Reaching for Heaven on Earth

The following is a speech, by Robert H. Nelson, delivered at The American University, Washington, D.C., October 30, 1991. This speech is based on his book, Reaching for Heaven on Earth: The Theological Meaning of Economics (Rowman and Littlefield: Lanham, Md., 1991). Editor.

An Overview of the Main Themes

Because some people may not be sure, I thought I should start by commenting a little bit about the audience I see for my new book, Reaching for Heaven on Earth: The Theological Meaning of Economics. I wrote the book in significant part for economists. But I hope the audience will include the other social sciences as well. It is also a book about philosophy and theology. I am hoping that there may also be some interested people in those fields.

The book is far from your normal book by an economist. What it is really about is the social meaning of the whole enterprise in which economists are involved. This should be a very important subject to economists. But it is not one they necessarily write much about or even think a whole lot about.

What I have tried to explore is what you might call the "value foundations" of the professional efforts of economists. It turns out, as I will examine, that this is as much a subject about philosophy, or as I will assert theology, as it is about formal economics. I also should say right away that in my remarks today I am not going to follow the organization of Reaching for Heaven on Earth. The book is largely organized as an historical review of the thinking of some key people who have shaped or influenced economics. It starts as far back as Plato and Aristotle. It takes about a quarter of the book to get to Adam Smith, and then the next quarter to get to the 20th century. Thus, it is not until the second half that I get to people like John Maynard Keynes, Paul Samuelson, Milton Friedman, James Buchanan and Kenneth Boulding.

Although Reaching for Heaven on Earth is laid out historically, it is actually a multi-layered book. It has about four or five basic themes that run throughout. My purpose in writing the book was partly to use the historical development to present and clarify these themes about the social role of economics. In any case, I thought I would focus in my talk today on developing what I see as these four or five main themes that drive the book. I might note that some of them are more novel and some will be more controversial than others. The validity of each theme is not necessarily dependent on the validity of the others.

Theme number one is that the economics profession often looks like, acts like, and plays a role in society very much like a religion. This theme is perhaps the least controversial of those that I present. The ideas that the economics profession is like a priesthood and that it sometimes displays scholastic qualities, have been expressed by quite a few writers. The blessings of the priests of old have been replaced by the approval of the professional classes for all kinds of social practices and institutions. Kings used to seek the counsel of the priesthood; now they look to economic and other professional advisors.

Then and now, these advisors have sought to maintain clear boundaries of demarcation from the ordinary people. Authority has partly depended on a sense of mystery and of exclusive knowledge. Thus, in the Middle Ages the priests used Latin; today economists use mathematics. Reflecting these and other parallels, John Kenneth Galbraith, among others, is always making reference in his writings to what he sees as the religious quality of economic reasoning and the religious character of the behavior of professional economists.

My second basic theme is more radical and I suspect more likely to be challenged. I argue in Reaching for Heaven on Earth that the resemblance to religion goes further than just outward appearance. In truth, there is associated with the activities of the economics profession what is literally a religion. This religion is the religion of economic progress.

Admittedly, although it was more common in the past, economists these days are not likely to be found going around and testifying to the glories of economic progress. Instead, they spend much more time trying to tell us the practical mechanics of achieving progress. Nevertheless, the activities of economists reflect a strong value judgment in favor of economic growth. In the policy world, the practical advice of economists is almost always to take the steps necessary to promote economic progress. Economists may claim that in doing this they merely serve to implement the values of others. But in truth, they are typically strong advocates for growth as a value. Economists such as Walter Heller, Charles Schultze and a number of others have served this kind of role at the highest levels of government.

In the old days, when there was less cynicism about progress, economists would have been more willing to make explicit why they believe growth and progress are such a good thing. Fundamentally, it comes down to a view that many of the basic problems of the world are due to economic causes—that poverty, hunger and other material deprivations explain crime, hatred, warfare and many other forms of human misbehavior. It then follows that the way to eliminate these forms of misbehavior is to solve the economic problem. Indeed, as I describe in my book, the devout followers of the economic faiths of the modern age have seen in economic advance the solution to virtually all the significant problems of mankind. As the title of the book suggests, the great attraction of economics is the hope it has offered of reaching heaven on earth. And the path to heaven is an economic path.

We see this kind of thinking illustrated today in the explanation commonly given for the socially destructive behavior unfortunately exhibited in all too many inner-city neighborhoods. Why do we have such severe problems of drugs, crime, sexual promiscuity, and so forth? For many people, the explanation is the deep poverty and deprivation in which the people of these neighborhoods live. In other words, the basic source of human misbehavior there lies in economic and material causes. Solve the economic problems and the spiritual problems of mankind will be solved as well. The poverty programs of the 1960's were an attempt to bring not only material comforts but eventually a sense of emotional contentment and psychological well being to the current poor.

I should mention here that there have been some important exceptions to the general reluctance of economists to say much about the glories widely expected to result from economic progress. John Maynard Keynes, for example, on several occasions acknowledged that the very idea of economic progress was grounded in deeply felt values. I didn't mention it in Reaching for Heaven on Earth but I recently found yet another example in The Economic Consequences of the Peace, where Keynes wrote that the duty of 'saving' became nine-tenths of virtue and the growth of the cake the object of true religion." Keynes observed that society was working not for the small pleasures of today but for the security and improvement of the race, in fact for 'progress.' The end result would be, as Keynes explained, that "overwork, overcrowding, and underfeeding would have come to an end, and men, secure of the comforts and necessities of body, could proceed to the nobler exercises of their faculties.

"Richard Ely, the founder of the American Economic Association, was one of the rare American economists who was an explicit proselytizer for what amounts to a secular salvation through economic progress. It is not very well known among economists but Ely was also one of the most famous preachers within the social gospel movement of the late 19th century. He wrote a book called Social Aspects of Christianity and Other Essays in which he wrote that what we "learn about Heaven" in the, Bible is in fact meant to apply "for this world." Ely believed that the basic precondition for economic salvation had already been met because the problem of production had now been solved. What still remained in order to reach heaven on earth was to overcome the evil habits learned in earlier and more brutish times and instead to learn to behave cooperatively and harmoniously, as had now become possible. This would entail mainly solving the problem of distribution, which Ely confidently expected would soon be accomplished.

J.B. Bury some time ago wrote a well known book called The Idea of Progress. Reflecting a rather common view among intellectual historians, Bury observed that progress "belongs to the same order of ideas as Providence or personal immortality. It is true or it is false, and like them it cannot be proved either true or false. Belief in it is an act of faith." For most Americans the driving force in progress must be economic growth and development. Economists therefore must be the decisive priesthood in achieving a secular salvation. The role of economists is to assure their fellow citizens that they possess the scientific keys to progress and that this progress can be sustained.

This brings, me to a third basic theme that underlies Reaching for Heaven on Earth. This theme is that economics as a theology follows closely in the line of Christian theology. In fact, it seems that economic theology in important ways offers a secularization of Christian theology. The very framework of understanding the world as found in western civilization is of course derived from the Judeo-Christian heritage. Its categories of thought and basic way of thinking come so automatically that people frequently are not even aware of the origins. Just the other day I was talking to a friend who has spent a lot of time on the Navajo Indian reservation. He commented how he never understood how special and unique the western way of thinking was until he saw how vastly different the Navajo way of understanding the world was.

It is Judaism and then Christianity that has given us the fundamental ideas that history has a direction and purpose that a central question in history is the source of evil; that life should be lived for salvation; that the elimination of evil is the path of salvation; and that a glorious and heavenly future lies in store for at least some if not all people. The Judeo-Christian heritage is the source of the moralistic and crusading spirit, the save the world mentality, that are so characteristic of the West and of America. What we find is that in the modern age these and other Judeo-Christian categories and messages have been secularized. And some of the principal vehicles for this secularization have been classical liberalism, Marxism, socialism, social Darwinism and the ideology of the welfare state—all of which are forms of economic theology. They all offer an economic explanation for the existence of evil in the world. It is the economic answer to the Biblical problem of original sin.

They all offer an economic path of salvation and the hope of heaven in the future. They are all, in this sense, true theologies and in fact theologies that have borrowed the very Judeo-Christian categories and ways of thinking. In essence, they are all secularizations of the Judeo-Christian tradition. It is one of the important characteristics of the modern age dating to the Enlightenment that it has tended to think of itself as a sharp break from earlier western history—especially in matters of religion. As millions have seen the matter, science displaced religion, or at least relegated religion to a much smaller domain of life. This is the common story. However, Reaching for Heaven on Earth asserts that the break was much greater in outward form than in true substance. The Christian categories and framework in effect went underground. But in fundamental ways they were still controlling. This was the case even for belief systems that were outwardly very hostile to Christianity.

This is not an idea for which I claim any great originality. In fact, in researching my book, I was amazed at how often I found this theme repeated by leading intellectual historians and other major thinkers. It has become a common refrain at least in certain circles for around the last 30 or 40 years.

Among his numerous achievements, Paul Tillich is one of the major historians of Christian thought. Tillich wrote that "the idea of providence is secularized in the Enlightenment ... [Indeed], the first clear expression can be seen in economics. It was expressed by Adam Smith. Tillich also said of Karl Marx that in terms of impact he was the most successful of all theologians since the Reformation. And Tillich is not just using the term in a metaphorical sense. He means it literally, in the same way that I do in my book.

A fourth basic theme of Reaching for Heaven on Earth relates to the fact that, while there is a common core to all Christian religions, there has also been enormous diversity within Christianity. Christian faiths have differed widely concerning many of the details of sin and salvation. The Protestant Reformation split the Christian world in two over just this question. Luther argued that the Roman Catholic church was usurping the place of God by promising salvation to those who performed good works. Instead, he said that salvation is a matter of faith alone.

Probably the most novel argument of Reaching for Heaven on Earth is the following. I argue that the various forms of economic theology not only secularize Christian theology in a general way, but that specific divisions among past economists tend to mirror past deep divisions within Christian theology. There have been many explanations given by economists for the correct path of economic growth and progress and of the rational foundations for economic understanding. In my framework, these economic theories are really all prescriptions for an earthly salvation that is grounded in material progress. Still more radically, I argue that the various economic prescriptions for salvation correlate rather closely with a set of Christian prescriptions previously offered for salvation and reaching the Kingdom of God. In other words, there was a drastic change in the terminology and in the outward appearance from Christian to economic theology. But if you take a particular Christian theology, and its particular understanding of salvation, there is a good chance you will be able to find an economist who offers a similar secularized version of this same type of Christian theology.

In short, the most fundamental divisions in Christian theology have been reenacted in secular forms and now show up in the fundamental divisions that separate some major schools of economics from other major schools. In Reaching for Heaven on Earth, I take what some people may find to be a large leap. They may even find this, leap not only heroic but perhaps better described as foolhardy. Frankly, I would not have even considered making such a bold generalization if I had not found that some of the leading theologians of our time had already developed this characterization.

What I argue in my book is that in the history of Christian theology it is possible to divide the many views expressed into two fundamentally different ways of thinking about the world. I already mentioned Paul Tillich, who is explicit that there are two basic theological tendencies that have interacted with one another to shape the history of religion. An other theologian who is explicit about this is John Courtney Murray, considered by some people to be the leading American Catholic theologian of the 20th century. In his book, We Hold These Truths: Catholic Reflections on the American Proposition, Murray goes on at some length about two basic ways of thinking about the world in religious terms. One of these ways he calls the tradition of affirmation of the worldly. The other he sees as the theological tradition of "contempt for the world. I devote a lot of time in Reaching for Heaven on Earth to locating individual economists within these two theological traditions. I argue that, while it is in secular terms, these economists nevertheless carry on the basic outlook of the theological traditions to which they belong.

This leads me to make some connections and draw some conclusions that will no doubt take some people by surprise. I argue that those economists who draw their basic habits of thought from the Enlightenment are closely linked to the theological tradition of the medieval Roman Catholic church. Thus, Adam Smith is a theological follower in the tradition of Thomas Aquinas. Other secular thinkers who follow Aquinas in this same theological tradition include John Locke, Jeremy Bentham, the Frenchman Saint-Simon, and his compatriot in the religion of humanity, Auguste Comte.

In the 20th century, the basic way of thinking of the economists who have shaped the welfare state has represented a reassertion of the basically progressive, rational and optimistic understanding of human existence found in this tradition. Thus, Keynes, Samuelson, even Milton Friedman, are all part of what I call the Roman tradition. They can all be traced back to Aquinas. And Aquinas, of course, took a lot of his thinking from Aristotle.

This tradition is the same one that Murray characterized as the tradition of "affirmation of the worldly." Heaven on earth is a matter of continuing and improving, the rational progress that has already been achieved in the world. The efforts of mankind are critical and can often be decisive to achieving this progress.

But there is also a powerful tradition in Christianity that places much greater emphasis on the evil and corruption characteristic of human existence. It sees the powers of human reason as frail—and perhaps even worthless—in the face of the pervasive presence of the Devil. The only possible hope that heaven may lie in store cannot be through human efforts but instead must lie in the intervention of an all powerful but fortunately also merciful God.

In the 5th century A.D., Augustine—perhaps the most influential Christian theologian of all time—basically developed this tradition: Among Greek philosophers, Augustine was most influenced by Plato. His great successor in Christian theology was Martin Luther. Luther attacked the Roman Catholic church because it had forgotten that deep humility and fundamental weakness must be the inevitable lot of mankind. Indeed, in extreme cases the Catholic church had even gone so far as to seek to usurp the place of God. You might think that it would be hard to find a group of modern economists who belong to this austere theological tradition—which I call the "Protestant" tradition in my book. However, I argue that the schools of economists who have offered basically Darwinian understandings of economic events have tended to fall in this tradition. In particular, and I recognize that some people may find this hard to swallow, I find that there are striking parallels between the Protestant theology of Martin Luther and the economic vision of Karl Marx. To offer another example, Herbert-Spencer and other social Darwinists are in basic ways the heirs to the theology of John Calvin. It is a bit of a tangent from the main line of the book, but I also argue in it that Puritan thinking showed up in a secular form in some of the ideas of Sigmund Freud.

There is obviously hot going to be enough time here today to develop all these connections. That is in fact what a significant part of the 330 pages of Reaching for Heaven on Earth are all about. But I thought it might be helpful to develop one of the more provocative claims, that Marx and Luther are theological compatriots. It should give you some of the flavor of the book.

We can start with the fact that Luther saw history in apocalyptic terms. He believed he was living in the final days before God would finally intervene to establish the Kingdom of heaven on earth. At present, however, Luther saw mankind as having sunk to perhaps its lowest level ever. The Devil had even taken control of the church. The Pope was literally the Anti-Christ. Venality and evil were everywhere.

Well, this vision is surprisingly close to Marx. Marx thinks we are on the verge of an apocalypse as well. The triumph of the proletariat will in fact also bring a new heaven on earth.

In the meantime, however, much as Luther believed, the degradation and enslavement of mankind have reached the worst ever. The economic workings of capitalism have ground down and debased the very existence of mankind. The class struggle is for Marx the economic source of the original sin that Luther saw having occurred in the Garden of Eden.

Next, let's take the central question of how mankind to be saved. For Luther, it is simply an act of God unrelated to any human action. There can be no suggestion that human merit, rational understanding, or any other feature of human behavior can have any bearing on the saving actions to be undertaken by God. To suggest otherwise would be to suggest that God is somehow subject to a human timetable. It would be to commit the grievous sin of the Roman Catholic church, seeking to put mankind on the same plane as God.

Now, how does that relate to Marx? First of all, the triumph of the proletariat is predestined by a force outside human control. True enough, it is the laws of history—indeed, economic history—that guarantee a future heaven on earth. But that may not be a huge difference. The laws of history are for Marx the secular equivalent of the God of Luther. And the laws of history display patterns of behavior that closely resemble Luther's God. For one thing, history as Marx interprets it is not interested in good will, well meaning people, or a generous spirit. History does not care much whether people think rationally or not. In fact, much as Luther believed, Marx also sees human existence as characterized by pervasive delusion and misunderstanding. For Marx, there is a superstucture of illusion that often passes for rationality, but really owes its content to the underlying and hidden realities of the class struggle. In Marxism, like the theology of Luther, salvation thus is independent of rational understanding and human intentions and depends only on the underlying economic workings of history. Man is equally impotent before the history of Marx or the God of Luther.

True enough, Marx claims to be able to reveal all this through his own scientific and rational discoveries. But there is a paradox created and a core tension that is similar to a tension found in the theology of Luther. Luther sees pervasive human depravity but then goes on to exempt himself, as Marx in effect exempts himself from the Workings of the laws of history. Luther and Marx both present themselves as the new messengers of truths that others have been unable to see—and thus as mysteriously unaffected by (for reasons they never explain) the irrationality and blindness that otherwise are fundamental to the human condition. — I have more to say in the book about the similarities between Luther and Marx. Both had prickly personalities characterized by verbal abusiveness and extreme contempt for any intellectual rival. Both lived in periods of rapid change when the pace of this change was creating severe stresses and strains within the existing social order. That may have had something to do with their similar outlook.

In any case, if you are interested in exploring further this or other theological connections that I develop in Reaching for Heaven on Earth, you will have to read the book.

The last and fifth basic theme of Reaching for Heaven on Earth I will touch on only briefly. This theme is that secular religious ideas have been driving the economic and social history of the modern age just as much as the old religious ideas did in the centuries before the Enlightenment. For example, I see World War I and especially World War II as new wars of religion, but now we are talking about warring secular religions—really about conflicting economic theologies. We have now had a 30-year war of religion of the 20th century to match the 39-year war of religion of the first half of the 17th century.

In the last chapter of the book, I briefly address the question of where religious forces may be headed now. In a nutshell, my guess is that we may be headed towards a time of religious pluralism. Partly to avoid religious conflict, the answer may have to be for people to end up clustering into geographic areas where they share the same religion and have the responsibility for their own governance.

I discuss a specific instrument for achieving this, something that is examined in the last chapter of the book. It would involve a worldwide recognition of a general right of free secession from the nation state for each regional or other subnational group.

Again, I don't have time to get further into details and you will have to refer to the book for more. Even there, it is an admittedly sketchy discussion of the general concept.

In wrapping up, I thought I would make just a couple of further observations. One is that I see a certain affinity between the recent writings of the economist Donald McCloskey and what I am doing in my book. Some of you may be familiar with McCloskey's work (and some related work of Arjo Klamer), which seems to be getting increasing attention at least among economists In his 1983 article in the Journal of Economic Literature McCloskey takes the view that little that economists say can be accepted at face value. He finds that there is an implicit meaning to many economic arguments that is more important than the surface front presented. And this implicit meaning often consists of the telling of a story.

The development of economics thus is more like a continuing conversation than an exercise in rational proof and logic. The positivist claims of economists over the last half century have fallen far short of being realized. Instead, the way economics actually works is that in the long run it is the best and most convincing stories by economists that win out.

I would add to what McCloskey says the further important observation that throughout history the best stories have tended to be religious stories. In a way, that is what my book is all about. Not only have economists been telling religious stories, but they have been remarkably familiar stories. In fact, with a suitable translation, the stories of economists turn out to be right out of the Judeo-Christian tradition.

My last observation is that I am growing increasingly doubtful that these stories by economists will continue to have the same appeal in the future that they have had for the past 300 years. There seems to be a declining faith in economic progress. Actually, it has been going on throughout the 20th century—partly as a result of the many dismal events in the history of this century. Compared with the high expectations at the beginning, the 20th century has been a huge disappointment for many.

Partly it relates to the uncertain answer today to the following simple question: Do you believe people feel any greater sense of emotional well being and basic satisfaction with their lives than they did 100 years ago. While doubts are widespread today, at the beginning of the 20th century it would have seemed inconceivable to most people that with all the material progress achieved the answer could still be in doubt.

I must also admit that all this makes me rather nervous. I am not sure what could take the place of economic progress as a national religion. We could do a lot worse. There is certainly much to be said for the material blessings we have received from modern science, technology and economic organization. But the declining attraction of economic progress as an object of faith—despite enormous material and technological accomplishments is hard not to notice. When we examine the contemporary environmental movement, for example, we find important segments offering what amounts to another secular theology. It is a theology explicitly and strongly antagonistic to the basic premises of economic theology. Rather than salvation, the spread of economic development and the advance of technology are seen by growing numbers of people as the source of further evils in the world. Perhaps it is possible to see the theological meaning of economics more clearly today because economic theology is increasingly under challenge. It has been said that a systematic theology of the existence of God only came into being when grounds were first presented to have any doubts. Similarly, perhaps the theological content of economics is coming into clearer focus today, because there are suddenly more and more people offering challenges to this theology of growth and progress.

In closing, I will simply say that, on this and other important matters I have raised, only time will tell.

...Robert H. Nelson...

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