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Published in St Marks Review December 2005

Natural Theology As An Integrative Framework for

Economics and Theology*

Dr Paul Oslington

Senior Lecturer, School of Business

Australian Defence Force Academy/University of NSW

Northcott Drive, Canberra ACT 2600, Australia.

Email p.oslington@adfa.edu.au.

Web: www.unsw.adfa.edu.au/sbus/staff_cvs/about_paul_osling.html

* St Marks Day Public Lecture, St Marks National Theological Centre May 2005.

I thank Graeme Garrett for the invitation on behalf of St Marks to deliver the lecture, John

Nevile for his response, and the staff, students and friends of St Marks for their questions

and lively discussion after the lecture. I especially appreciate Heather Thomson arranging

the taping of the lecture. Comments of the anonymous referee improved the published

version.

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1) INTRODUCTION

In this lecture I will argue that a renewed natural theology can operate as an integrative

framework for contemporary interdisciplinary exchanges, including between economics and

theology. To support this argument I will have to clarify what I mean by natural theology, and

explain how a particular tradition of natural theology functioned as an integrative framework for

British scientific endeavour from the seventeenth to the mid-nineteenth centuries. I will also

discuss how the new science of economics took shape in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth

centuries in the context of natural theology, and explore some consequences of the marriage of

political economy to natural theology. So, the first part of the lecture is largely historical.

The second part will deal with contemporary intellectual and institutional issues. Reviving

natural theology, two hundred years after its demise in Britain, on the other side of the world,

and making economics central to this revival may seem curious, but I hope I can convince you

of its worth. At least that some similar integrative framework is needed. If not I’m sure St

Marks will give you your money back tonight. I plan to leave plenty of time for questions and

discussion at the end.

2) WHAT IS NATURAL THEOLOGY

Francis Bacon at the beginning of the seventeenth century defined natural theology as “that

spark of knowledge of God which may be had by the light of nature and the consideration of

created things; and thus can fairly held to be divine in respect of its object, and natural in respect

of its source of information” (Bacon, quoted by Webb 1915 p2). Natural theology has a divine

object, but its source of information is the natural world. It is a project of reading the ways of

God from what we discern from the nature of the world. A popular way of expressing this was

that God had written two books, the scriptures and the natural world.

We have to be careful of drawing too rigid a dividing line between revealed and natural

theology. The scriptures are after all are an object in creation, and require interpretation just as

any other object requires interpretation. A rigid split is also undermined by scriptural

encouragement us to learn about God from creation (as Barr 1993 points out); the Apostle Paul’s

Areopagus speech in Acts 17, his argument in the first chapter of the book of Romans, various

places in the Psalms and the prologue to John’s Gospel, and debatably references such as

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Genesis 1:27 to humans being created in the image of God. Being endowed by God with senses

and reasoning powers would also seem to also license natural theology.

Natural theology was important in pre-Christian Greek, especially Stoic thought. Christian

versions include Thomas Aquinas’ Five Ways demonstrating the existence and attributes of

God, Anselm’s attempt to show God’s perfection implies God’s existence, John Calvin’s

arguments that the natural world showed God’s power and goodness as well as our need of

salvation (although could not disclose the means of salvation), and Leibniz’ theodicy which

defended God’s goodness and power in the face of suffering in the world.

In more recent times natural theology has fallen out of favour. For scientists it seems 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.

Among theologians natural theology receives some attention in Roman Catholic circles but little

among Protestants. Its bad repute is partly due to the theologian Karl Barth’s famous rejection of

natural theology in perhaps the shortest title in theological history No!. Barth’s was responding

to a suggestion by Emil Brunner in Nature and Grace that a recovery of the natural theology

tradition was necessary to engage with culture in pre-WWII Germany (Both works are now

published as Barth and Brunner 1946). We need to be careful (as Barr 1993 points out) to see

exactly what Barth was objecting to. Barth’s real target was 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 (Barth 1938) I

don’t believe we can take Barth as rejecting natural theology in all contexts. Stanley Hauerwas

in his recent Gifford Lectures provocatively reads Barth as a natural theologian (Hauerwas

2001).

Another influence on contemporary Protestants has been the use of natural theology by some

philosophers of religion (for instance Plantinga 1980) as a point of departure for their rejection

of foundationalism. Their target is demonstrative proofs of God’s existence, of which they find

certain strains of natural theology to be an example, rather than natural theology itself. A

natural theology which rests on the Christian doctrine of creation would seem exactly the kind

of intellectual project these philosophers would support. Alvin Plantinga is the current Gifford

lecturer, so I guess we’ll have to wait and see when the lectures are published.

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The position of natural theology was very different from the seventeenth to the mid-nineteenth

centuries, when it was the most important organising concept for intellectual life in Britain.

Young (1985) calls it the “common context” for the activity of scientists, philosophers and

theologians. This British tradition of natural theology, which is the subject of this lecture

includes Francis Bacon Novum Organum 1620 (from whom the earlier definition of natural

theology was taken), Robert Boyle Disquisition about the Final Causes of Natural Things 1688,

Isaac Newton Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica 1686, John Ray Wisdom of God

Manifested in the Works of Creation 1691, Joseph Butler The Analogy of Religion 1736,

Abraham Tucker The Light of Nature Pursued 1768, William Paley Natural Theology 1802 and

the Bridgewater Treatises- a series of works commissioned in the 1830s “On the Power,

Wisdom and Goodness of God, as Manifested in the Creation”.

It is important to recognise that this tradition of natural theology depended for its coherence on

Christian doctrines of creation by a personal God and providential care for creation (which was

not true for instance of earlier Greek, and especially Stoic versions of natural theology). It was

not a project of autonomous reason, even though works of natural theology sometimes took the

form of proofs of the existence and goodness of God, directed at atheists. Atheists were pretty

thin on the ground in Britain in the period we are considering, and there is little evidence that

such atheists as existed were converted reading works of natural theology. Arguably the same is

true of much of the rest of the natural theology tradition. For instance, St Thomas Aquinas’ Five

Ways is in his Summa Contra Gentiles, a work addressed to outsiders, but really aimed to

reassure Christian Europe of its foundations in the context of Islamic military incursions.

Something more than converting atheists is required to explain the huge amount of effort

devoted to natural theology in Britain from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries. It cannot

purely be speculative philosophical interest; the main figures in the tradition were scientists.

This something is the non-demonstrative functions of natural theology outlined by Brooke

(1991b) and Brooke and Cantor (1998 ch5):

Firstly, natural theology legitimated scientific endeavour – Robert Boyle in the seventeenth

century described himself as a priest in the temple of nature, and William Whewell the

nineteenth spoke of science as a perpetual song in the temple of nature. Both men as Christian

clergymen used natural theology to justify their scientific work to themselves and others, by

showing it had a religious purpose.

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Secondly, operating within a fairly general natural theology framework allowed scientists to

avoid scientifically pointless sectarian squabbles. This function became more important later in

the period as Dissenters, Roman Catholics and others participated more actively in scientific

institutions.

Thirdly, natural theology provided a common language for various branches of scientific

investigation, facilitating discussions across mathematics, biology, geology, chemistry etc.

Fourthly, natural theology suggested scientific theories. Boyle spoke of pregnant hints from a

greater chemist than he, and Newton pored over the scriptures and religious history as he

formulated his scientific theories. Whewell’s commitment to teleology in science came from his

theology.

Fifthly, natural theology was a political resource that could be deployed by the establishment in

support of the existing social order. Harmony and order in the natural world could be

transferred to the social world, for instance to justify private property or inequality of rank. It

does not seem to be an accident that these themes became more prominent at the end of the

eighteenth century – a time of political upheaval and threat to the established social order.

The main thing I want to emphasise is that natural theology wasn’t about demonstrating God’s

existence; it had quite different functions. This is fairly well travelled ground, but I would now

like to extend the linkage between natural theology and British science to the science of political

economy.

3) POLITICAL ECONOMY AS NATURAL THEOLOGY

Just as natural theology was an important context for scientific endeavour, so too it nourished

political economy, which took shape as a discipline in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth

centuries in Britain. (Economics was known as political economy during this period). This

argument is made more fully in a book in progress Political Economy as Natural Theology. The

argument is not primarily about influence of theology on economic theory (although such

influence was important), but is about identity - that political economy functioned as natural

theology in this period.

It has been said that just as Adam was the first man, so Adam Smith became the first economist

when he published his Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations in 1776. If

we are writing the history of economic thought this will not do, as Smith was one figure in a

complex and multinational movement (see for instance Schumpeter 1954 or Gordon 1975). The

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identity argument is actually stronger earlier in the eighteenth century, but for the purposes of

tonight’s lecture I will begin with Adam Smith.

The argument is not about Smith’s personal faith. In my view it is irrelevant where Adam Smith

stood with God (we can’t assume that Smith’s views about religion were those of his close

friend David Hume, or his French associates). As a practical matter we can’t know, especially

for Smith where there is less textual and biographical evidence to go on for than for most

authors. Smith was reticent on these matters during his life, and directed his papers be burnt on

his death.

Some biographical evidence, though, is relevant to my argument that Smith’s work was natural

theology. Smith had a devout Presbyterian upbringing and signed the Westminster Confession

as an adult (Ross 1995). The moderate Calvinism of the Scottish Enlightenment was not as

antithetical to natural theology as one might guess from reading certain strands of contemporary

Calvinist theology, and works of natural theology were produced by Smith’s teachers and

friends, including Gershom Carmichael, Francis Hutcheson, and Lord Kames. Smith in his

youth was much influenced by Stoic philosophy, a system of natural theology with strong

emphasis on providence and harmony (Stewart 1991; Vivenza 2001).

Also relevant is Smith’s admiration for Sir Isaac Newton, one of the key figures in the British

natural theology tradition. Newton’s influence was mediated through his fellow Scot Colin

MacLaurin’s Account of Sir Isaac Newton’s Philosophical Discoveries which amplifies the

natural theological elements in Newton. MacLaurin (1748) began his discussion of Newtonian

method by pointing out that “natural philosophy is subservient to purposes of a higher kind”

(p3) and in a chapter on the “Supreme Governor of the Universe” suggests “there is nothing we

meet with more frequently and constantly in nature than traces of an all-governing Deity”

(p377) and that there is a “plain argument for the existence of the Deity, obvious to all and

carrying irresistible conviction” (p381).

Perhaps the strongest biographical warrant for reading Smith’s work as natural theology is that

his Glasgow lectures on moral philosophy in the early 1750s began with natural theology. We

know this from the report of a student John Millar, reproduced in Dugald Stewart’s Account of

the Life and Writings of Adam Smith. The student reports “His course of lectures ... was

delivered in four parts. The first contained Natural Theology; in which he considered the proofs

of the being and attributes of God, and those principles of the mind on which religion is

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founded” (Stewart’s account is now published in Smith 1790 p274, and other student notes are

now published as Smith 1978). These Glasgow lectures were the foundation of Smith’s system,

and his major works the Theory of Moral Sentiments, and Wealth of Nations grew from them.

Moving on from biographical warrant to Smith’s works, the language strongly indicates a work

of natural theology. Smith regularly refers to “the Deity”, “the author of nature”, “the great

Director of nature”, “lawful superior” etc and often speaks of morality in the context of design.

For instance: “the happiness of mankind, as well as all other rational creatures, seems to have

been the original purpose intended by the author of nature, when he brought them into existence.

... By acting according to the dictates of our moral faculties, we necessarily pursue the most

effectual means for promoting the happiness of mankind, and may therefore be said, in some

sense, to co-operate with the Deity, and to advance as far as in our power the plan of

Providence” (Smith 1759 p166)

or “Every part of nature, when attentively surveyed, equally demonstrates the providential care

of its Author, and we admire the wisdom and goodness of God even in the weakness and folly of

man” (Smith 1759 p106)

or “the governing principles of human nature, the rules which they prescribe are to be regarded

as the commands and laws of the Deity” (Smith 1759 p165)

Such passages are more common in the Theory of Moral Sentiments than the Wealth of Nations,

which is what we would expect if the Wealth of Nations is an elaboration of part of a larger

system set out in his earlier book on moral philosophy, perhaps to be further elaborated his

planned but never completed work on jurisprudence. Smith regarded the Theory of Moral

Sentiments as his most important work and revisions to it right up until his death indicate

continued adherence to the views on providence and design expressed in it.

Besides language, some of Smith’s important ideas are structurally similar to those in natural

theology. The search for instances of God’s providential care was a staple of natural theology.

John Ray the British naturalist found God’s providential care in the oceans being just large

enough to supply rain for the populated parts of the planet and William Derham suggested that

that poisonous snakes were created to teach taught us watchfulness, and that this human

watchfulness in turn helped snakes (These examples are from Brooke 1991b). Furthermore

God’s care is most evident where outcomes are not intended, as in the Joseph story from

Genesis. For many Scots the Jacobite rebellion of 1745 could be interpreted this way - as God

bringing good out of foolishness or evil. One of Smith’s most important ideas, that individuals

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pursuing their own interests in a properly formed market institutions generate an unintended

harmony and plenty, has a similar structure.

Some scholars have suggested that Smith’s famous image of the invisible hand expresses this

idea and has a theological origin (Viner 1927 p207 or more recently Lisa Hill 2001 and Brendan

Long 2002). In the Wealth of Nations Smith describes an individual who “intends only his own

gain, and is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which

was no part of his intention” (Smith 1776 p456) and in the Theory of Moral Sentiments suggests

the rich who “are led by an invisible hand to make nearly the same division of the necessaries of

life, which would have been made, had the earth been divided into equal portions among its

inhabitants, and thus without intending it, without knowing it, advance the interest of the

society” (Smith 1759 p185). The suggestion is that the hand is God’s hand operating

providentially in each case: in the Wealth of Nations to induce merchants to invest capital at

home, and in the Theory of Moral Sentiments to regulate the distribution of income.

Teleological explanation is another feature of works of natural theology that is present in Smith.

For instance the following: “In every part of the universe we observe means adjusted with the

nicest artifice to the ends which they are intended to produce, and admire how everything is

contrived for advancing the two great purposes of nature… But in these, and in all such objects

we still distinguish the efficient from the final cause… we never endeavour to account for them

from those purposes…[yet in relation to final causes are apt to wrongly] imagine that to be the

wisdom of man, which in reality is the wisdom of God” (Smith 1759 p87). As his biographer

Ross (1995 p340) puts it “His philosophy of social explanation involves final explanations,

couched in terms of a purposeful nature or God, and this variety of theism is an integral part of

his approach to social phenomena” and that taking this component away would leave his “whole

theoretical apparatus seriously damaged”.

A question which arises about Smith’s natural theology is whether it is closer to the Stoic

systems than the British tradition I have been discussing. In the Stoic systems there is no

personal creator and governor of the world, and without a personal God there is no sin.

Certainly there are imperfections in the Stoic system but they do not raise the same moral

questions as in orthodox Christian theology, with its personal God and doctrine of creation.

Theodicy is more a Christian than a Stoic problem. Smith has a creator but we do not get a

strong sense of personality. Smith certainly sees imperfections in the economy, and vigorously

denounces some of them and suggests remedial action, he sees no need for an elaborate defence

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of God’s goodness and power in the light of the problems. Adam Smith stands close to the

Stoics here, in contrast to Malthus and his followers in the nineteenth century who operated in a

clearly Christian natural theological framework.

A previous St Marks Day lecturer, Anthony Waterman (2002) has recently argued that Smith

can be read as offering an Augustinian theodicy of markets. Just as for Augustine human

government has been provided by God to restrain the effects of sin, for Smith markets have been

provided to restrain sin. Waterman does not claim that Smith intended to offer such a theodicy,

merely that Smith can be read this way. I agree that Smith can be read this way, and would add

that he was in fact read in this way by the nineteenth century economists such as Whately,

Chalmers and Whewell. I see no conflict between Waterman’s argument and my own

observation that Smith’s natural theology has Stoic elements and lacks a traditional theodicy.

Stoicism and Augustinian Christianity of course have been historically intertwined (for instance

Bouwsma 1975).

To summarise the discussion of Smith, there is biographical warrant, and many features of his

published work that link Smith to the British natural theology tradition. The Theory of Moral

Sentiments and Wealth of Nations were, and functioned as works of natural theology. I am not

arguing that Smith had a strong Christian commitment or that his intentions were apologetic.

His background and Scottish context clearly influenced the shape of the works, and his intention

may well have been to use the form of a work of natural theology to help secure acceptance of

his ideas. We can only speculate about Smith’s intentions, but in taking the Theory of Moral

Sentiments and Wealth of Nations as works of natural theology we are in the company of many

nineteenth century readers of his work.

To the nineteenth century we now turn – or almost. Thomas Robert Malthus published the first

edition of his Essay on the Principle of Population in 1798. Malthus was largely responsible

for political economy’s rise to prominence in England at the beginning of the nineteenth

century, and with Adam Smith was regarded as one of the “joint founders of the science”

(Winch 1996 p373).

Just as for Smith, it is biographical plausible that Malthus would produce a work of natural

theology, based his Cambridge education, clerical connections, and especially the influence of

William Paley, one of the major figures in the British tradition of natural theology. Paley was

recognised for his contributions to political economy (discussed by Waterman 1996) and his

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Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy of 1785 and Natural Theology of 1802 deploy

natural theological arguments drawn form the social world.

Malthus in several places marks his work as natural theology. In the Essay on the Principle of

Population he states that “it seems absolutely necessary that we reason from nature up to

nature’s God and not presume to reason from God to nature” and goes on to speak of “the book

of nature where alone we can read God as he is” (Malthus 1798 p220). Despite these comments

he does not consider at length the argument from design and other staples of natural theology.

The reason seems to be that he considered Paley to have dealt sufficiently with these, and that

his own works would be read in this context. In correspondence Malthus comments that “The

proofs of design are indeed everywhere so apparent that it is hardly possible to add much to the

force of the argument as stated and illustrated by Paley” (Malthus to Whewell 1833, in

Todhunter 1876 I p73).

Taking the argument from design for granted, the issue Malthus needed to deal with was the

seeming conflict between his population theory and the goodness and power of God. Two

chapters of the first edition of the Essay attempt to make theological sense of the principle of

population. It would seem that creating a world where misery and vice were necessary to keep

the growth of population in line with the food supply is inconsistent with the doctrine of God’s

providential care, and ultimately God’s goodness. Malthus’ theodicy began by rejecting the

position of natural theologians such as Paley that earthly life is a trial for the future life, instead

arguing that life was to develop the human mind, and that suffering (as in the principle of

population) which spurred human activity was necessary for such development. In his words

“this world and this life is the almighty process of God, not for trial, but for the creation and

formation of mind, a process necessary to awaken inert, chaotic matter into spirit” (Malthus

1798 p202). For Malthus the human mind was initially inert and required some stimulus to

development. In setting out his position the status of the traditional doctrines of original sin and

eternal suffering in hell were left unclear. In summary, earthly suffering was not inconsistent

with God’s providence, but required by it “to create exertion, and exertion seems evidently

necessary to create mind” (Malthus 1798 p204). In all, while the principle of population

“undoubtedly produces much partial evil ... it produces an overbalance of good” (Malthus 1798

p205) and that there is “no more evil in the world than is absolutely necessary” (Malthus 1798

p216).

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This theodicy did not convince many and Malthus dropped the two theological chapters from

the second edition of the Essay. The issue was complicated by an addition in the second edition

of moral restraint – essentially postponement of marriage by the labouring classes – as a check

to population growth. Before this addition any suffering associated with the principle of

population was innocent suffering – coming from an inconsistency between the productivity of

land and the natural urge to procreate – but once moral restraint is added to the system humans

are culpable for not exercising restraint. Introducing moral restraint however allowed Malthus

to introduce God’s punishment for sin (i.e. failure to exercise moral restraint) into the revised

theodicy published in his 1830 Summary View of the Principle of Population.

Malthus’ theodicy has been extensively discussed by Pullen (1981) and Waterman (1991). The

main point for the argument of this lecture is that Malthus’ attention to theodicy fits a work of

natural theology.

I have spent some time in this lecture on Smith and Malthus who were described by Donald

Winch as the co-founders of the science of political economy, but a distinguished line of

political economists in the nineteenth century made their contributions to political economy in

the context of natural theology.

John Bird Sumner, for instance, whose Treatise of the Records of Creation and the Moral

Attributes of the Creator 1816 was described as “masterful” by Malthus, and who later become

Archbishop of Canterbury (a loss to economic theory lamented by David Ricardo - see

Waterman 1991 p157). Sumner’s turned the principle of population from being a theological

problem to additional evidence of the wisdom of the creator. He also suggested that political

economy was provided by God as a remedy for any partial evils associated with the principle of

population.

An economist who figures more prominently than Sumner in standard histories of economic

thought is Richard Whately. His student Nassau Senior held the first Chair of Political

Economy in a British University (the Drummond Chair at Oxford) and Whately himself took up

the Chair in 1829 in recognition of the growing importance of political economy and its

potential usefulness in Christian apologetic. To an unnamed correspondent Whately wrote

“Religious truth ... appears to me to intimately connected at this time especially with the subject

in question [political economy]. For it seems to me that before long, political economists of

some sort must govern the world... Now the anti-Christians are striving very hard to have this

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science to themselves, and to interweave it with their own notions” (Whately 1886 p66-67). He

saw no conflict between political economy and religion, suggesting in his inaugural lecture “that

Political Economy should have been complained as hostile to religion will probably be regarded

in a century hence with the same wonder, almost approaching to incredulity, with which we of

the present day hear of men’s having opposed on religious grounds the Copernican system”

(Whately 1832 p25).

Whately revealed in correspondence that he was thinking “of making a continuation of Paley’s

Natural Theology, extending to the body-politic some such views as his respecting the natural”

(Whately 1886 p66-67), and began the project in his inaugural lecture. Whately writes “In

nothing perhaps will an attentive and candid inquirer perceive more of the divine wisdom than

in the provisions made for the progress of society” (Whately 1832 p84). He then illustrates this

by describing the remarkable way a city like London of a million inhabitants can be supplied

each day, observing that “no human wisdom directed to that end could have conducted so well

the system by which that enormous population is fed from day to day” and that this bears “the

same marks of contrivance and design, with a view to beneficial end, as we accustomed to

admire (when our attention is drawn to them by the study of Natural Theology) in the

anatomical structure of the body etc” (Whately 1832 p90). He draws an analogy between the

circulation of blood and the circulation of commodities, but observes the latter is more

wonderful because it is not the circulation of inert matter but circulation induced by rational free

agents with a variety of motives (Whately 1832 p91).

Whately leans heavily on Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations, and explicitly links the idea of

unintended benefits of self interest in a market economy to the doctrine of providence “Man is,

in the same act, doing one thing by choice, for his own benefit, and another, undesignedly, under

the care of Providence, for the service of the community” (Whately 1832 p94). In one of his

later works there is an even stronger providentialist reading of Smith “You will have observed

that it is as a writer on the evidences of natural and revealed religion that I consider Paley to be

especially eminent. Though there is nothing of his that is not worth an attentive perusal, I would

place Adam Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments and Wealth of Nations (though not regarding

either an infallibly right throughout) higher than Paley’s works on the same subjects” (Whately

1859 p39).

Thomas Chalmers was (among other things) an immensely influential political economist,

making important early theoretical contributions to the discipline, and was later an extremely

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popular lecturer and writer of works such as On Political Economy 1832. Chalmers was

commissioned to write one of a series of famous works of natural theology – the Bridgewater

Treatises “On the Power, Wisdom and Goodness of God, as manifested in Creation”. Chalmers

in the preface to his 1833 Bridgewater Treatise alludes to the large amount of existing work

deploying natural science to these ends, and suggests that there is a “much larger

territory...unexplored” and that he will take the opportunity of “tracing the marks of a divine

intelligence in the mechanism of human society, and in the framework of the social and

economical systems” (Chalmers 1833 pxl).

Like Whately, Chalmers leans heavily on the analysis of Adam Smith and offers a

providentialist reading “The greatest economic good is rendered to the community...by the

spontaneous play and busy competition of many thousand wills, each bent on the persecution of

his own selfishness, than by the anxious superintendence of a government, vainly attempting to

medicate the fancied imperfections of nature” (Chalmers 1833 p238). Chalmers concludes

“Such a result [the greatest economic good] which at the same time not a single agent in this

vast and complicated system of trade contemplates or cares for, each caring only for himself –

strongly bespeaks a higher Agent, by whose transcendental wisdom it is, that all is made to

conspire so harmoniously, and to terminate so beneficially” (Chalmers 1833 pp238-239.)

Furthermore “The whole science of political economy is full of these exquisite adaptions to the

wants and comforts of human life, which bespeak the skill of a master-hand, in the adjustment

of its laws, and the working of its profoundly constructed mechanism (Chalmers 1833 p240).

Interestingly Chalmers tries to construct an appropriately pious Smith to go with the theology.

It was well known that Smith removed a passage about the atonement from the later editions of

his Theory of Moral Sentiments. Chalmers takes it upon himself to quote the atonement passage

(Chalmers 1833 p431-432) and to put the blame for removal on David Hume: “one fears lest,

under contagion of a near and withering intimacy with him [Hume], his [Smith’s] spirit may

have imbibed of the kindred poison; and he at length have become ashamed of the homage that

he once had rendered to the worth and importance of Christianity” (Chalmers 1833 p433).

These statements are fanciful but Chalmers must have felt he needed a pious Smith to support a

theological reading of Smith’s works. Chalmers adds that Smith’s passage “notwithstanding

remains one of the finest examples of the way in which Nature bears on Christian theology”

(Chalmers 1833 p433).

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The most striking feature of Chalmers work is the deployment of natural theology in support of

certain economic policy positions (chapter VII of Part I of Chalmers 1833). He is strongly

opposed to the tithe system which provided for the English clergy, and also the Poor Laws. The

argument against the Poor Laws is that they go against our natural feelings of property (which

we observe even in infants fighting over toys), and that property ownership is part of God’s wise

provision for society. The unnaturalness and hence error of the Poor Laws, Chalmers claims is

evident even to the paupers themselves. He rails against “the evils of unsound legislation – on

those occasions when the wisdom of man comes into conflict with the wisdom of God”

(Chalmers 1833 p215).

The figure in this line of natural theologian political economists I find most interesting though is

William Whewell. He dominated Cambridge in the middle of the nineteenth century, and wrote

on political economy from about 1822 following discussions with his friend the political

economist Richard Jones. From 1829 Whewell produced a series of mathematical statements of

the political economy, and later in life Lectures on Political Economy (Whewell 1862). His

most substantial works were his Bridgewater Treatise Astronomy and General Physics

(Whewell 1833), History of the Inductive Sciences (Whewell 1837) and Philosophy of the

Inductive Sciences (Whewell 1840). A later edition of this work (Whewell 1860) included a

chapter on political economy, and another edition linked it explicitly to the natural theology

(Whewell 1845).

Whewell’s initial reaction to political economy seems to have been that it had apologetic

potential. In an 1827 series of sermons on the religious value of the sciences he contemplated

including a sermon on the evidence of “benevolent design in the moral frame of society”

(Whewell to Jones 10 Dec 1826, in Todhunter II p81). In this letter Whewell described his plan

to give “more than one example of the false philosophy of the irreligious school…that false

induction consists in generalising the impulse to increase, and not generalising …the moderating

and controlling influences which the nature of society and of man contain”. The sermon,

however, was not delivered. There is a suggestion (Todhunter I p 330) that the sermon was not

preached as it would be a premature disclosure of views his friend Jones wished later to publish.

This reason seems insufficient and the withdrawal may have had more to do with Whewell’s

doubts about the problems political economy created for traditional natural theology (Yeo 1993

p194 based letter from Whewell to Jones 26 Dec 1826 and 27 Dec1827). An extract from the

sermon is reproduced in Todhunter (I p330-31). Whewell suggests that “it has been passed from

pen to pen and lip to lip as a great discovery, that the tendency of mankind to replenish the earth

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ever pushes them on till the sharp discipline of pain, the iron hand of want and its deadly

concomitant crime, drive back or at least forbid their further progress” so that any improvement

ends up “leaving the spot that seemed thus enriched as bare and hungry as it had been”. This

being seen as a “fiat of His [God’s] will” and something “the Creator ordained …shook and

startled the minds of pious and benevolent men, and seemed like an oppressive and disquieting

thought forced in among their belief and trust in God’s goodness”. In contrast to his doubts

about reconciling political economy with natural theology Whewell felt the other four sermons

on the physical sciences “succeeded pretty well” in making “science fall in with contemplative

devotion” (Letter Whewell to Jones Feb 26 1827, in Todhunter II p82-83)

Around this time Whewell began to think of extending the natural theology project through an

examination of human conscience, as “God’s workmanship is seen in our souls” (quoted by

Brooke 1991a p157). If this were so then we would expect examination of the human

conscience to yield more direct information about God than examination of the rest of the

natural world. The moral sciences, including political economy, were the tools Whewell

envisaged using for this extension of the natural theology project.

4) THE DEATH OF NATURAL THEOLOGY AND SEPARATION OF

ECONOMICS FROM THEOLOGY

British natural theology died in the middle of the nineteenth century, with Chalmers and

Whewell’s Bridgewater Treatises marking the decline. Various explanations have been offered.

According to Young (1985) the natural theology context for science became redundant as the

sciences became more specialised. Natural theology worked at too high a level of abstraction to

continue to be of use to practising scientists. Turner (1978) argues that tension over science and

religion in Victorian Britain was really a debate about jobs, prestige and authority between

increasingly professionalised scientists and religious amateurs. Natural theology was a focus of

disagreement, and to oppose it was to oppose church influence on appointments etc. It was not

just opposition from outside the established church that undermined natural theology, the church

itself turned inward after the Oxford movement. Clerical scientists and political economists

increasingly faced ridicule from professional scientists and suspicion from the church. Brooke

(1991b) develops these types of arguments in relation to his account of the non-demonstrative

functions, showing how they became less relevant through the nineteenth century. In the end

Brooke argues natural theology was being asked to carry too heavy a burden, both scientifically

and religiously.

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Two other common explanations of the death of natural theology are problematic. One is that

Hume’s Dialogues on Natural Religion mortally wounded the design argument which was

central to natural theology, but that the inevitable death took a while. This explanation assumes

that natural theology had a mainly demonstrative function, which is not the case. Another

problematic explanation is that Darwin killed the design argument -and with it natural theology-

with the publication of the Origin of the Species in 1859. The problem is that few of Darwin’s

contemporaries (including his devout contemporaries) saw an irreconcilable conflict between

the theory of evolution and natural theology. On the contrary, some religious people welcomed

Darwin’s theory as showing the mechanisms of design to be more complex and wonderful than

had been previously imagined. The great conflict between Darwin and religion seems to have

been an invention of T H Huxley and others later in the nineteenth century (see Brooke 1991

p279).

I would like to supplement the history of science explanations of Young, Turner and Brooke of

the decline of natural theology with another from political economy. The extension of natural

theology to the social realm created tensions natural theology, which it was unable to deal with.

Standard theodicies had difficulty coping with Malthus’ principle of population, and these

difficulties seemed to increase through the nineteenth century. Also the growth and changing

nature of the economic system, particularly in the wake of the industrial revolution, undermined

static design arguments. And natural theology no longer functioned as well to support the

existing social order later on in the nineteenth century. These problems contributed to the death

of natural theology – the British tradition of natural theology could not survive extension to the

social world.

Irrespective of the reasons for the decline of natural theology, the falling away of the natural

theology context for political economy was the decisive moment in the separation of economics

from theology in the nineteenth century, as I have argued elsewhere (Oslington 2001). After

this separation there were various forms of homespun church economics, but the period of

integration of economics and theology, and even of serious interaction between economists and

theologians was over. The intellectual framework natural theology that supported these

exchanges no longer existed. There were no longer intellectual bridges to walk over (to borrow

a metaphor from Robert Russell at CTNS Berkeley) and that’s still the situation today.

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5) WHY AN INTEGRATIVE FRAMEWORK IS NEEDED

Now I want to build on this history, and think about natural theology as an integrating

framework for economics and theology, on the other side of the world, two hundred years later.

There are several reasons why we need an integrative framework.

Theology has been impoverished by its disengagement from economics and the social sciences.

The potential for theology to be enriched by an engagement with economics is demonstrated by

an examination of economic language in the Scriptures and Church Fathers (for instance

Reumann 1992, Ramsey 1973, Young and Ford 1987). The Old Testament speaks of Israel

redeemed from slavery in Egypt, and again from Babylon – a model of salvation that comes

from the marketplace. The Old Testament sacrificial system can be viewed as an exchange

system. In the New Testament this language is developed, with Christ’s role in the redemptive

transaction emphasised. Another important model of salvation that originated in the market is

reconciliation. We are reconciled to God thought the death of Christ, and entrusted with a

ministry of reconciliation, according to Paul. The language of stewardship or economising is

found in many parts of the New Testament. God’s is a steward or economist of creation, there is

a divine economy of salvation, and the content of the gospel is described as an economy. In the

Patristic writings these economic models are even more prominent – the idea of the divine

economy of salvation is developed, and there are economic models of the Trinity. All of these

metaphors and models need to be carefully read in their original contexts – we must not impose

our contemporary understandings of the economy or economic behaviour. However

contemporary theologians struggle to know what to do with this economic imagery. They seem

to have entirely given up studying divine action by analogy with human action. We need an

integrative framework for theology to make these connections again. A workshop that our

UNSW/ANU/St Marks economics and theology group is running in a month or so will be

exploring this further.

Economics needs to engage with theology too. At its worst, economics is a technical game

where clever people build mathematical models and massage data for their own advantage, with

little connection with the problems of the world. I play that game to some extent as a

professional economist, I have to play it to some extent to have a tenured position at a research

university. The competitive environment of the university (largely competition for position and

status rather than money) is the right one for generating new ideas and weeding out wrong

explanations. But we need some sort of bigger orientating framework so that all this intellectual

17

firepower is focused on problems that really matter. This is how rebuilding of bridges with

theology and ethics can help the economics profession.

Perhaps more important than the benefits for academic theology and academic economics from

reconnecting economics with theology is the hope of dealing with pressing problems of

contemporary culture. One of the things contemporary culture has lost is a sense of the meaning

of economic activity, particularly among those people who don’t have jobs that produce direct

tangible outcomes. Teachers, doctors and social workers, can often see the results of their

efforts. Similarly those who work the land or work with their hands. But what about those who

trade options or staff computer help desks. These workers are distanced from the product of

their labour by markets: those who are provided for are unknown and probably distant.

Despairing of finding deeper meaning in work, many obsessively pursue money and prestige

through work. And many fall apart in mid life realising the emptiness of this pursuit. A

rediscovery of the theology of divine providence operating through markets can help to restore

meaning to the work of the majority of workers who struggle to see direct results of their labour.

6) NATURAL THEOLOGY AS AN INTEGRATIVE FRAMEWORK

If you are convinced an integrative framework is needed, I would like to suggest that a renewed

natural theology could be this integrative framework. Natural theology worked well from

seventeenth to early nineteenth century Britain. It was intellectually reasonably coherent. It

was politically viable. We of course need to recognise that the world has changed in the last

two hundred years, and Australia is not Britain, so what worked well in that environment may

not work today. The natural theology we need is not going to be exactly the same natural

theology as described in previous sections.

What I’m particularly interested in is the potential for a renewed natural theology in the social

sciences. There have been various proposals for a renewed natural theology in the physical and

biological sciences (Polkinghorne 1998, McGrath 2003) but the natural theology/ social sciences

relationship has not developed since the collapse of the British tradition of natural theology in

the mid-nineteenth century, and then not much at all. Recall that the attempt to extend natural

theology to the social sciences contributed to it’s collapse in the nineteenth century.

There are several reasons to expect natural theology yield more in the social than the natural

realm. Firstly, human beings are described in the Scriptures as the pinnacle of creation, and as

18

the image of God. The precise way in which human beings are like God is debated (for

instance Clines 1968) – it has been suggested to be our ability to reason, our soul, our

responsibility, our relational capacity etc. However, there is no other part of creation which is

said to be like God in this way, and if human beings are most like God then surely we can learn

more about God’s nature by studying human beings in a natural theological framework than by

studying beetles or rocks. Secondly, our Trinitarian God is relational, and an obvious way of

learning about Gods relational nature is by studying human interactions in a natural theological

framework. We can deepen our understanding of economic trinity the economy of salvation by

studying economies in which we participate. Thirdly, Philip Hefner’s (1993) idea of human

beings as created co-creators opens the way for a natural theology of God’s creative activity

expressed through human involvement in the economy. Such a developmental natural theology

will be far more robust than a natural theology tied to static design arguments, such as that of

William Paley.

A renewed natural theology will function in some similar ways to the earlier British tradition.

Let’s go back to Brooke’s list of functions. In relation to the first function, there is in our time

no need to legitimate scientific activity. Natural theology will however legitimate scientists and

economists connecting their work to a larger theological framework. The second function of

facilitating co-operation among scientists with different religious commitments will operate

similarly, and perhaps more powerfully because of greater diversity of religious traditions. The

third function of providing a common language for interdisciplinary conversation is just as

important as in the nineteenth century; perhaps more so as academic disciplines have

proliferated. The fourth though may be less important. The increasing specialisation of science

probably reduces the contribution of natural theology in suggesting scientific theories. The fifth

function was sometimes for good and sometimes for ill in the nineteenth century, and it is

difficult to see how this will work out in the twenty-first century.

The major challenge in my view for a renewed social natural theology is human sin. This causes

problems for any analogical reasoning from human to divine such as in natural theology.

However, Adam Smith’s approach is instructive here. Smith argues the market economy is an

expression of God’s providence precisely because it copes with human ignorance and sin,

bringing good out of imperfect individual human actions (e.g the previously quoted passage

from Smith 1759 p106). If this is so, the system as a whole speaks about God in a way that

individual actions do not.

19

Another challenge is Jurgen Moltmann’s (1985 ch 11 p276-296) idea of the sabbath as the

distinguishing mark of creation, as opposed to mere nature. Without an appreciation of the

sabbath the natural theologian is liable to misread creation, just as Moltmann has earlier argued

(ch 3 p57) that the natural theologian without an appreciation of the effects of sin is liable to

misread creation, mistaking primordial remnants for God’s perfection. The sabbath is a

reminder that God rests in creation – in other words that the data the natural theologian works

with is not just a product of God’s activity but a world God remains in, but has yet to bring to

completion. So, in the same way as sin obscures our reading of God from the world, so the

sabbath makes any reading of God from the present world incomplete.

7) ALTERNATIVE INTEGRATIVE FRAMEWORKS

If natural theology is one possible integrative framework for theology and economics, how does

it compare to others? One framework that has received some attention from Christian

economists in recent years is the Calvinism of Abraham Kuyper and his followers. Works

which reframe economics in this way include Goudzwaard (1979), Vickers (1982), and

Tiemstra, Graham, Monsma, Sinke and Storkey (1990). They seeks to build a new Christian

economics on the true view of human beings and the world found in the Christian Scriptures, as

opposed to the false assumptions of contemporary neoclassical economics. This Christian

economics is highly deductive, moving from scriptural axioms to economic theory to

propositions about economic policy. While one can admire the ambition to rebuild economics

on true foundations, such approach fails in my view as it stretches Scripture, and concedes too

much to a methodological realism and deductive rationalism which are not necessarily Christian.

In the end it is not really an integrative framework for economics and theology, instead in

extreme forms becomes an unhelpful reduction of economics to theology.

Another candidate integrative framework is the social teaching of the Roman Catholic Church

(surveyed for instance by Charles 1998). This is built around certain theological axioms such as

the uniqueness and value of the human person, community, the dignity of work, and more

recently human freedom, but tends to allow more play for economics than the Calvinist

framework. Roman Catholic social teaching is also attractive because it is a well developed

alternative, with a large body of high quality work.

Anglicans have done some of the best integrative work (for instance Hay 1989), but usually

without an explicit intellectual framework. The autonomy of economics tends to be respected

20

more by Anglicans. None has yet shown much interest in renewing the natural theology

framework.

There are other more exotic integrative frameworks such as Sergei Bulgakov’s (2000) sophic

economics, where economic activity is a participation in the divine wisdom, or Bernard

Lonergan’s (1999; 2002) use of macroeconomic models to diagnose the spirit of the modern

age.

8) THE INSTITUTIONAL DIMENSION IN AUSTRALIA

Having an intellectual framework for integration is only part of the problem; we also need

institutions to facilitate integrative work. Australia is not in a strong position here. Many of our

older universities exclude theology, and it hardly has pride of place in the few universities that

teach it. Whether this is a peculiarly Australian aversion to religious institutions (flowing

perhaps from the influence of British utilitarians such as Jeremy Bentham), or whether it is a just

a desire to keep inter-religious conflict out of our universities, the effect has been to impoverish

discussions of the relationship of theology to other disciplines and theological engagement with

public issues. It is hard to see the government universities leading the way in integrating

theology, and perhaps they should not anyway. Our theological colleges have focused on

training candidates for ordination in their respective denominations, and shoestring budgets

inhibit research, especially interdisciplinary research, and engagement with public issues. Our

churches have not done much of this type of work, and perhaps they are not institutions well

suited to the task. There are of course exceptional individuals in the universities, theological

colleges and churches, but on the whole the Australian scene is fairly bleak, although improving.

St Marks is one institution whose culture supports integrative work, and I have appreciated the

being involved here as a Visiting Fellow since moving to Canberra five years ago. Engaging

theologically with academic disciplines and bringing theology to bear on national issues is the

mission of the Australian Centre for Christianity and Culture, and it will be exciting to see this

evolve in coming years. Macquarie Institute of Christian Studies in Sydney is sign of hope,

where students can credit theological and integrative courses towards Macquarie University

degrees, and be mentored by older Christians in their fields. The University of Notre Dame in

Perth and Sydney is another hopeful sign, along with the closer integration of Melbourne

College of Divinity with Melbourne University.

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9) CONCLUSION

Natural theology has been historically the most successful integrative framework for theology,

the sciences and economics. While much has changed since the mid-nineteenth century, a

renewed natural theology has a lot to offer as an integrative framework for contemporary

theology and economics. Interdisciplinary exchanges made possible by an integrative

framework could be fruitful for theology, help focus economic research on problems that matter,

and contribute to a rediscovery of the meaning of economic activity as part of God’s care for the

world. These things are badly needed.

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