Divine Providence in Early Modern Economic Thought

Joost Hengstmengel is a postdoctoral researcher at the Tilburg School of Catholic Theology, Tilburg University, the Netherlands.

"[A] valuable book on an important topic, and one that I learnt much from. It will be especially valuable to historians of economics who lack training in theology which is necessary to come to grips with writings that emerged from the theology-soaked intellectual culture of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. No other work is as comprehensive and clear on the topics it covers." - Paul Oslington, Erasmus Journal for Philosophy and Economics"Divine Providence has several outstanding features. Hengstmengel’s work makes the relevant primary sources the central element in its analysis. Indeed, one of the key strengths of the book is its perceptive, detailed exploration of the writings of a range of contributors, including English political economists, French Catholic theologians (including the Jansenists), Dutch ministers, German Protestant natural-law philoso>phers, cameralists, and Scottish Enlightenment moral philosophers.....It is worthy of careful consideration by histori>ans of economic thought who will be rewarded with a salient entry into this subject and encouragement toward further research on the theological origins of economicreasoning."-Edd Noell, Hope Reviews

• 1. Introduction 2. The history of divine providence 3. International trade: God’s universal economy 4. Division of labour: the divine ordering of society 5. Value and price: a providential abundance of necessities 6. Self-interest: the invisible hand of God 7. Poverty and inequality: rich and poor God-willed 8. Conclusions