The divorce of theology from modern social science and public policy

In modern discourse, talk of God, divinity, spirituality and so on is forcibly divorced from the sciences (considered in the broadest sense). Contemporary mainstream moral philosophy, political economy, political science, economics (not to mention the natural sciences) rarely, if at all, discuss the consequences of the nature of God for the questions they all address. Consider this: God, by definition, is omnipotent, omnipresent and omniscient. Now, without introducing any metaphysical complications, we can say that either God exists or God doesn’t exist (my opinion is that the former is true). If God doesn’t exist, then we can continue working within and articulating the scientific paradigms that currently permeate throughout society. However, as soon as we presume God’s existence, theology becomes fundamental for understanding any other form of knowledge whatsoever. It becomes a primary concern of metaphysics, epistemology and logic. This then feeds through to the sciences that we practice, albeit imperfectly, in modern society. Depending on the presumed conception of God, methodologies and their employment as well as theories and their applications will differ accordingly.

In Plato’s Republic, Socrates considers the nature of the Gods whilst describing his grand, centrally planned society. In India, the caste system is said to have had divine origins (though its interpretation and enforcement became increasingly skewed with time) and this has exerted a profound impact on the socioeconomic organisation of the subcontinent that continues to this day. One of the most famous miracles of Jesus Christ was feeding the multitude with one loaf of bread – to put it simply, divinity can deal with the fundamental economic problem of scarcity for the welfare of all.

Benedict de Spinoza, like many other philosophers and theologians of his age and the preceding ones, offers his readers an account that includes both a proof and a description of the nature of God; to put one of the main conclusions in Spinoza’s Ethics crudely; everything that comes naturally and feels right is good because it has its origins in God and God is good. Now, that which comes naturally is done freely and, intuitively, freedom feels right.

So all this talk of free markets and a free society has a natural resonance with humanity. There is something undoubtedly divine about free will, freedom and a free society.