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By “political economy” I mean both the method of thought and the body of knowledge which refer to human economising behaviour. The body of knowledge includes both theory — theorems, laws, empirical generalisations, etc., and “facts” — history, description of institution, statistical data, etc. By “Christian theology” I mean both the method of thought and the body of knowledge which refer to the human religious understanding of Jesus of Nazareth. “Religious” here implies awareness of, or belief in, God. The body of knowledge may include pre‐Christian religion (such as that reported in the Old Testament), and the results of independent inquiry (such as natural theology) in so far as these are interpreted by, or “refracted” through what theologians call the “Christ event”.

Over the past century explicit discussion of theology has all but disappeared from economic discourse, while economics has been largely ignored by theologians. This paper argues that this separation is neither desirable nor possible, and calls for a theological economics. The argument is in two parts – a primary argument for the necessity and primacy of theology coming from the nature of orthodox Christian theology, and a secondary argument based on points of contact between economics and theology. Acceptance of the argument does not lead to a separatist “Christian” economics, but rather to discussion of theology implicit in contemporary economics and better relations between the two disciplines. Some existing work along these lines is briefly surveyed.

Beginning with value premises of any kind, clearly one may judge the economic choices of individuals, since they are only part of moral behaviour in general. But my concern here is with the institutions which both shape and are shaped by behaviour, and which are greatly responsible for social good and evil. How successfully may one get from theological values underpinned by religious faith and dogma to valid judgements and recommendations for economic institutions and policy? Further, must they be contingent on the intervention of economic science, introducing specialised information and analysis and such goals as cost and output efficiency? These are the matters I propose to discuss in general terms and illustrate from Laborem Exercens and Ethical Reflections on the Economic Crisis to reach some conclusions.

In the title essay of the volume, Heyne wonders why ethicists get so bothered by economists who make claims like, “polluting activities ought to be shifted from developed to less developed countries.”¹ And in a keen rhetorical move – one that Heyne employs throughout the volume – he shows how all of the usual answers to this question merely hide a deeper problem. Heyne suggests the real issue is that most ethicists assume “a social system that's completely known and completely controllable” (p. 5). Consequently, the problem most ethicists have with economics is that “economic analysis is rooted,” according to Heyne, “in the fact that economists specialize in the analysis of social systems that no one controls and that produce results that no one intended” (p. 5). Heyne sees that ethicists dogmatically hold to an ideal of the good in which people act so as to intend the good of others. Such a view demands that people act only in social systems where they personally know other people's needs or else that people are assumed to have a God-like omniscience that will allow them to know everyone's needs.

Part I The International Conference on “Epistemological Foundations of Social Theory” was an intriguing step in the project of establishing a new ‘ethico‐economic’ paradigm. The conviction that a ‘value‐free’ economics is no longer adequate for understanding or living within the world we inhabit, motivated participants: the vision of such an economics is failing fast because it is rooted in a divorce between economics and the enriching influences of the other social sciences, philosophy and religion. And this divorce means economics works with a distorted representation of human nature, and consequently inhibits the achievement of social justice. Discussion and debate at the Conference clarified and explored that conviction, showing it to be a reasoned premise for an argument rather than an assumption. Successfully articulating the argument for an alternate vision of ethico‐economics, is, however, no easy task.

In considering the historic writings of Marx, the article seeks to show that as religion has become institutionalised in the form of the Catholic Church it becomes simply another component of the edifice of the superstructure. This position is challenged chiefly through the emergence of the Liberation Churches. The roots, institutionalisation, and establishment of the present‐day church are described. The role of the Liberation Churches in serving those suffering oppression is also discussed in comparison with Marxist thought, and in some areas the two views are seen to be irreconcilable.

In my original efforts, I designated and depicted no less than nine “men” of economics. Essentially, I contended, as man has always tended to create God in his own image and likeness, so economists have fashioned man largely in their discipline's perceived nature and scope. These generic homines economici, that is, have thus been and perhaps cannot really be other than economists' “men”, and the study thereof provides accordingly a meaningful alternative approach to the history, nature and scope of economics itself.

Distributional issues have re‐emerged as an important issue in economics, social science, and philosophy in the last few decades. In the same period, the relevance of derivative Judeo‐Christian socio‐economic principles to the contemporary world has been (re)asserted, developing an incipient Judeo‐Christian economics. Methodologically, this undertaking is comparable to that underlying the evolution of Islamic and other forms of religious economics. The methodology employed in the Judeo‐Christian undertaking is described via a worked example. The example shows how normative principles can be derived from Judeo‐Christian thought allegedly relevant to shaping the contemporary distribution of wealth and income. The principles are deduced from a particular sub‐set of Judeo‐Christian source material, and have the effect of generating greater equity in economic distribution. The deductions are compared with selected ideas canvassed in recent economics' discussion about inequitable distribution concerning appropriate criteria for guiding redistributional policy, ideas of “equal opportunity” vs “equal outcomes”, and the relation between distribution and economic growth.

In the contemporary relation between economics and Judeo‐Christian thought, Smith identifies three positions. These are disciplinary autonomy for economics, disciplinary interdependence between economics and Christian thought, and distinctively Christian economic analysis. Little evaluation has been made of these positions. Two representatives, as Smith classifies them, of the disciplinary autonomy and interdependence positions are evaluated from the distinctively Christian economic analysis viewpoint. Unlike Smith's classification, both J. David Richardson and Anthony Waterman are assessed as belonging to the disciplinary autonomy group, in which mainstream orthodox economic science is allegedly able to proceed independent of religious input. This position is criticized insofar, as Richardson's major and influential paper in the area (1988) is found to disregard any appraisal of the contribution of modern orthodox economic theory to the explanation of real world processes, and to overlook the contribution Christian thought might make to economic explanation. Both Richardson and Waterman assume an understanding of the “science” in economic science that is problematic, while Waterman utilizes arguments from the philosopher Leslek Kolakowski, and the economist Frank Knight, that are contestable from a Christian perspective.