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Division of labor is thought to imply increasing returns to scale, which in turn implies that wages rise continually with economic growth. Yet the price theory of Wealth of Nations rests upon the assumption that the "natural" price of labor (and capital) is determined at any steady-state rate of balanced growth. There would seem, therefore, to be an irreconcilable contradiction between Smith's exposition of the division of labor in Book I, chapters 1 to 3, and his price theory as set out in Book I, chapters 6 to 9.

Economic analysis (as we understand the term today) first appeared in France at the end of the seventeenth century as a consequence of Jansenist theodicy. Throughout the eighteenth century, political economy (the study of wealth, and not to be confused with economic analysis) was supposed to be compatible with Christian belief and of service to Newtonian natural theology. This changed suddenly in 1798. Thomas Robert Malthus's first Essay inaugurated "economics" (the study of scarcity), seemingly incompatible with the Christian religion. Richard Whately's distinction between "scientific" and "religious" knowledge protected each from the other for a while. But Charles Darwin's evolutionary theory seemed to destroy that distinction, and so to discredit religion and theology. A variety of strategies for relating economics to theology has been adopted since that time by those economists who wish to remain religious believers.