SOURCE: LeMahieu, D. L. “Malthus and the Theology of Scarcity.” Journal of the History of Ideas 40, no. 3 (July-September 1979): 467-74.

In the following essay, LeMahieu discusses Malthus's attempt, in the last two chapters of his Essay on Population, to provide theological justification for his theories.

In the final two chapters of his first Essay on Population, T. R. Malthus tried to reconcile the chilling implications of his population theory with the goodness and benevolence of God. This theodicy further antagonized the critics of the Essay, who found it sanctimonious and hypocritical; and it tagged the author with the acrimonious title “Parson Malthus.”¹ Although in later editions Malthus answered some of his critics' more specific objections, he largely abandoned his early intention to develop a thoroughgoing religious justification for his theory, leaving that task for others.² Malthus preferred to weather the storm of abuse provoked by his ideas behind the...