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In this important volume, Joost Hengstmengel examines the doctrine of divine providence and how it served as explanation and justification in economic debates in the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries throughout Western Europe. The author discusses five different areas in which God was associated with the economy: international trade, division of labour, value and price, self-interest, and poverty and inequality. Ultimately, it is shown that theological ideas continued to influence economic thought beyond the Medieval period, and that the science of economics as we know it today has theological origins.
Interdisciplinary in nature, this book will be of interest to advanced students and researchers in the history of economic thought, the history of theology, philosophy and intellectual history.
List of contents
1. Introduction 2. The history of divine providence 3. International trade: God's universal economy 4. Division of labour: the divine ordering of society 5. Value and price: a providential abundance of necessities 6. Self-interest: the invisible hand of God 7. Poverty and inequality: rich and poor God-willed 8. Conclusions
About the author
Joost Hengstmengel is a postdoctoral researcher at the Tilburg School of Catholic Theology, Tilburg University, the Netherlands.
Summary
In this important volume, Joost Hengstmengel examines the doctrine of divine providence and how it served as explanation and justification in economic debates in the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries throughout Western Europe. The author discusses five different areas in which God was associated with the economy: international trade, division of labour, value and price, self-interest, and poverty and inequality. Ultimately, it is shown that theological ideas continued to influence economic thought beyond the Medieval period, and that the science of economics as we know it today has theological origins.
Interdisciplinary in nature, this book will be of interest to advanced students and researchers in the history of economic thought, the history of theology, philosophy and intellectual history.
Additional text
"[A] valuable book on an important topic, and one that I learnt much from. It will be especially valuable to historians of economics who lack training in theology which is necessary to come to grips with writings that emerged from the theology-soaked intellectual culture of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. No other work is as comprehensive and clear on the topics it covers." - Paul Oslington, Erasmus Journal for Philosophy and Economics
Report
"[A] valuable book on an important topic, and one that I learnt much from. It will be especially valuable to historians of economics who lack training in theology which is necessary to come to grips with writings that emerged from the theology-soaked intellectual culture of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. No other work is as comprehensive and clear on the topics it covers." - Paul Oslington, Erasmus Journal for Philosophy and Economics
"Divine Providence has several outstanding features. Hengstmengel's work makes the relevant primary sources the central element in its analysis. Indeed, one of the key strengths of the book is its perceptive, detailed exploration of the writings of a range of contributors, including English political economists, French Catholic theologians (including the Jansenists), Dutch ministers, German Protestant natural-law philoso>phers, cameralists, and Scottish Enlightenment moral philosophers.....It is worthy of careful consideration by histori>ans of economic thought who will be rewarded with a salient entry into this subject and encouragement toward further research on the theological origins of economic
reasoning."
-Edd Noell, Hope Reviews
