The theological underpinnings of efficient and final cause

As many of my classmates had pointed out, Smith makes the distinction between efficient and final cause. While "the digestion of the food, the circulation of the blood, and the secretion of several juices" are all necessary operations for the purpose of human survival, and while "the wheels of the watch are all admirably adjusted to the end for which it was made", they have not been ascribed any desire or intention (78). Rather, by their very nature of design, the effects of a healthy human body or an accurate watch are achieved. 

The human mind, however, is a different story. Whereas in the previous examples, the processes that are described simply "do", rather than "think and do", humans like to ascribe rationalizations to our actions. As Zac points out, we like to retroactively call our actions efficient, whereas in reality we simply act upon our instincts towards a final cause. Smith describes this as us imagining "that (our actions) to be the wisdom of man, which in reality is the wisdom of God" (79). An example of this could be the capitalist system. The act of trading and bartering is one of the most primal actions that we have developed in society. From trading a sword for some food to trading money for a computer, the act of trading has been with us for generations. We like to retroactively describe this process as efficient, even though Smith might argue that this process is merely a final cause, which our instincts have guided us towards. The purported "efficiencies" of the capitalist system are merely our rationalization of instinctual actions, the way God has made us. 

This has some interesting implications. I interpreted this specific segment as Smith's critique of the human inclination towards ideology, and the arrogance that derives from it. Instead of recognizing the development of our society as a "final cause" that stems from our instinctual care for ourselves and one another, we instead instill the ideology that we value justice in our society simply because we want it to be just. This extends to most if not all ideologies we have. Smith seems to imply that this is a problematic way of looking at it. We are not content with recognizing the fact that we act the way we do due to instinct, as a result of God's design. 

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