Tax Law, Religion, and Justice: An Exploration of Theological Refections on Taxation

Cover
Half Title
Series Page
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
	Purpose and approach of the book
	Limits of the book
	Outline of the book
	Notes
	References
Chapter 1 Equity and efficiency
	Introduction
	(Re)distributive taxation
	The role of “side constraints”
		Libertarian rights
		Classical utility theories of sacrifice
		The rise of welfarism
		Optimal tax theory
	Politics and economics
	The demise of equity
	Property rights
	Notes
	References
Chapter 2 A society within a society
	Introduction
	Taxation in the Roman Empire in the fourth and fifth centuries
		A model of regressivity
		The bishops and taxation
	The Christian narrative of late Roman taxation
		A representation of oppression and inequity
			Lactantius
			Salvian
		Christian negativity toward taxation
	“The template for an experiment”
		“Lovers of the poor”
		Christians and wealth: renunciation or use?
		“Transactions with the supernatural”
		“The salvation of the commonwealth”
			“Perfection of the political economy”
			“The poor of Israel”
			Managerial bishops
		The role of providence
	Economic theology
	Notes
	References
Chapter 3 Thomas Aquinas: The interplay of natural and positive law
	Introduction
	Necessitas and superflua
	Property and taxation in the Summa
	Debitum
	Natural law, positive law, and material necessity
	The measure of indebtedness
	Between feudalism and sovereignty
		The problem of private property
		The reemergence of taxation
		The principle of necessity
		Identity of interests
		Locating Thomas in the development of sovereignty
	Tax justice as equilibrium
	Justice and liberality
	Notes
	References
Chapter 4 William of Ockham: Repudiation of power and wealth
	Introduction
	Ockham’s An princeps and other political writings
	Ockham and political theology
	Four justifications of taxation
		Payment theory
		Donation theory
		Common good
		Interplay of right and need
	The law of evangelical liberty
	Dominium revisited
	Ockham and the tax narrative
	Notes
	References
Chapter 5 Martin Luther’s redistributive theology of the Lord’s Supper
	Introduction
	“Preface to the Ordinance of a Common Chest”
	The redistributive logic of Luther’s theology
		The communicatio idiomatum
		Freedom, faith, and love
		Necessity
	Sign and sacrament
		The Lord’s Supper
		Transposition
	The Lutheran systematization of taxation
		Regularization, universalization, institutionalization
		Bureaucracy
		The material realities of existence
	Notes
	References
Chapter 6 John Calvin and the challenge of inequality
	Introduction
	Taxation and poor relief in Calvin’s Geneva
	The diaconate and the two kingdoms
	Calvin’s economic vision
		Economic inequality
		Reformulation of the symbiotic relationship
	Eschatology, providence, and command
		Eschatology
		Providence
		Oikonomia
		Circulation of goods
		Will and command
	Calvin’s explicit teaching on taxation
	Notes
	References
Chapter 7 Triumph of the economy
	Introduction
	The Enlightenment inversion of Calvin’s doctrine of providence
	Individualism and altruism
		Grotius
		Hobbes
		Rousseau and Kant
		Three modern options
			Economy
			Bargain and balance
			Alliance
		The cycle
	Conclusion
	Notes
	References
Index