Political Economy as Natural Theology

Smith, Malthus and Their Followers

Paul Oslington

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9780367865023
• eBook ISBN: 9781351686037
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

Since the early 20th century, economics has been the dominant discourse in English-speaking countries, displacing Christian theology from its previous position of authority. This path-breaking book is a major contribution to the interdisciplinary dialogue between economics and religion.

Oslington tells the story of natural theology shaping political economy in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, emphasising continuing significance of theological issues for the discipline of economics. Early political economists such as Adam Smith, Josiah Tucker, Edmund Burke, William Paley, TR Malthus, Richard Whately, JB Sumner, Thomas Chalmers and William Whewell, extended the British scientific natural theology tradition of Francis Bacon, Robert Boyle and Isaac Newton to the social world. This extension nourished and shaped political economy as a discipline, influencing its theoretical framework, but perhaps more importantly helping legitimate political economy in the British universities and public policy circles. Educating the public in the principles of political economy had a central place in this religiously driven program. Natural theology also created tensions (especially reconciling economic suffering with divine goodness and power) that eventually contributed to its demise and the separation of economics from theology in mid-19th-century Britain. This volume highlights aspects of the story that are neglected in standard histories of economics, histories of science and contemporary theology.

Political Economy as Natural Theology is essential reading for all concerned with the origins of economics, the meaning and purpose of economic activity and the role of religion in contemporary policy debates.

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1    Introduction

Economics matters because it has been the dominant discourse in English-speaking countries at least since the middle of the 20th century, arguably before that. Anthony Waterman (2004) suggests that economics has replaced Christian theology as the discourse which binds Western society together and carries authority. John Milbank’s influential theological work begins from the marginalisation of Christian theology by contemporary social science, including economics, which he sees as deformed theology (Milbank 1990). The American economist Robert Nelson (1991, 2001, 2010) has attempted to read 20th-century economics as concealed theology, for instance identifying Samuelsonian public economics with liberal Protestantism, and the Chicago school with Calvinism.

There is a deep gulf between contemporary economic and religious discourse. Theologians tend to engage only superficially with mainstream economics, and economists on the whole ignore theology. There are exceptions of course to the generally superficial engagement of contemporary theologians with economics, for instance the works of Douglas Meeks (1990, 2014), Miroslav Volf (1991), Alan Storkey (1993), Kathryn Tanner (2004, 2005) and Mary Hirschfeld (2013). Biblical scholars find it difficult to avoid economics, though puzzlingly gravitate to varieties of Marxian or other types of non-mainstream economics (for instance, Boer 2003 as discussed in Oslington 2011c).

It is very rare for contemporary economists to engage deeply with theology. The economics of religion is a growing subfield of contemporary economics which seeks to explain religious behaviour and religious institutions using mainstream economic models (see the surveys of Iannaccone 1998, 2010; Oslington 2011e; Iyer 2016). However, modelling religious behaviour and institutions is something different to engaging deeply with theology.

A recent attempt by economists to reengage with theology has been in the sectarian “Christian economics” that arose in the 1970s in the US and Europe, especially in certain Calvinist and Roman Catholic circles. In my view this “Christian economics” movement is a theologically problematic response to the marginalisation of Christianity in Western culture in the preceding decades (discussed further in Oslington 2009, 2010 and briefly in Chapter 8, this volume). “Christian economics” runs parallel with the rise of a sectarian “Islamic economics” in response to the economic disappointments of the Muslim world through the 20th century and the association of economics with the heart of Western culture that is rejected by these Islamic groups (Kuran 2004).

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Economics matters particularly in Australia with our heritage of utilitarianism and prosperity (Collins 1985; Gascoigne 2002). The church needs to engage more deeply with economic ways of thinking to connect with ordinary Australians and to have an influence for good on our public culture. A renewed theological engagement with economics also matters particularly in African and Asian societies, where Christianity is vibrant and economic change rapid. Something better is needed than the distorted prosperity theology that is widespread in churches.

This book contributes to the interdisciplinary dialogue between economics and theology by telling the story of the role of theology in the formation of political economy as a discipline in Britain in the 18th and 19th centuries, and the separation of ethics and theology from economics later in the 19th century.

It aims to:

•    Deepen understanding of the formation of political economy as a discipline, writing the neglected theological elements back into the history of the discipline. It is a contribution to an alternative history of the formation of political economy emphasising theological context and influences, largely bypassing figures such as Ricardo and the Mills’ who are overemphasised in existing histories.

•    Provide a historical basis and theological resources for a renewal of dialogue between economists and theologians. There is no need to create artificial points of contact because strong historical connections already exist. History is neutral ground between the disciplines of economics and theology, and an excellent starting point for dialogue.

•    Extend existing scholarship on natural theology to political economy, especially considering issues of theodicy raised by this extension.

The focus of the book is Britain, justified by this being the centre of political economic discussion in the period under study, and the country where the academic discipline of political economy initially took shape (Checkland 1951; Winch 1971, 1996, 2009). Some comments will be offered on America, mostly for comparison with Britain. It is acknowledged that important early contributions were made by the French Physiocrats (Meek 1963; Groenewegen 1977, 1989), the Italian civil economy school (Bruni and Zamagni 2007) and the German cameralists (Tribe 1997), but the scope of the book needs to be limited.

Discussion will be restricted to Christian theology, though interactions between economics and Islamic, Buddhist and other religious thought has become more important in recent years (for instance, Wilson 1997; Schumacher 1966; Kuran 2004; Elashker and Wilson 2006).

I am not dealing with the many important policy issues connected to the relationship between economics and theology. The greatest need is to clarify the relationship between economics and theology as a basis for future writing on policy issues that involve both economics and theology.

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I am not taking up parallels between the relationship between theology and economics, and wider issues in theology and science (for instance Brooke 1991a; Harrison 1998, 2007), theology and psychology (Watts 2002), theology and sociology (Gill 2012), etc. The focus will be on the science of economics.

I will concentrate on the intellectual issues at stake, although it is acknowledged that not all the barriers to dialogue between economists and theologians are intellectual. The formation of economics as a discipline and the separation of economics from theology were for a mixture of intellectual reasons and reasons connected with the interests of those involved.

It must be emphasised that there are vast number of interesting and important questions at the boundary of economics and theology, and this book tackles only a small subset of them. It is not meant to be a comprehensive survey of the questions, let alone a definitive account of the relationships between economics and theology. There are other surveys of the growing interdisciplinary field of economics and theology (including Waterman 1987; Oslington 2003, 2009, 2014).

The book begins with a brief discussion of natural theology and the problem of theodicy that is intimately connected with natural theology. This chapter is essential reading for those less familiar with religious thought, and the historical chapters which follow draw on this discussion. Those needing more background in Christian theology may want to consult one of the standard introductions to the field, such as Alister McGrath’s highly readable Christian Theology with its associated volume of excerpts from the classic works. As you read the historical chapters, bear in mind that I am offering a corrective to standard histories of economics, and so works such as Roger Backhouse’s Penguin History of Economics, or Vaggi and Groenewegen’s Concise History of Economic Thought may be useful to readers unfamiliar with economics. Do not bother with introductory economics textbooks which are typically dull and unenlightening about the intellectual framework of the subject. My final chapter offers some thoughts on the promise and difficulties of reviving the conversation between economists and theologians, and some ideas on possible intellectual frameworks for future engagement between the disciplines.

I hope this work stimulates further discussion of the issues among economists, theologians, historians and others. There is much work to be done in this field.

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2 Natural theology

Philosophical and historical issues

Introduction

The purpose of this chapter is to briefly introduce and clarify one of the key categories in the book, that of natural theology, concentrating on the British tradition of scientific natural theology which the argument mostly draws upon. It will set the scene for subsequent chapters.

Natural theology and scripture

Francis Bacon at the beginning of the 17th century defined natural theology¹ as “divine philosophy derivable from God by the light of nature, and the contemplation of his creatures; so that with regard to its object, it is truly divine; but with regard to its acquirement, natural” (Bacon 1605: 142). For Bacon, it was a project of understanding the ways of God through examining the natural world, noting that this includes humanity. A common way of explaining natural theology in Bacon’s time was that God had written two books for our benefit, the scriptures and the book of nature.²

Natural theology is often contrasted with revealed theology, but there is no rigid dividing line between the two. For Bacon and many other natural theologians, it is a distinction between types of revelation. Although the scriptures are held by most theologians to be of divine origin (whatever their particular view of inspiration), they were authored by created human beings and are an object in creation. They require interpretation by human beings under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.^{3 4}

A rigid split between scriptural and natural revelation is also undermined by scriptural encouragement for us to learn about God from creation.⁵ In the Apostle Paul’s Areopagus speech recorded in Acts 17:24–27:⁶

The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us.

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In Romans 1:20 we read: “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities – his eternal power and divine nature – have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse”. Many Psalms would seem to encourage natural theology; for instance, Psalm 19 begins:

The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they reveal knowledge. They have no speech, they use no words; no sound is heard from them. Yet their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world.

References such as Genesis 1:26–27 to humans being created in the image of God, and being endowed by God with senses and reasoning powers, also license natural theology.⁷

Varieties of natural theology

Natural theology has a long history and there are many varieties. It was important in pre-Christian Greek thought, especially among the Stoic philosophers. Christian versions of natural theology include Thomas Aquinas’ Five Ways demonstrating the existence and attributes of God, Anselm’s attempt to show God’s attribute of perfection implies God’s existence, John Calvin’s arguments that the natural world shows God’s power and goodness as well as our need of salvation, although it cannot disclose the means of salvation.⁸

In recent times, natural theology has fallen out of favour. For most scientists, it is no longer relevant. Among many philosophers, the objections in Hume’s Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, and Kant’s Critiques and On the Failure of All Attempted Philosophical Theodicies, are regarded as devastating.⁹ Among theologians, natural theology receives some attention from contemporary Roman Catholic philosophers and theologians, but little among Protestant theologians.

The bad repute of natural theology among contemporary Protestants is partly due to Karl Barth’s famous utter rejection of it in a work with perhaps the shortest title in theological history No!¹⁰ Barth was responding to a suggestion by Emil Brunner in Nature and Grace 1934 (in Barth and Brunner 1946) that “It is the task of our theological generation to find the way back to a true theologia naturalis” (1946: 59). Barth does not seem very interested in Brunner’s definition of natural theology, instead defining it himself as any system which does not focus on revelation in Jesus Christ, and leaving readers in no doubt as to his views:

If one occupies oneself with real theology one can pass by so-called natural theology only as one would pass by an abyss into which it is inadvisable to step if one does not want to fall. All one can do is to turn one’s back upon it as upon the great temptation and source of error, by having nothing to do with it and by making it clear to oneself and to others from time to time why one acts that way.

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Barth adds the advice that one should not delay to stare at a serpent (Barth and Brunner 1946: 75–6).

Care is needed to identify exactly what Barth was objecting to, and his real target appears to have been the misuse of the Lutheran doctrine of the orders of creation to support the Nazis’ repugnant policies. Despite Barth’s reiteration of his rejection of natural theology when invited to deliver the Gifford Lectures on natural theology in 1938, we cannot take Barth as rejecting natural theo...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Political Economy as Natural Theology
• Routledge Frontiers of Political Economy
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Natural theology: philosophical and historical issues
• 3 Early English theological roots of political economy
• 4 Adam Smith as natural theologian
• 5 Natural theology and the emergence of political economy: Stewart, Malthus, Sumner and Chalmers
• 6 Progress and tension: Richard Whately and William Whewell
• 7 The demise of natural theology and separation of economics from theology
• 8 Reflections on the contemporary relationship between economics and theology
• Appendix: Analysis of Key Terms in English Books
• Bibliography
• Index