Reconciling God and Mammon: Adam Smith and how religion shaped his ideas
CIS Lecture
Thursday 11 February 2010
Professor Paul Oslington, Professor Gavin Kennedy and Dr Brendan Long
Running time: 78 mins
How was Adam Smith’s vision of a free market order shaped by his theological background? We know that Stoicism, Newtonian natural theology, and Calvinist ideas of divine providence were important to Smith in his eighteenth century Scottish context, but how exactly did they influence his economics?
These questions are important and hotly contested, and this session bring together international experts in the field to debate the links between Smith’s theology and his economics. We will also consider contemporary relationships between economics and religion.
Professor Paul Oslington is joint chair in economics and theology, Australian Catholic University. A published author with forthcoming volumes Adam Smith as Theologian (Routledge), Political Economy as Natural Theology (Routledge), and Oxford Handbook of Christianity and Economics (OUP). Recipient of a Templeton Foundation grant to explore the formation of an international economics and religion research centre in Sydney.
Professor Gavin Kennedy is from Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh. An expert on Adam Smith, author of Adam Smith's Lost Legacy (Palsgrave Macmillan 2005) and Adam Smith: A Moral Philosopher and His Political Economy (Palgrave Macmillan 2008) and a contributor to the Adam Smith Primer (CIS, 2009).
Dr Brendan Long is from Australian Catholic University. A former Treasury Economist with a PhD in Theology from Cambridge on Adam Smith. Currently a political advisor in Canberra. Author of a chapter on Adam Smith and religion in the forthcoming Elgar Companion to Adam Smith.
