Market As God (9780674973152) by Cox Harvey

Author:Cox, Harvey
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780674659681
Publisher: Harvard Univ Pr

11

Adam Smith: Theologian and Prophet?

Then you shall see and be radiant; your heart shall thrill and exult, because the abundance of the sea shall be turned to you, the wealth of the nations shall come to you.

—Isaiah 60:5

As mentioned in the previous chapter, any discussion of The Market as a religious phenomenon must come to terms with the sublime aura of Adam Smith. I examined the claim that Smith is the founder of economics and also the proposition that he could be the patron saint of free markets, and found them both unconvincing. In this chapter I will assert that Smith is best understood as an eighteenth-century Protestant theologian in the Scottish Calvinist school. I will also argue that he can be considered a prophet.

Let us begin with Adam Smith as a theologian. Doubtless because of the profession of the present writer, this assertion may sound far-fetched, if not a case of special pleading. But there is mounting evidence of its accuracy, and as I have examined that evidence, I have become convinced not only that reading Smith as a theologian makes sense but that it clarifies much about him that other readings do not. In fact, as the economist Jacob Viner once observed, “Adam Smith’s system of thought, including his economics, is not intelligible if one disregards the role he assigns in it to theological sentiments.”1

Adam Smith lived and wrote before what we now call economics and theology were put asunder and went their own separate ways. His work bears little or no resemblance to what either economists or theologians in the twenty-first century tend to publish. His writing, however, does follow a pattern of reasoning analogous to that of many classical and contemporary theologians. He draws on the streams of religious and philosophical traditions that informed the Scottish intellectual culture of his era. These included biblical studies. Notice from the epigraph to this chapter, for example, that Smith borrows the title of his most famous book, The Wealth of Nations, from the Bible.

It is true, of course, that many writers have appropriated scriptural phrases for the titles of their books with no theological intent. But Smith is different; he did have a theological intent. Perhaps this is more evident to those who have studied the history of theology than to those unfamiliar with that history. Still, only by reading him with willful ignorance can one can miss Smith’s continued references to “the Author of nature,” or simply “the Deity.” Throughout the nineteenth century, Smith was read by theologians as one of their own and, as we shall see below, the Calvinist doctrine of Providence played a key role in his thinking. Take this sentence, for example: “Every part of Nature, when attentively surveyed, equally demonstrates the providential care of its Author, and we may admire the wisdom and goodness of God even in the weakness and folly of men.”2

In addition to the Bible, the theologians of Smith’s time delved into the history of doctrine, but they also interested

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