Economy of Salvation

{{Short description|Christian religious concept}}

File:Jan Cornelisz. Vermeyen - The Holy Trinity.jpg, 16th century]]

The Economy of Salvation, also called the Divine Economy, is that part of divine revelation in the Roman Catholic tradition that deals with God's creation and management of the world, particularly his plan of salvation accomplished through the Church. Economy comes from the Greek oikonomia (economy), literally, "management of a household" or "stewardship".Mcgrath, Alister Christian Theology: An Introduction Blackwell Publishing, 2006 p. 267 {{ISBN|978-1-4051-5360-7}}{{Cite web |last=Mirus |first=Jeff |date=May 20, 2009 |title=The Economy, in This World and the Next |url=https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/articles.cfm?id=320 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230605061025/https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/economy-in-this-world-and-next/ |archive-date=Jun 5, 2023 |website=Catholic Culture}}{{cite web|url=http://fathermahars.blogspot.ie/2007/09/economy-of-salvation.html|title=The Economy of Salvation|website=fathermahars.blogspot.ie}}{{cite web|url=http://www.catholicmannight.com/tag/economy-of-salvation/|title=Economy of Salvation - Catholic Man Night|website=www.catholicmannight.com}}{{cite web|url=https://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/index/s.htm|title=Catechism of the Catholic Church - Index - S|website=www.vatican.va}}{{cite web|url=https://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p1s1c2a1.htm|title=Catechism of the Catholic Church - The Revelation of God|website=www.vatican.va}}

Church doctrine sees this as the elements and resources revealed by God as necessary for the sake of mankind's salvation through God's revelation and communication of himself to mankind. It refers to God's creation of all things, and of his governance of the world, especially with regard to Jesus' part in salvation, which includes his mission being fulfilled by his body, the Church, and through the sacraments.{{cite web|url=https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P2U.HTM|title=THE SACRAMENTAL ECONOMY|website=www.vatican.va}}

Paragraph 1103 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church also refers to the "Economy of Salvation" as the "economy of Revelation".{{cite book|last1=The Holy See|title=Catechism of the Catholic Church|date=1995|publisher=Doubleday|isbn=978-0-385-47967-7|page=312|edition=Updated and Revised with modifications from the Editio Typica}}

The term "Economy of Salvation" is first used by Origen of Alexandria, although references to the "Divine Economy", the "Economy of God" or simply the "Economy" are in earlier Church fathers.{{Cite web|last=Barton|first=Kyle|date=2016-05-06|title=God's Economy in Patristic Usage|url=https://conversantfaith.com/2016/05/05/gods-economy-in-patristic-usage/|access-date=2021-03-06|website=conversant faith|language=en}}

Giorgio Agamben's The Kingdom and the Glory: For a Theological Genealogy of Economy and Government (2007; Eng. translation, 2011, p. 51) argues that this concept of "economy" (oikonomia) becomes narrowed to refer to a divine plan of salvation only after the Nicene dogma is established. In early Church history, the term also encompasses the "organization of the divine life" (51).