IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ejw/journl/v11y2014i2p233-242.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Can ‘Religion’ Enrich ‘Economics’?

Author

Listed:
  • A. M. C. Waterman

Abstract

The knowledge (if any) afforded by Religion comes by the practice of faith, hope, and charity. It is direct, experiential knowledge of God. The knowledge (if any) afforded by Science comes by the method of ‘conjectures and refutations’ applied to our observations of Nature. Improved theory and better observation can falsify scientific knowledge, which is thus always tentative and provisional. Falsification is the criterion of scientific knowledge: it is objective and public, and accessible to all. But religious knowledge cannot be falsified in this way. It is certain and infallible for those who believe. This implies that whereas knowledge of Nature can corroborate the knowledge of God (the Creator of Nature), which comes by faith, religious knowledge—which fails the test of falsifiability—can be of no service to science. If economics generates any knowledge at all it is scientific, not religious knowledge. Therefore the knowledge that comes by faith can be of no service to economics.

Suggested Citation

  • A. M. C. Waterman, 2014. "Can ‘Religion’ Enrich ‘Economics’?," Econ Journal Watch, Econ Journal Watch, vol. 11(2), pages 233-242, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:ejw:journl:v:11:y:2014:i:2:p:233-242
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://econjwatch.org/File+download/824/WatermanMay2014.pdf?mimetype=pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://econjwatch.org/938
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Religion; economics; faith; falsification; science;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • A12 - General Economics and Teaching - - General Economics - - - Relation of Economics to Other Disciplines
    • A13 - General Economics and Teaching - - General Economics - - - Relation of Economics to Social Values
    • L26 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Entrepreneurship
    • Z12 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Religion
    • Z13 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Economic Sociology; Economic Anthropology; Language; Social and Economic Stratification

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ejw:journl:v:11:y:2014:i:2:p:233-242. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Jason Briggeman (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/edgmuus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.