Contract Love?

I’ve framed my writing about contracts in terms of multi-perspectivalism: the normative (contracts based on the principle of promise-keeping), the situational (contracting as a means of exercising the dominion mandate), and the existential (the universal office of contract party with limits, both true because humans exist as the image of God).  Look here and here for the “scholarly” stuff.  Add the doctrine of sin to the mix and you get contract law (check here to see what I mean). 

But, while I’ve often cited this quote from Calvin’s Institutes to my students, I’ve never seen my way to do much with it:

Now there are many kinds of thefts. . . . another lies in a more concealed craftiness, when a man’s goods are snatched from him by seemingly legal means.  Let us remember that all those arts whereby we acquire the possessions and money of our neighbors – when such devices depart from sincere affection to a desire to cheat or in some manner to harm – are to be considered as thefts.  (Institutes 2.8.45)

Apparently Calvin believed that the social practice of contracting was to be grounded in or based upon (take your pick)  “sincere affection.”  Sounds suspiciously like love to me. 

What in the world could he mean?  The economists teach us that the material cause of contracting is neediness, not affection.  Sure, as a Christian I believe that the formal cause of contracting is dominion under the covenantal authority of God, but what’s love got to do with it?

Some thoughts soon.