His point was more about the progression of protestant thought from predestination to free will which then formed the shared thinking necessary for Adam Smiths

His point was more about the progression of protestant thought from predestination to free will which then formed the shared thinking necessary for Adam Smiths ideas. For clarity, the idea was that the catholic church didn't control your afterlife through their priests and rituals etc so you didn't need the pope and the catholic church for salvation. Your salvation was independent of that. Which was initially thought of as predestination ( names written in the book of life stuff )