Providence: the cure for theologians' allergy to economics

Theologians have an allergy to the science of economics. They will quote philosophers and sociologists all day long. But they refuse to read any economics, the best developed and most useful of the social sciences. Even when they think they have given the science a chance, it's easy to see they haven't. For example, when Craig L. Blomberg, Professor of New Testament at Denver Seminary, wrote "Neither Capitalism nor Socialism: A Biblical Theology of Economics," he argued that he had studied and his views were based on sound economics. They were not. 

If theologians are not Marxists, most will insist like Blomberg that the Bible is neutral on the question of capitalism verses socialism. That doesn't explain why theologians from the 16th century until the late 19th century proclaimed laissez-faire capitalism as Christian economics. 

How theologians gave birth to the science of economics

It's well known that theologians such as Copernicus, a church canon (senior cleric attached to a cathedral), gave birth to modern science. Less acknowledged is the role of clerics in launching the science of economics. Most scholars claim the Enlightenment as the parent. But the real history of paternity reaches farther back.

Church fathers in the early years of Christianity had embraced the economics of Aristotle and Cicero rather than that of the Bible. Their reasons for doing so have been lost, but it may have been due to the tendency of churches suffering persecution to elect young converts from the nobility as bishops for their political power. The sons of nobility had a high regard for the great philosophers of antiquity and tended to baptize their economics. The chief economic errors of antiquity included a contempt for commerce, the prohibition of charging interest on loans, a value theory that said things had intrinsic value, and a theory of a “just price” that made profits immoral. The condemnation of commerce was so strong that some church fathers thought it impossible for merchants to enter heaven. So merchants who became wealthy tended to give half their wealth to the Church as a means of buying their way into heaven and to use the remainder to buy land and titles of nobility to protect their wealth from other aristocrats.

Jesus did not cleanse the Temple of commerce

 

At the mention of capitalism, many on the left refer to Jesus' cleansing of the Temple as evidence that Jesus opposed not only capitalism, but commerce. They are in good company. Philosophers since Aristotle have despised commerce and considered it evil. Church fathers baptized Aristotle's economics and for 1,500 years declared that commerce condemned those who practiced it to hell. BTW, Aristotle despised craftsmen like Joseph and Jesus, too. 

Then, astronomers began to prove Aristotle's astronomy wrong and opened a crack in veneration of the pagan philosopher. Theologians at the University of Salamanca during the Reformation drove a truck through the crack by distilling the principles of capitalism from natural law with Biblical support. 

Capitalism is not the root of all evil

Philosophers have struggled with the cause of evil in the world. After all, if God is good and God is great, why does evil exist? Many young people think they have the answer: capitalism is the cause of evil in the world, according to an article in Reason magazine. Here are some quotes:

"'Do you feel horrible? That's capitalism, baby!' says the wildly popular mental health influencer TherapyJeff in a TikTok with nearly 50,000 likes. 

"In another video, this time with over 14,500 likes, a young woman declares that 'capitalism is the root of all evil' before adding, 'I'm also a business owner...

When the US made God king

It's popular today to credit the secular Enlightenment with the creation of the United States. But the founders didn't see it that way, especially Samuel Adams. 

Adams said at the signing of the Declaration of Independence on August 1, 1776: “We have this day restored the Sovereign to whom alone men ought to be obedient. He reigns in Heaven, and with a propitious eye beholds His subjects assuming that freedom of thought and dignity of self-direction which He bestowed on them. From the rising to the setting sun, may His kingdom come!”

New York City may elect socialist mayor

Zohran Mamdani, a self-described democratic socialist, became the Democrat nominee for mayor of New York with endorsements from self-proclaimed democrat socialists Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Bernie Sanders.

Why is democratic socialism still popular? It destroyed every economy in South America over the last century and therefore is a major cause of the tsunami of immigrants from the south.  The latest disasters are Venezuela and Bolivia. Chile recovered from its infatuation with democratic socialism in the 1970s and has been the only Latin country with a growing standard of living since. Recently, Argentina grew tired of the destruction caused by democrat socialism and elected a libertarian president to turn the country around. Europe's economy stagnated a generation ago because of democratic socialist policies. So why do people still cling to such nonsense?

Capitalists care more for the poor than socialists

 

According to modern socialists, only they care about the poor. Capitalism exploits them. The opposite is the truth. How can the two sides have such different views of reality? 

Social psychologist Jonathan Haidt explains in his book The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion. Haidt, like most professors in the humanities and social sciences, is a socialist. Haidt shows that compassion, and only compassion, drives socialists. While capitalists value compassion, they temper it with concerns for justice and truth.