A broader and recent historiographical trend seeks to recontextualize the thinkers of the Enlightenment in religious and theological perspective (Viner 2015 Ahnert 2006 Haakonssen 2006 Sorkin 2008 Gillespie 2008 Burson 2010 Firestone and Jacobs 2012 Bulman and Ingram 2016 Lehner 2016 Muscolino 2016 McInelly and Kerry 2018). Many of these interpretations construe the invisible hand as a reference that moves from the sacred to the secular that is, it evokes images of the transcendent but ultimately makes no strong claims with regard to divine action (Kennedy 2016 Hengstmengel 2019, 164). Others have seen it as a central image referring to the self-regulation of the market (Grampp 2000 Aydinonat 2008). At various times it has been downplayed as a mere passing expression. The most famous phrase associated with Adam Smith (1723-1790) is undoubtedly that of the ‘invisible hand.’ It is a formula that has been addressed at great length in the scholarly literature and the significance of which has been much debated (Samuels 2009 2011). It is argued that an application of a particular version of the distinction between special and general providence to Smith’s thought obscures older classical theological categories and distinctions-most specifically the dialectic of divine power-and that a retrieval of these older categories provides a more helpful framework for contextualizing and understanding Smith’s own thought.Īdam Smith, providence, happiness, invisible hand, divine power, economic life Whereas in traditional Reformed theology providence functions within the framework of a qualitative difference between the two orders of God’s being and the order of creation, in Smith we encounter an ‘immanentized’ providentialism, in which these orders are collapsed into one. This contribution advances a critical examination of Smith’s thought in theological perspective, with a point of departure in a recent interpretation of the ‘invisible hand.’ We show that the concept of general providence has displaced traditional understandings of special providence in the way Smith presents God’s care for the world. Journal of Economics, Theology and Religion, vol.
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