Production and exchange in Thomas Aquinas’s writing : Does man participate in the work of creation?[Production et échange chez Thomas d’Aquin. L’homme participe-t-il à l’œuvre de création ?]

Economic production by humans carries a dual challenge: theological, as part of the work of creation, and economic, in terms of the management of natural resources and respect for the natural environment. Thomas Aquinas's economic writing tends to refute the thesis that the medieval conception of man and nature is at the root of contemporary ecological disaster. Going by the Biblical sources he uses and the way he associates economic thought and theology, it could be said that he places economic activity more in the context of exchange and a theology of the Covenant that demands justice in this exchange rather than in the context of participation in divine creation through production. Moreover, his use of the lexicon of production to deal with the question of supply shows that only the earth produces. Human beings adapt to the production they receive, transform and transport for exchange, to satisfy their needs. By limiting human activity to exchange, Aquinas offers an economic epistemology that could be described, in contemporary terms, as ecological, since the earth alone ensures production and, ultimately, supply, and human activity remains subordinate to it.