice of borrowing and lending for commercial purposes because this was not done in their day. The explanation is quite well expressed by Patrick Cleary in his dissertation, “The Church and Usury”, “On the whole then we find the teachings of the Fathers crude and undeveloped, but the natural product of the times. The world itself was undeveloped and unprogressive. The age of commercial enterprise had not yet even begun to dawn.” (Cleary, p. 59) In the world as Thomas’s Thesis No. 1 would have it, we are required to suppose that the early fathers uniformly felt the matter of usury on “business loans” was settled and without need of comment. However, there are grave difficulties with such a supposition.

As I brought out above, dire consequences for debtors in default were imposed simply because of default, not specifically because of usury. Now, if loans for commercial purposes were common in the Ancient world, then we must confront the question of what would happen to a commercial debtor upon default. There are only two possibilities. 1) Regardless of the original purpose of the loan, if the debtor defaulted on the loan, then he was subject to expropriation of his property, or worse. 2) Debtors who borrowed for commercial purposes were not subject to miserable consequences in case of default; only consumptive borrowers were subject to miserable consequences. There is no historical ground on which anyone can seriously argue for the latter option. If there were any truth in it at all, the historical record would be full to the brim with cases of desperate debtors in default trying however they might to represent their loans as commercial in order to escape miserable consequences. But Ancient records bring us nothing of this sort. Practically speaking, there is only one possibility: if one borrowed for commercial purposes, and then failed to repay, he was subject to the same miserable consequences as anyone who borrowed. If, as Thomas suggests, the whole premise of the early fathers’ case against usury was the miserable poverty that resulted from defaulted loans, then “commercial loans” in default would have provided just as much occasion for their outrage as any other loan. Thus, even on the strength of his own Thesis No. 1, an argument from silence proves the exact opposite of what Thomas suggests. Far from implying that usury on “commercial loans” escaped their condemnation, their silence implies that they made no distinction such as “commercial” vs. “consumption” loans, just as the legal structures of the day made no such distinction. Here again, the reverse of Thomas’s Thesis No. 1 gives the proper outlook from which to gain a proper understanding of these things.