Pat Gunning wrote:  
>Hmmmmmm. Religious economics? Perhaps it can   
>find a haven within heterodox economics?  
>  
>It is difficult for me to make sense of the   
>notion that there is some special branch of   
>economics called "religious economics."  
  
You are correct, because there is no "special"   
branch of economics that is "religious." Rather   
all of economics is religious, in that all   
economics terminates in terms that cannot be   
resolved from within economics itself. When one   
speaks of a "free market," one is already in the   
middle of a theological discussion on the nature   
of freedom; when one speaks of "the perfect   
system of natural liberty," then one is   
confronted with the questions of what constitutes   
a "nature," where its liberty might lie, and what   
will provide for its perfection. These are   
questions that  must be referred to a higher science.  
  
This is, of course, the nature of all sciences.   
All branches of science must conform themselves   
to the higher branch in the order of the   
sciences. The biologist, for example, must   
conform his findings to chemistry, the chemist to   
physics, and the physicist to mathematics. That's   
simply the way science works. A science that   
recognized no higher science would simply be   
circular and unable to norm itself to any   
standard of truth, since the standard of truth   
must always be supplied by the higher science.   
All science is "normative," in that it depends   
for a higher science for its norms, and positive,   
in that it conforms itself to its own proper subject matter and methodology.  
  
John Medaille