This paper attempts a theological justification for the right to private property or ownership. This I have subtitled, "A Thomistic Onto-Theology of Self-Communicative Ownership," for our discourse grounds human ownership as a participation of the self-giving creativity of the Divine owner. Such a justification of ownership is also a metaphysical articulation of the true spirit of the creative economy, which should be the theological norm for democratic capitalism, insofar as capitalism aspires to be such a creative economy. This is no blind praise of any capitalist system, but proposes itself as a normative thesis as well as a justificatory thesis of capitalism. Hence its title, "First Philosophy of Democratic Capitalism As Creative Economy," for it intends to be a demonstration of its first principles—first of a creative economy, and by extension also of democratic capitalism insofar as the latter should instantiate such an economy.

The deepest moral justification for a capitalist system is not solely that � it serves liberty better than any other known system; nor even that it raises up the living standards of the poor higher than any other system; not that it improves the state of human health and maintains the balance between humans and the environment better than Socialist or traditional Third World societies. All these things, however difficult for some to admit, may be empirically verified. In fact, the true moral strength of capitalism lies in its promotion of human creativity.

—Michael Novak
The Catholic Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism