Niels Bohr famously described a non-falsifiable scientific hypothesis as “not even wrong.”

From Mistakes To Avoid For Theologians Talking About Economics by Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry.

Gobry touches on an issue that Thomas Sowell discusses at length - the tendency of well intended parties to try and engage with subjects beyond their experience and comprehension to disastrous effect. As if good intentions were an adequate substitute for good outcomes. For both Sowell and Gobry, part of the issue is the reluctance to engage with the empirical world as is rather than the utopian world as we would want it to be.

Today, I want to focus on another problem I too often see in theological and religious commentary on economics, and I would call it aestheticism.

Like it or not, economics is an empirical discipline.

Yes, yes, economics is not as empirical as many economists think. Yes, yes, the mathematical models of economics have many problems and they are certainly not the only valid mode of inquiry into economics. And yes, certainly, just like every other sapientia, the fact that economics is empirical certainly does not immunize it from moral or theological judgement.

But any fruitful engagement with economics must start with what economics actually is and must be aware of its terms—either explicitly superseding them, or engaging it in those terms.

Niels Bohr famously described a non-falsifiable scientific hypothesis as “not even wrong.” By this he meant that, because the hypothesis could not be either proven or disproven through experiment or other empirical means, it was beyond the remit of science, and thus not even wrong.

Now, it’s fine to make non-scientific claims when you are not making science. But when we mistake science for theology — and vice versa — we make mistakes. When some clerics disputed the heliocentric model of the Solar System on the basis of scriptural evidence, they were not even wrong. They were doing bad science and (even worse) bad theology.

In economic theology, this most often takes the form of what I’ll call aestheticism—in other words, giving economic warrant to certain arrangements not on the basis of either empirical determination or (I would argue) good theology, but rather a romantic, aesthetic feeling.

Gobry provides some examples where papal declarations have sought to address economic issues in a theological fashion and then concludes:

The Church should either engage economics on its own terms or criticize it in a properly theological sense—what I call the prophetic voice. When St Basil the Great told his rich parishioners that their bread belongs to the poor, he was not doing economics, either good or bad, but he was preaching the Gospel, and that is of much higher value.

But what I call theological aestheticism tries to do both at the same time and, in the end, fails at both.

What I like about Gobry's comment is that he puts his finger on the root issue when arguing with non-empirical people. The first division is whether we are having an argument about facts or feelings. No point in adducing evidence if all we are doing is expressing feelings. No point in being upset if what we are addressing are the facts.

But often, non-empirical people elide the bifurcation. They attempt to cast empiricism as the same thing as subjectivism for exactly the reasons Gobry highlights. They think that because empiricists may not be as consistently empirical as they aspire to be; because the models and hypotheses with which they work often turn out to be erroneous; and because empiricists often also fail to maintain consistency in distinguishing between facts and assumptions (beliefs, opinions), that therefore empiricism is really just subjectivism with numbers. It isn't. Empiricism can be practiced well or poorly but it is none-the-less distinct from subjectivism.

There are some questions we can answer under defined conditions even though it might take a long while to get to a useful answer. There are other questions that can never be answered because they are purely a function of value systems. It is important to recognize the difference.