ABSTRACT

What has theology to do with economics? They are both sciences of human action, but have traditionally been treated as very separate disciplines. Divine Economy is the first book to address the need for an active dialogue between the two.
D. Stephen Long traces three strategies which have been used to bring theology to bear on economic questions: the dominant twentieth-century tradition, of Weber's fact-value distinction; an emergent tradition based on Marxist social analysis; and a residual tradition that draws on an ancient understanding of a functional economy. He concludes that the latter approach shows the greatest promise because it refuses to subordinate theological knowledge to autonomous social-scientific research.
Divine Economy will be welcomed by those with an interest in how theology can inform economic debate.

chapter |6 pages

Introduction

part |2 pages

PART I The dominant tradition: market values

chapter 1|4 pages

Introduction to Part I

chapter 2|22 pages

The Weberian strategy

Theology’s importance as value, ethos, or spirit

chapter 3|9 pages

An anthropology of liberty constrained by original sin

Theology as analogia libertatis

chapter 5|15 pages

Conclusion to Part I

part |2 pages

PART II The emergent tradition: the protest of the oikos and the polis

chapter 6|5 pages

Introduction to Part II

chapter 8|25 pages

The subordination of theology to metaphysics

Eschatology, ecclesiology, and the reign of God

chapter 9|29 pages

Scarcity, orthodoxy, and heresy

chapter 10|5 pages

Conclusion to Part II

chapter 11|5 pages

Introduction to Part III

chapter 12|36 pages

A true economic order

chapter 13|23 pages

Theology and the good

chapter 14|20 pages

The beauty of theology

Uniting the true and the good, and subordinating the useful

chapter 15|10 pages

Conclusion