Ida Simonsson: "Toward a Theological History of Value"

Date: 13 October 2022, 13:15–15:00
Location: English Park, Rausingrummet, hus 6
Type: Seminar
Organiser: Department of History of Science and Ideas
Contact person: Jenny Andersson

The Higher Seminar

Ida Simonsson holds a PhD in systematic theology from Uppsala University from 2021 and is currently lectuer at Enskilda högskolan, Stockholm.

Abstract

I explore the relationship between Christian theology and the market economy, with a particular focus on value theory. The backdrop is the scholarly recognition of the historical intertwinement of Christian theology and secular society. First, through a theological analysis of the history of value theory I conclude that from scholastic notions of just price to the consolidation of the discipline of economics in the late nineteenth century, value theory explained prices but also involved the problem of the order of this world. Then follows an immanent critique of contemporary theological texts criticizing the market economy. I show that a constellation of value and order remains an unacknowledged theological problem in those texts. Lastly, I analyze this problem of value and order, on the one hand in relation to Christian doctrine, and on the other to the price mechanism in the market economy. Unravelling the theological significance of value theory is the main contribution of my doctoral dissertation, both to the interdisciplinary fields of political and economic theology, and to theology proper.