Adam Smith as Theologian by Oslington Paul

Author:Oslington, Paul [Paul Oslington]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781136721984
Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Part II

Analysis and Assessment of Adam Smith’s Theology

6 Adam Smith, Natural Theology

and the Natural Sciences

Peter Harrison

Some recent treatments of Adam Smith have contended that Smith’s moral and economic philosophy can be regarded as intrinsically theological. These readings of Smith seek to vindicate Jacob Viner’s earlier assertion that Smith’s inherent providentialism had often been written out of his philosophy by 20th-century commentators who, in Viner’s view, had sought to create a secular Smith in their own image1. In this chapter I offer an exploration of this question from the perspective of the history of science. Historians of the natural sciences have long acknowledged the centrality of natural theology in the natural philosophy and natural history of the 17th and 18th centuries. On the face of it, it would be surprising if natural theology did not play some role in the human sciences of the period. Accordingly, a comparative account of the history of science and the history of moral philosophy of this period promises to shed light on the question of whether, and in what sense, Smith might be regarded as an exponent of natural theology.

In what follows I offer a number of general observations about the relations between science and religion in the early modern period, with a particular focus on natural theology. It will not be possible, on the basis of these brief and somewhat disparate observations, to make a definitive case for the importance of theological considerations for Smith. Nonetheless, I hope to provide some materials that point to the way in which elements of Smith’s thought might be seen as operating within a providentialist and teleological framework. My suggestion will be that natural theology functions less in this context as an explicit religious apologetic than it does as a basic ordering principle.

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