Why Seek Profits?: A Missional Perspective on Business

For-profit businesses dominate the modern economy. But is there any good reason for the Christian to willingly participate in them? Upon first glance, this seems like a silly question. Despite the way it is often practiced, for-profit business enterprises can be a powerful force for good and can have a variety of positive consequences, both for the world and for those who participate in them. They can provide a livelihood for their owners and workers, serve their customers and other stakeholders, and fund a variety of charitable causes. Revenues are necessary to sustain such activities. However, not all revenues are profits. Nonprofit organizations and governments also require revenues to sustain their activities. As a conceptual matter, the primary difference between a for-profit business and other forms of organizing economic activity is that the former seeks to realize revenues that exceed its underlying economic costs. And given the traditional suspicion of pursuing wealth beyond that which is necessary to meet our natural needs,¹ what good reason could the Christian possibly have for participating in a profit-seeking enterprise? Why not limit ourselves to working for a nonprofit or the government instead?

It is easy to point to the good consequences that profits enable. For example, there are plenty of organizations that ought to exist but could not exist if they weren’t funded by excess wealth generated by others. But a reduction of the value of one’s work solely to its outputs is dangerous for the worker, particularly when it comes to profit-seeking. In Business for the Common Good: A Christian Vision for the Marketplace, Kenman Wong and Scott Rae argue that “viewing business as only a means to an end falls short” because it encourages a “gap between work and the values that shape meaning in the rest of one’s life” and neglects “the value of the work itself.”² And Kathryn Tanner raises an even more fundamental objection as a part of her critique of what she calls “finance-dominated capitalism.”³ In finance-dominated capitalism, profit-seeking comes to discipline all other aspects of business. We come to value the production of goods and services merely as a means for generating profits rather than the other way around, thus reducing the value of our activity to its future profitability..⁴ Finance-dominated capitalism thus teaches us to conflate the value of the past, the present, and the future. But the Christian tradition emphasizes the radical discontinuity between the old and the new. There must be something to the present that can allow it to stand on its own two feet. And if we reduce the value of profit-seeking solely to the value of the profits themselves, we will have fallen into the same trap. Engaging in profit-seeking will teach us to deny the reality of the new creation in Christ.

Still, it may seem as if we could hold on to two truths at once. For example, Jeff Van Duzer argues in Why Business Matters to God:(And What Still Needs to Be Fixed)⁵ that the purpose of business is two-fold: to create wealth and provide opportunities for its workers to exercise their human creativity. Provided that one pursues profits by engaging in some kind of work worth doing, why not think that participating in a for-profit business is good because it allows us to engage in work worth doing while also generating profits that can benefit others? Unfortunately, because the very idea of profit-seeking implies the pursuit of revenues that exceed the economic costs of the activities that generate such revenues,⁶ the reasons for profit-seeking do not overlap with the reasons for seeking revenues that are necessary to sustain one’s operations. For example, suppose that a factory requires the sale of a hundred widgets to fulfill its obligations, reinvest in the business as reasonably necessary, and otherwise sustain its operations. The question this article seeks to answer is not whether or not it would be good for the factory to make its hundred and first widget. There are plenty of reasons for why it might be good to make widgets. Instead, the question this article seeks to answer is whether or not there is a good reason—a reason that would not render it irrelevant whether or not the factory was making widgets or gadgets—for the factory to make and sell its hundred and first widget for a price higher than what it would cost to produce it. Whether or not it is good to make widgets is a separate question from whether or not it is good to seek profits by making widgets.

This article will argue that profit-seeking—and thus participation in a for-profit business—can be good, provided that it is done the right way. The key insight is that profit-seeking plays a central role within the market process by communicating and incentivizing a certain way of relating to the material and social world. When we successfully realize a profit by buying and selling resources in ways that better reflect the nature of God, we point the market process toward God. And because God’s nature is inseparable from God’s outward movement to draw all of creation into God’s self—an idea known as the missio Dei within missional theolog⁷ —profit-seeking can be a way to participate more fully in the very nature of God. To be clear, this is not to say that it is always better to seek profits rather than engage in some other economic activity. Our very existence—and thus everything that we do—consists of participating in the missio Dei, and there are good reasons for engaging in a variety of other activities. Neither is it an attempt to justify any and all forms of profit-seeking. There are certainly bad ways to seek profits, and this article only seeks to articulate the possibility of the goodness of profit-seeking rather than its inevitability or necessity. Nevertheless, the claim that this article seeks to advance goes beyond arguing for the mere permissibility of profit-seeking. It seeks to make a further point—that it can actually be good to seek profits, provided that a variety of conditions are met. Lastly, the focus of this article is not the goodness of profits themselves. Profits can be used for good or bad. Instead, as a part of meeting the challenge posed by Tanner’s critique of finance-dominated capitalism, the focus of this article will be on the possibility of the goodness of profit-seeking as an activity that goes beyond the mere goodness of the profits that such activity can produce.

The argument in this article proceeds as follows. The first section will define the concept of profit-seeking to clarify the question it seeks to answer. In doing so, it will also raise the stakes for why the question matters in the first place. The second section will briefly discuss the social function of profit-seeking and examine the possibility of what it can be, even if it is often not the way it is. Because profit-seeking entails changing the way market participants relate to the material and social world, it can point the market process toward God. The third section will apply missional theology and the concept of the missio Dei to argue that it can be good to seek profits. By pointing the market process and its participants toward better relationships with the material and social world, profit-seeking can be a way to participate more fully in the mission of God and thus in the divine nature itself. It will then conclude with a brief discussion of some of the implications of the argument.

What is profit-seeking?

This article examines whether or not it can be good for the Christian to participate in a for-profit business. As such, it will define and employ the concept of profit-seeking to refer to that which distinguishes for-profit business from other ways of organizing economic activity. For the purposes of this article, profit-seeking will refer to any set of activities that are undertaken for the sake of engaging in the market process to buy inputs and sell outputs to realize an economic profit, which is the positive difference between an entity’s total revenues and expenses over a set period of time. Unlike accounting profit, economic profit includes as part of its calculation of expenses the opportunity cost of equity capital⁸ To realize an economic profit, it is not enough to show positive earnings on an income statement in a given period of time. One must also compare the value of the earnings to the expected returns on the capital investments that were incurred for the sake of realizing such earnings.⁹ This definition is not arbitrarily provided for the sake of producing a desired conclusion about the goodness of profit-seeking. As will be seen in the next section, it captures the essence of a set of activities that are central to the functioning of the market process. Although the colloquial use of the term also corresponds well with this definition, this article seeks to engage in a brief theological reflection about the value of engaging in such activity, regardless of what we call it.

Defined this way, profit-seeking is a species of market participation. Market participation entails engaging in the market process, which refers to a way of allocating resources in society through price-coordinated competition amongst its participants to further their self-interest.¹⁰ To be clear, self-interest need not entail selfishness. This article will understand the concept of self-interest in the broad economic sense, which encompasses “whatever it is that interests the participants, whatever they value, whatever goals they pursue.”¹¹ The idea thus refers to an individual’s conception of the good as revealed in their economic choices. For example, a merchant who sells their products at a loss to a needy person acts to further their self-interest in the sense that they do so with the belief that it is better to help the needy person than it is to make money. Nevertheless, market participation entails competing with others to further one’s self-interest. Within the market process, sellers compete with other sellers to sell resources, buyers compete with other buyers to buy resources, and sellers compete with buyers over the economic surplus associated with their transaction – all for the sake of each market participant seeking to further their self-interest.

Since profit-seeking is a species of market participation, the focus of this article does not encompass broader economic concerns. For example, this article has nothing to say about whether or not it can be good for someone to loan money with interest to a friend or family member without engaging in any serious negotiation or sufficiently taking market conditions into account. Instead, the focus is on how it can be good for the Christian to engage in a particular kind of competition—one that pits people against each other for the sake of extracting an economic surplus. A lender who seeks profits is one that seeks to extract higher-than-necessary revenues from a borrower by leveraging the competition among a myriad of potential borrowers—all the while competing with other potential lenders for the borrower’s business. Put this way, profit-seeking seems to require a hostile orientation that views others as obstacles to overcome or instruments to be used to further one’s own agenda, which seems to be the opposite of the spirit of self-giving love that the Christian tradition sets up as the normative standard.

Furthermore, although profit-seeking always involves market participation, not all forms of market participation involve profit-seeking. Profit-seeking is a species of market participation that involves buying inputs and selling outputs through the market process. A consumer engages in the market process to the extent that they compete with other buyers while searching for low prices. But their market participation does not constitute profit-seeking because they are not selling any outputs, except in indirect ways that lack the necessary means-ends relationship between buying and selling discussed below. Consumer surplus is not necessarily profit. Conversely, a job search conducted by a laborer who applies to multiple jobs hoping for the highest possible compensation for their labor does not count as profit-seeking because they did not buy a significant portion of the output for sale through the market process. Even if they were to have purchased life-sustaining necessities, education, etc. through the market process, they did not buy their own body nor did they acquire necessary resources—or at least a significant portion of them—for the sake of selling their labor. Producer surplus is not necessarily profit either. Instead, part of the focus of this article is the traditional Christian concern about buying resources not for the sake of consumption but rather for the sake of making money. There is a natural limit to how much we can purchase for consumption and how much labor we can sell to others. But there is no natural limit to how much we can purchase as inputs to produce outputs for the sake of realizing a profit. Once we acquire enough wealth to meet our natural needs, how can we think that it can ever be a good thing to engage in the unnatural activity of continuing to buy and sell for the sake of accumulating wealth?

Lastly, profit-seeking does not stand separately from the activities that are intended to generate the profit. Instead, profit-seeking entails undertaking activity for the sake of realizing a profit through the market process. As discussed above, the traditional Christian worry about profit-seeking arises from what seems like an unnatural inversion of the priority of wealth and the need to meet one’s natural needs and desires. Whereas certain forms of economic organization—like charitable organizations—seek revenues for the sake of sustaining their activity, profit-seeking consists of engaging in activity for the sake of realizing a profit. To be clear, money has no intrinsic value.¹² The pursuit of profits as one’s ultimate end would reflect a perverted and irrational ordering of desires and priorities. Nevertheless, we engage in a variety of activities for the sake of a wide set of intermediate ends. For example, physical health cannot be the ultimate end of human action, but we can nevertheless define exercise as activity undertaken for the sake of our health as an intermediate end and say that it is good. Similarly, profit-seeking is activity undertaken for the sake of realizing profits as an intermediate end. The question this article seeks to answer is whether or not it is possible for the Christian to think of their work as having value if they work for the sake of realizing profits, all the while recognizing that profits cannot be one’s ultimate end. For example, baking an apple pie can be work worth doing for a variety of reasons. But the meaning of the activity changes when we bake pies for the sake of realizing a profit, regardless of whether or not we consider profits our ultimate end. So the question we need to ask is not whether it is good for the Christian to bake pies but, rather, whether it can ever be good for the Christian to bake pies for the sake of realizing a profit. Furthermore, as noted above, we cannot reduce the value of our work to the good that the profits can do without devaluing our work and teaching ourselves to deny the reality of the new creation in Christ. It must make a difference that we are baking pies for the sake of realizing profits rather than making apple sauce or building a bomb. Is such an account possible?

The social function of profit-seeking

A widely accepted—albeit ultimately unconvincing—justification for profit-seeking is that it drives the market process toward a more efficient allocation of resources.¹³ As a general matter, a change in the allocation of resources is more efficient when the change results in an increase in the satisfaction of preferences collectively held by market participants.¹⁴ Profit-seeking helps to drive the market process toward a more efficient allocation of resources by discovering ways to allocate resources that will better satisfy market participant preferences and incentivizing other market participants to allocate resources in the same way. For example, suppose that the typical price of apple sauce is $8 and that apple sauce producers barely break even after paying for apples and other inputs. But then suppose that an apple sauce producer discovers that they can produce and sell apple pie for $10 using the same number of apples and paying the same amount for other inputs. If we were to assume that an increase in the collective willingness to pay for a resource reflects an improvement in the way that the resource can satisfy the preferences collectively held by market participants, it would be reasonable to conclude that using apples to make apple pie would better satisfy consumer preferences than if they were made into apple sauce. This discovery—and the assumption is that this is, indeed, a discovery since competition among apple pie producers would have likely decreased the price of apple pies and/or increased the price of apples if the opportunity was more widely known—would not have been possible unless the producer were seeking to realize a profit by creating a new product and attempting to charge more for it than what it cost to make it. Furthermore, the apple pie producer’s realization of profits reveals to other apple sauce producers that such an opportunity exists and incentivizes them to shift their production away from apple sauce and toward apple pie. The result will be a world with more apple pies and less apple sauce, which is presumably a world in which apples are allocated more efficiently.

However, profit-seeking does not necessarily lead to an improvement in any deeper sense. First, the idea that profit-seeking leads to a more efficient allocation of resources assumes that the strength of one’s preferences can be sufficiently captured by one’s willingness to pay. But willingness to pay is also a function of the ability to pay¹⁵ As a result, within the market process, the preferences of the wealthy end up counting more than the preferences of the poor. For example, suppose that, whereas apple sauce provides necessary nutrition for poor children in developing countries, apple pie is a luxury good purchased primarily by overweight consumers in developed countries. It is difficult to see how the decrease in the production of apple sauce in exchange for an increase in the production of apple pies would amount to an increase in the satisfaction of collectively held preferences if all preferences were to have equal weight. After all, such a shift would devastate a larger number of people for the sake of marginally improving the lifestyles of a few. Second, not all preferences are equally good. One does not improve things by helping to satisfy the perverted or disordered preferences of others. As a result, even if it were the case that profit-seeking would actually lead to an improvement in the satisfaction of preferences among market participants, there is no reason to think that it would necessarily lead to a better outcome in any deeper sense. We cannot say that economic efficiency provides a good reason for the Christian to seek profits.

Nevertheless, profit-seeking plays an important role within the market process by communicating and incentivizing a certain way of relating to the material and social world and thus, as the next section will argue in greater detail, can point the market process toward God. Prices communicate information about relative supply and demand amongst all market participants and incentivize them to coordinate resources in ways that are appropriately responsive to changes in supply and demand.¹⁶ All acts of market participation, including profit-seeking, thus entail engaging in a collective deliberation about how we ought to value resources in society. All buying and selling decisions communicate to other market participants the buyer and seller’s valuation of a resource in relation to other resources. For example, when I buy a carton of milk for $5, my purchase informs the seller, along with all other market participants, that I value the milk just as much, if not more, as other resources that I could have purchased with $5. My purchasing decisions do not reflect the totality of what I value. There are resources that I highly value but cannot afford, and much of what I value—love, for instance—cannot be bought at all. Nevertheless, my purchase communicates relevant information about what I value to others. Assuming a certain amount of rationality on my part, it is reasonable for others to conclude from my purchase that I valued the carton of milk as much as, if not more than, other resources that I could have purchased for the same price. And, when transmitted through the price mechanism, the information communicated through each buying and selling decision encourages others to value resources in a particular way. For example, when I buy a carton of milk for $5, my actions place an upward pressure—albeit a miniscule one—on the price of milk, thus encouraging dairy farmers to value their cows, along with all the resources that support their cows, a tiny bit more. My purchase also encourages other consumers and producers to value milk a tiny bit more—those who may be able to use water rather than milk will become slightly more likely to conserve milk, and those considering a variety of possible uses for their resources will become slightly more likely to use their resources in ways that support the dairy farmer.

But profit-seeking is different from other forms of market participation in at least one respect. In addition to encouraging others to value resources in a certain way, profit-seeking also encourages all market participants to participate in a certain way of allocating resources. For example, because purchasing milk puts upward pressure on the price of milk, the milk purchaser discourages others from consuming milk. At the theoretical margins, a purchase for consumption thus results in someone else forgoing consumption; my milk purchase makes it slightly more likely that someone else will drink water rather than milk. Consumption, in this sense, is exclusionary for other potential consumers, even as it invites greater production of the object of consumption. In effect, the message that the milk purchaser sends to market participants is: “We ought to produce milk for my own consumption, even if it means that someone else needs to refrain from consuming it.” In the same way, someone who sells services without purchasing a significant portion of the inputs—a laborer, for example—discourages other sellers. The message that the seller sends to market participants is: “We ought to make use of my services, even if it means that we refrain from using the services of someone else.” On the other hand, because profits incentivize both inputs and outputs of a particular allocation of resources, it encourages all market participants—as a consumer, supplier, or competitor—to join along with such an allocation. For example, if a dairy farmer successfully realizes a profit by switching their cattle feed from grains to grass and selling grass-fed milk at a premium, they will add to the supply of grass-fed milk being sold, thus putting downward pressure on the price of grass-fed milk. This would encourage an increase in the consumption of grass-fed milk. Furthermore, unlike the purchase of resources for one’s own consumption, the profits that can be realized by selling grass-fed milk encourages other potential buyers to buy the inputs necessary for producing grass-fed milk. Lastly, although the increase in the supply of grass-fed milk puts downward pressure on all milk and thus will discourage some milk producers on the margins from continuing their activity, the profitability of the grass-fed milk enterprise implies that there is money to be made for competitors by adopting a similar model. The result will thus be a net increase of competitors and/or a change in competitors’ behavior to increase efficiency, accept lower profit margins, etc. In effect, the message that the grass-fed milk producer who can realize a profit sends to market participants is: “We ought to all switch from producing grain-fed milk to efficiently producing grass-fed milk without profiting excessively.”

To recap, all forms of market participation encourage others to value resources in a particular way. But there are limits to market participation as the ultimate buyer or the original seller when it comes to incentivizing a certain allocation of resources in society. Buying encourages greater supply but also lower demand. Selling encourages greater demand but lower supply. Ultimate buyers and original sellers thus must swim against the current of the market process to bring about a change to the way we relate to the material and social world. On the other hand, buying an input for a profit-generating venture will encourage not only the supply of the input but also the demand for the input as well. Similarly, the profits associated with selling an output will encourage not only the demand for the output but also the supply of the output. Profit-seeking thus incentivizes a certain way of allocating resources in society. Rather than swimming against the current of the market process, profit-seeking changes the course of the current itself. As a result, if one successfully realizes a profit by allocating resources in ways that better reflect the nature of God, one will have pointed the market process towards God. In so doing, one participates more fully in the divine nature itself. Or so the next section will argue.

Profit-seeking and the missio Dei

Missional theology claims that God’s nature is inseparable from God’s mission, i. e., the missio Dei. The traditional metaphysics of being states that God alone is being itself. Our very being is something that we have by virtue of participation with the being of God¹⁷ Within missional theology, such participation is not a matter of sharing, as if being were a thing to have. Instead, we participate in God’s being in relation because God’s being is relation.¹⁸ The being of the triune God is communion, and the relationship within the trinitarian persons provides the basis for our own understanding of God. God the Father eternally sends God the Son, and God the Spirit bridges the gap between them. Mission—the distinction between the points of origin and destination that is implied in the act of sending, along with the reconciliation of these points in communion—thus describes the very nature of God.

As an expression of divine freedom, this missionary God brings all of creation into being, moving outward and reconciling all of creation to God’s self in Christ and through the power of the Holy Spirit. The work of renewing all of creation is thus not only what God does; it is a part of who God is. As a part of God’s creation, we have our being as we are brought into a right relationship with God. And since the very being of God is missional, participating in the divine communion also involves being brought into a right relationship with the rest of God’s creation as well—a relationship that reflects God’s mission to renew all of creation. As a result, if we engage in profit-seeking in ways that participate in God’s mission to renew all of creation, the value of our activity goes beyond the value of the profits that we generate and of the good consequences we bring about within creation. Instead, our very act of profit-seeking has redemptive value for us. When done the right way, profit-seeking can be a way for us to enter into a fuller communion with God.

Because profit-seeking entails moving the market process closer to the way that the profit-seeker relates to the material and social world, we can participate in the missio Dei by seeking profits in ways that point the market process toward God. For example, suppose that businesses are not willing to pay a lot of money for janitorial services because they see janitorial services as nothing more than a cost to keep their physical environment adequately clean. In other words, businesses around the world do not place much value in janitorial labor. But suppose that an entrepreneur recognizes that janitors who work with a sense of dignity and purpose would not only provide superior janitorial services but also contribute positively to the culture and experience of those working within the customer’s physical environment.¹⁹ If customers were to recognize the value that good janitorial services can provide in ways that they did not before, they would be willing to pay more for it. And when the entrepreneur successfully exploits this opportunity for profit by unlocking the value associated with treating janitorial workers with dignity and respect, the entrepreneur encourages other janitorial services businesses to treat their workers with dignity and respect and to invest in transforming their corporate culture to place the appropriate emphasis on such treatment.²⁰ They will help bring about a cultural shift in how we collectively relate to janitorial services and the workers who provide such services and, in turn, transform the physical and cultural environment of offices worldwide. Now, suppose that treating workers with dignity and respect bears resemblance to the relations within the divine trinity and thus the communion that we have with God and with each other in Christ. If this were the case, the entrepreneur will have pointed how we all relate to the material and social world with respect to janitorial services toward God. And in so doing, they will have participated more fully in the missio Dei—the very nature of God.

Such a claim may not sound very convincing. After all, the missio Dei involves self-giving love that restores communion between God and all creation.²¹ But profit-seeking entails engaging in the market process, which consists of engaging in a self-interested competition to outbid and undercut others. How can such seemingly self-serving behavior amount to participation in, rather than the denial of, the communion within the nature of a loving God? Furthermore, it seems like a perversion of—rather than participation in—God’s self-giving love to treat others with respect and dignity, engage in good stewardship, etc. merely because it would be profitable to do so. Just as friendship motivated purely by self-interest is not true friendship, respect or stewardship for the sake of profits does not seem like true respect nor true stewardship. Rather than the God of self-giving love and communion, it may seem as if profit-seeking points us toward a god that relates to itself and to all of creation in a purely self-serving way.

However, such concerns rest more on how profit-seeking is often practiced rather than how it can be practiced. Although many of us seek profits in ways that deny the reality of God, it is also possible to seek profits in ways that participate in the missio Dei. First, as discussed in the first section, a self-interested act is not necessarily a self-serving act. It is, instead, an act that furthers the actor’s conception of the good. What matters, then, is that one’s understanding of profits is informed by an accurate vision of the good. Provided that one engages in profits with an appropriate relationship to wealth—which, among other things, ought to include the recognition that wealth cannot be the ultimate end of human action, along with a commitment to a radical generosity with the resources under our control—profit-seeking can be an act of service to the world insofar as it brings about a change in how market participants relate to the material and social world in a way that points toward the ultimate good—God. It need not be motivated by the desire to acquire wealth and consume it for one’s self. It need not even be motivated by the profits themselves, as if the value of the activity rests solely on the value of profits or the good that can be done with profits.²² In fact, that is the point of this article—profit-seeking can be engaged for the sake of entering into a fuller communion with God.

Second, the nature of competition within the market process looks different once we recognize the possibility of seeking profits for the sake of pointing the world toward God. Although profit-seeking entails competing to further one’s self-interest, it takes place within a broader collective process. As discussed above, the market process is a form of collective deliberation about how we ought to value and allocate resources. Competition within the market process thus amounts to a competition between different visions for how we ought to relate to the material and social world. For example, when a merchant haggles with a potential customer, they are—or at least ought to be—advancing their view that it is good to put a high value on their product. Conversely, when the merchant seeks to undercut their competitors by lowering the price of their product, they are denying their competitors’ claims that it is good to put a high value on their product, perhaps because there are other things that ought to be valued more. The negation of what ought to not be and the movement to bring all of creation toward God is at the heart of the missio Dei. Participating in God’s mission thus includes negating inaccurate accounts of the good—views that deny the reality of God’s new creation—and, instead, advocating for accounts of the good that correspond to the nature of God. As a result, to the extent that the profit-seeker competes to bring the world closer to a vision of how we ought to relate to the material and social world, competing to further one’s self-interest—i. e., to advance an accurate vision of the good—can be a way of participating in the divine nature.

Third, since profit-seeking need not be undertaken for the sake of selfish gain, it need not treat others and the world in purely instrumental terms. For example, my recognition that treating workers with dignity and respect results in a more profitable business does not imply that I necessarily treat my workers in purely instrumental terms when I treat them with dignity and respect. We ought to treat our workers with dignity and respect because God’s revelation in Christ shows us that participating in God’s loving communion and being in loving communion with each other are one and the same. Profitability need not enter my set of considerations at all, although it inevitably will be one that I cannot entirely ignore. Nevertheless, to the extent that it is possible to realize a profit by treating one’s workers with dignity and respect, it can be good to do so because it will point others toward such a communion. As discussed above, profit-seeking that points the market process toward God invites even one’s competitors to relate to the material and social world in a way that aligns closer to the divine nature. We can thus seek profits by treating our workers with dignity and respect for the sake of showing other market participants that it is good to treat their workers with dignity and respect. This motivation ought to exist alongside—and, indeed, is the same as—our motivation to treat our workers with dignity and respect because that is what it means to participate in the missio Dei.

Even still, one might find it difficult to see any connection between the profit-seeker’s activity and the missio Dei. Suppose, for instance, that the Christian seeks profits by treating their workers with dignity and respect and that they do so for the sake of enacting the loving communion of God in their own economic relations. Further suppose that they succeed, thus incentivizing other market participants to also treat their workers with dignity and respect. Even then, the concern is whether or not the market participants who were moved to relate to their workers in this way are pointed in any way toward God. It seems as if the very process by which the market process moves its participants—the profit motive—undermines the missio Dei by substituting the proper end of economic activity—participation in the divine nature—with its polar opposite—a self-serving desire for profits. When the profit-seeker attempts to incentivize market participants to move closer to God, it may seem as if they are actually pointing them away from God.

There are several responses to such a concern. First, it is a mistake to assume that all market participants act for self-serving reasons.²³ Continuing with the janitorial services example above, some business owners would likely have desired to treat their workers with dignity and respect because they thought that it was the right thing to do but may nevertheless have mistakenly thought that doing so would destroy their business. When the janitorial services entrepreneur shows them that treating one’s workers with dignity and respect does not destroy one’s business, such business owners may gladly join along with the right motivation. In other words, profit-seeking can point the market process toward God by removing reasons for others to oppose the missio Dei in addition to introducing reasons for others to participate in it.

Second, participation in the missio Dei is not an on-or-off binary. It is something that we grow into. And, as is the case with a variety of liturgical acts, participation in the outward act can provide a means for gradual inward transformation. A janitorial business owner may begin treating their workers with dignity and respect merely for the sake of profits at first, but in so doing, they may find themselves gravitating toward the truth and beauty of the divine communion implicit within such relations. The janitorial services entrepreneur will have thus pointed them toward God.

Third, because profit-seeking changes the way market participants relate to the material and social world, its impact is not limited only to those who are incentivized by profits. What results is a more comprehensive social change. When the janitorial services entrepreneur begins the process by which other business owners come to treat their workers with dignity and respect, the result is a change in how we all value janitorial services and low-status work more generally. Profit-seeking can change hearts and minds in all of society.

Fourth, because the missio Dei encompasses how God relates to all of creation, it is bigger than just the motives that we have when we interact with the material and social world. There is also an objective component of the missio Dei. When a dying forest begins to flourish because trees are planted there, the material world reflects the divine nature more clearly, regardless of whether or not we planted the trees for the sake of profits. God can bring creation closer to God’s self through our actions even while we deny the reality of God’s mission with those very same actions. In the same way, the profit-seeker can participate in God’s mission by pointing the market process toward God, even while the same market participants deny the reality of God themselves.

Lastly, we must recognize that the missio Dei is the act and being of God. It is God’s mission and being, not ours. As a result, we are not called to move the world closer to God ourselves. We are called to participate in God’s mission instead by pointing others to the God who reconciles all of creation to God’s self. Profit seeking is not anything more than this. But it is not anything less either.

Conclusion

This article began by asking whether there is any good reason for the Christian to participate in a for-profit business. The answer is emphatically in the affirmative. It can be good to engage in profit-seeking because it can be a way to participate more fully in the missio Dei. When we realize profits by relating to the material and social world in ways that better reflect the divine nature, we point the market process toward God. In so doing, we experience a fuller communion with God.

So what does this all mean? There is plenty that can be said, but this article will conclude with two observations that must be held in tension.

On the one hand, we ought not be so quick to condemn the pursuit of profits in the modern economy. It is easy to point to the traditional suspicion of profit-seeking and reflexively dismiss it as an evil that must be resisted. And, to be fair, there are surely many instances when resistance and condemnation are warranted. But we must also appreciate the modern understanding of the functioning of the market process and the role that profit-seeking plays within it. Profit-seeking can leverage the power of the market process to point the world toward God. We overlook one of the most significant means of urging all of creation to be reconciled to God if we automatically assume that there can be nothing good about participating in a for-profit business.

On the other hand, we ought not rush into profit-seeking with blind faith either. It almost need not be said that we ought not seek profits for profits’ sake. Money cannot serve as the ultimate end of our actions. Only God can serve as our ultimate end. But it is also easy to fall into the trap of focusing solely on the value of profits when we talk of business. Profits can be used for a variety of good purposes, but how we go about seeking profits matters as well. Our work must reflect the reality of the divine nature. Prioritizing profits above our calling to participate in the missio Dei—treating each other as disposable inputs, honoring all preferences in the market even if they deny the reality of God, etc.—is a recipe for disaster, even if we do great things with the profits that we generate.

In sum, the value of profit-seeking lies not only in the profits nor only in the work that produces them. Our work can have value apart from the profits that it may generate. Profits can also have value apart from the work that generates them. But there is also value to the act of profit-seeking in the union of the two. We can point the market process toward God when we seek profits by doing good work.

1. Mary L. Hirschfeld, Aquinas and the Market: Toward a Humane Economy (Harvard University Press, 2018).
2. Kenman L. Wong and Scott B. Rae, Business for the Common Good: A Christian Vision for the Marketplace (InterVarsity, 2011), 69.
3. Kathryn Tanner, Christianity and the New Spirit of Capitalism (Yale University Press, 2019).
4. To be clear, this does not imply that finance-dominated capitalism encourages us to focus on the long-term profitability of a business enterprise. Tanner’s critique applies even to the commodities trader who purchases a resource for the sake of selling it for a profit within minutes or even seconds because they would be evaluating their purchase in terms of how it will profit them a few seconds or minutes later.
5. Jeff Van Duzer, Why Business Matters to God: (And What Still Needs to Be Fixed) (InterVarsity, 2010).
6. The first section of this article will clarify and define profit as economic profit, which is the positive difference between an entity’s total revenues and expenses—including the cost of capital—over a set period of time. The inclusion of the cost of capital to the concept of profit raises an interesting wrinkle for those who focus on the obligations of the manager of a for-profit corporation. It is not unreasonable to point out that, since shareholders demand a certain rate of return on their investment—maximal or otherwise—profits are necessary to attract equity investment in the first place. From this point of view, profits merely reflect the cost of equity capital, and most, if not all, for-profit organizations would not be seeking profits at all. However, this observation only pushes the level of analysis up to the shareholders. Why, for example, should an extraordinarily wealthy Christian seek any return on their investment? This is a big question—one that involves a much fuller discussion on big ideas such as capitalism and stewardship—that this article cannot address in full. This article only focuses on one part of that large question—the compatibility of the Christian tradition with a particular way of seeking a return on capital through the market process, i. e., “profit-seeking.” Nevertheless, the answer to even this smaller question has significant implications at the managerial level. After all, an agent should not do indirectly on behalf of the principal that which the principal is not permitted to do directly. So if investors should not seek profits, neither should the manager of a for-profit corporation, even if profits are what its shareholders demand.
7. See, e.g., David J. Bosch, Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission (Orbis, 1991); Lesslie Newbigin, The Open Secret: An Introduction to the Theology of Mission (Eerdmans, 1995); John G. Flett, The Witness of God: The Trinity, Missio Dei, Karl Barth, and the Nature of Christian Community (Eerdmans, 2010); John R. Franke, Missional Theology: An Introduction (Baker Academic, 2020).
8. John Ryan, “The Relationship Between Accounting Profit and Economic Income,” Australian Accounting Review 17, no. 43 (November 2007): 33–46; G. Bennett Stewart, “How to Fix Accounting: Measure and Report Economic Profit,” Journal of Applied Corporate Finance 15, no. 3 (March 2003): 63–82.
9. This article will not equate profit-seeking to profit-maximization. As a result, the calculation of opportunity cost in economic profit must reflect the cost of capital as determined ex ante by the capital markets at the time of investment. It thus excludes ex post returns that exceed the ex ante forecast at the time of investment. This calculation is not appropriate for accounting purposes because it requires evaluation of information—some of which is subjective—that is accessible only to the entity and/or its investors. Nevertheless, as a moral and theological matter, it is possible for those who are engaging in profit-seeking activity to have a reasonable estimation of this number. For more discussion on the determination of the cost of capital to include ex ante but not ex post returns, see Jooho Lee, “Entrepreneurial Stewardship: Why Some Profits Should Be Used to Benefit Others,” Business Ethics Quarterly 30, no. 4 (2020): 525–51.
10. See, e.g., Ronald H. Coase, “The Nature of the Firm,” Economica 4, no. 16 (1937): 386–405; Friedrich A. Hayek, “The Use of Knowledge in Society,” The American Economic Review 35, no. 4 (1945): 519–30; Israel M. Kirzner, Competition and Entrepreneurship (University of Chicago Press, 1973).
11. Milton Friedman and Rose Friedman, Free to Choose: A Personal Statement (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1980), 27.
12. See, e.g., Ronald M. Dworkin, “Is Wealth a Value?,” The Journal of Legal Studies 9, no. 2 (1980): 191–226; Paul F. Camenisch, “Business Ethics: On Getting to the Heart of the Matter,” Business & Professional Ethics Journal 1, no. 1 (1981): 59–69.
13. See, e.g., Joseph Heath, Morality, Competition, and the Firm: The Market Failures Approach to Business Ethics (Oxford University Press, 2014).
14. It is irrelevant for the purposes of this article whether or not the concept refers to Pareto optimality, Pareto superiority, or Kaldor-Hicks efficiency. For a more in-depth philosophical examination of the concept, see, e.g., Jules L. Coleman, “Efficiency, Utility, and Wealth Maximization,” Hofstra Law Review 8 (1979): 509–51.
15. For a fuller examination on the subject, see, e.g., Oren Bar-Gill, “Willingness to Pay: A Welfarist Reassessment,” Yale Journal on Regulation 38, no. 2 (2021): 503–42; Cass R. Sunstein, “Willingness to Pay vs. Welfare,” Harvard Law & Policy Review 1, no. 2 (2007): 303–30.
16. Hayek, “The Use of Knowledge in Society.”
17. For a fuller theological examination of the concept of participation within the Christian tradition, see, e.g., Andrew Davison, Participation in God: A Study in Christian Doctrine and Metaphysics (Cambridge University Press, 2019).
18. See, e.g., Jannie Swart et al., “Toward a Missional Theology of Participation: Ecumenical Reflections on Contributions to Trinity, Mission, and Church,” Missiology: An International Review 37, no. 1 (January 2009): 75–87.
19. A similar recognition led to the success of ServiceMaster, a large corporation that began as a cleaning services business. For more, see Albert Erisman, The Servicemaster Story: Navigating Tension between People and Profit (Hendrickson, 2020).
20. There is a thorny question about the extent to which profit-seeking requires preventing others from accessing the source of one’s profits. For example, the invention of a new technology that increases productivity is an asset that one must sometimes render inaccessible to others if one is to realize a profit from it. The full answer to this question is beyond the scope of this article, but it suffices to say here that, whereas there will be instances in which participation in the missio Dei requires a radical transparency that may undermine one’s profitability, there will also be instances in which keeping the reasons for one’s success inaccessible to others is necessary to transmit the relative value of one’s economic activity—and thus point the market process toward God—when compared with alternatives within the market process.
21. See, e.g., Franke, Missional Theology: An Introduction, 8: “While the mission of God is complex and multifaceted, its central character, from which all other aspects flow, is love.”
22. To be clear, there is a lot of good that can be done with profits and by profit-seeking enterprises. In fact, profit-seeking enterprises can do certain things to improve the world that nonprofits likely cannot do. Nevertheless, the point here is that there is an additional value to profit-seeking that goes beyond the good that one can do with the profits and by the profit-seeking enterprises. Profit-seeking can also be good insofar as it allows one to participate more fully in the divine nature.
23. This is a different claim than the one made a few paragraphs above. The earlier claim made a distinction between self-interested actions and self-serving actions. This distinction only points to the theoretical possibility of self-interested actions that serve others. It may still be the case that most—if not all—market participants who act to further their self-interest actually act in self-serving ways. The claim advanced here is that, as an empirical matter, there are actually people whose interests include service to others and thus do not always act in self-serving ways.