Orlando Lima Pimentel

Charles Babbage (1791-1871) was a polymath, economist and engineer graduated from the University of Cambridge, today recognized for being the first to design programmable calculating machines. His reputation, commonly associated with the history of computing, however, ended up overshadowing the other facets of the author, in such a way that the diversity of themes in his work went unnoticed by most of his commentators. In this work, we propose a broad interpretation of this less explored diversity of the Babbagean thought, taking as its starting point its natural theology, present in The Ninth Bridgewater Treatise (1837). Through the articulation of his theological reflections, his experience as a designer of programmable calculus machines, and his political economy.