Weekly Philo of Economics: Adam Smith and theology

[The following post was inspired by discussion with the great Adam Smith scholars, Maria Carrasco and Fonna Forman.--ES]

One of the great set-pieces of Book V of Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations is his treatment of education. At one point, he interrupts his narrative for what looks like a historical aside: "The antient Greek philosophy was divided into three great branches; physicks, or natural philosophy; ethicks, or moral philosophy; and logick. This general division seems perfectly agreeable to the nature of things." (here) What follows is a description of how, first, superstition turned into Greek natural philosophy; second, (a) how common "maxims" of living were turned (b) by self-styled "wise men" into the great poetic works of, say, Theognis or Hesiod, and (c) with further development and -- in light of the pattern of natural philosophy -- "the maxims of common life were arranged in some methodical order, and connected together by a few common principles," into Greek moral philosophy (I return to this below); third, the partisans "of each system of natural and moral philosophy naturally endeavoured to expose the weakness of the arguments adduced to support the systems which were opposite to their own. In examining those arguments, they were necessarily led to consider the difference between a probable and a demonstrative argument, between a fallacious and a conclusive one; and" so Logic came into being. (here)

The first striking fact about this account is that in his treatment of the three-step origin of Greek moral philosophy (a-c above), Smith inserts as an example of the second step (b) "wise sayings, like the Proverbs of Solomon," which are treated as on par with and no better than the cosmogenic poetry of the Greeks (i.e., Hesiod; The whole paragraph is here.) Smith does not insert the Hebrew Bible into the origin of natural philosophy. So, Smith is flirting here with a Spinozistic treatment in two senses: (i) the significance of the Bible is exclusively as a moral work and (ii) it is capable of being historicized like any other human literary work. (Of course, Smith is not claiming this of the whole Bible.) This is related, of course, to the second striking fact: that theology is not considered part of the great branches that "seems perfectly agreeable to the nature of things." (Note the Epicurean way this is phrased.)

Now, in his first pass on the matter, Smith includes tretament of "the gods" in the superstitious phase prior to natural philosophy. But he pointedly (and rather surprisingly) excludes the gods from the philosophy phase: "Superstition first attempted to satisfy this curiosity by referring all those wonderful appearances to the immediate agency of the gods. Philosophy afterwards endeavoured to account for them, from more familiar causes, or from such as mankind were better acquainted with, than the agency of the gods." (here) So, third, here (but not elsewhere) Smith treats the origins of Greek philosophy as a kind of naturalizing project. What follows is a story of curruption.

Smith tacitly corrects his treatment of Greek philosophy in the following paragraph (in which he explains how a three-fold division became a five-fold division due to the influence of Christianity):

whatever was taught concerning the nature either of the human mind or of the Deity, made a part of the system of physicks. Those beings, in whatever their essence might be supposed to consist, were parts of the great system of the universe, and parts too productive of the most important effects. Whatever human reason could either conclude, or conjecture, concerning them, made, as it were, two chapters, though no doubt two very important ones, of the science which pretended to give an account of the origin and revolutions of the great system of the universe.

So, according to Smith's revised account, theology is not strictly speaking absent from Greek philosophy, but it is included within physics/natural philosophy. But in Smith's hands theology is also restricted to the natural philosophy branch, and absent from Greek moral philosophy. The Gods play a role in cosmogeny and cosmology, but (surprisingly enough given the evidence available to him) not in the providential moral order. Smith then goes on to explain the origin of metaphysics or "pneumatology" and ontology as self-standing subjects due to the influence of Christian European universities (here and here). But this development is treated as a serious corruption:

Wherein consisted the happiness and perfection of a man, considered not only as an individual, but as the member of a family, of a state, and of the great society of mankind, was the object which the ancient moral philosophy proposed to investigate. In that philosophy the duties of human life were treated of as subservient to the happiness and perfection of human life. But when moral, as well as natural philosophy, came to be taught only as subservient to theology, the duties of human life were treated of as chiefly subservient to the happiness of a life to come. In the antient philosophy the perfection of virtue was represented as necessarily productive, to the person who possessed it, of the most perfect happiness in this life. In the modern philosophy it was frequently represented as generally, or rather as almost always inconsistent with any degree of happiness in this life; and heaven was to be earned only by penance and mortification, by the austerities and abasement of a monk; not by the liberal, generous, and spirited conduct of a man. Casuistry and an ascetic morality made up, in most cases, the greater part of the moral philosophy of the schools. By far the most important of all the different branches of philosophy, became in this manner by far the most corrupted. (here)

Smith's criticism of casuistry is familiar from The Theory of Moral Sentiments (recall my post here). So, one might think that all he is criticizing is, first, what he takes to be a particular corrupt phenomena within moral philosophy, and second (again echoing The Theory of Moral Sentiments) what Hume calls "the monkish virtues" in the Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals. But included in the corrupt innovations  are both "the doctrine concerning the nature of the human soul and of the Deity," as well as a "debased system of moral philosophy, which was considered as immediately connected with the doctrines of Pneumatology, with the immortality of the human soul, and with the rewards and punishments which, from the justice of the Deity, were to be expected in a life to come." (here)

Now, whatever Smith may have thought of the truth of natural religion/natural theology, he clearly associates it with superstition and corrupt forms of learning. Moreover, his scope of derision is extraordinarily wide: it's not just Catholic doctrine that gets derided, but any suggestion that God takes an interest in our mortal souls. If Smith believed in a God or a providential order (this is often claimed by folk that interpret his invisible hand as part of theodicy) it's remarkably un-Christian.