Zero-sum thinking: impoverishing in our spiritual lives

Zero-sum thinking — the belief that someone’s gain must come at someone else’s expense — is a poor philosophy for life, politics, or faith. It turns relationships into scorecards and turns ordinary choices into battles of power and loss. There is nothing beautiful in imagining that my joy requires another’s sorrow, or that my children’s success depends on other children’s failure. Love, gratitude, and the flourishing of a community are not measured by who falls behind so that others can surge ahead.

That same false logic corrodes our public life. When every policy, budget, or election is treated as a winner-take-all contest, the polity breaks down. Each side retreats into rigid defense, suspicious that any gain for the other side must be their loss. Even the language of “full” nations or “closed” communities can be used to suggest that compassion necessarily deprives those already here — as if hospitality, support, and welcome are a finite supply. But societies thrive when we remember that humane policy and common purpose enlarge the common good rather than diminish it.

Zero-sum thinking is especially impoverishing in our spiritual lives. Some Christians wonder whether heaven’s joy would be diminished if God were to save all people. That suspicion imagines God’s love as scarce, as though the divine table could run out. The Gospel tells a different story. When the rich young man walks away burdened by the cost of following Jesus, the disciples voice their fear too: “We have left everything to follow you; what then will we have?” Jesus answers not in scarcity but in abundance: you will receive a hundredfold and inherit eternal life. God’s economy is not subtraction; it is multiplication.

We are invited into a different practice: to give without counting losses, to rejoice when others are blessed, to build communities where generosity creates more life, not less. Gratitude expands us; service enlarges us; faith reorients us away from fear and toward trust. Dignity does not depend on another’s diminishment; politics should aim for the flourishing of all and our worship declare that God’s love is inexhaustible. In doing so we discover the comforting truth at the heart of the Gospel: abundance, not scarcity, is God’s promise. May we live and love in that promise.

See you in church,
Pastor Tuula