Divine Providence

This brief summary describes the Biblical doctrine of Divine Providence, which is an aspect of the relationship between the Creator and His creation. This description follows the Lutheran perspective and its format is best suited as a guide for Bible studies and debates on this topic. For more complete and better explained texts, refer to the dogmatic books listed at the bottom.

Creation

God created all things, small and large (Jn 1:1-3; Ro 11:36; Ps 104:24). God's act of creation was not out of necessity, but out of his will (Ps 115:3). God created the universe, the world, and us for His own glory, for His own sake ( Job 41:11; Pr 16:4; Isa 45:9; Ro 9:20,21; Rev 4:11).

Divine Providence

Divine Providence is the external act of the entire Trinity whereby God:

• most efficaciously upholds the things created, both as an entirety and singly;
• concurs in their actions and effects;
• freely and wisely governs all things to His own glory and the welfare and safety of the universe, especially of the godly.

God Preserves

• “God rested on the seventh day” (Ge 2:2) means that He did not create another heaven or another earth (Ex 20:11), but He still preserves and governs His creation (Jn 5:17).
• All things derive their continued existence from God’s will and power (Col 1:16,17; Job 34:14,15; Heb 1:3; Ac 17:28). God is the only being that exists independently, i.e. his existence does not depend on anyone else: “I AM WHO I AM” (Ex 3:14,15)
• God does not distinguish between big and small. He cares for every being (Mt 10:29,30; Lk 21:18; Mt 6:26,30; Job 38:39-39:2; Ps 36:6;96:11,12;104:21,29,30; 139:13;145:15,16) and every detail of nature (Job 28:24-26, 38:24-30; Ps 104:7-10,13-15).
• Special object of divine providence is the Christian Church, for whose sake all things exist and whose welfare all must serve (Ro 8:28; Heb 1:14; Mt 16:18; Ps 37:17).

Divine Concurrence

• We do not confuse God with nature (pantheism), nor do we separate God from the “laws of nature”, as if the laws of nature could exist independently (deism).
• God employs Secondary Causes, or means by which He preserves and directs his creation. This doctrine is called Divine Concurrence.
• Primary Cause: The operation of the means is subordinate to God’s operation (Ps 127:1), i.e. without God's concurrence what we consider natural would not happen.
• God’s operation (primary cause) and the means operation (secondary cause) are simultaneous and one single, indivisible action.
• The laws of nature are not independent of God, but they are simply God’s will and power exerted in the being and action of the creatures, within the properties and powers He has prescribed for them (Ps 119:90,91). Thus, bread nourishes, medicine cures, poison kills, only because of God’s continuous influence upon His creatures.
• It is also God's will that we make use of the means He designated for our well-being. For illness of the body, we should resort to medicine; for illness of the soul, we should resort to the means of grace (Word and Sacraments), through which God gives and preserves faith (Ro 10:17). It is a sin to test the divine providence by not using the means prescribed by God, since this would amount to putting God to the test (Mt 4:6,7).
• Laws of nature are not immutable, apart from God’s will (Ps 115:3, 135:6,7). When God exceptionally causes a natural law to be broken, we call it a miracle. For example, God causes mass to attract mass in direct proportion to the product of the masses and inverse proportion to the square of their distance, and we call this the "law of gravity". But if God momentarily breaks that rule and causes an iron axhead to float (2 Ki 6:5-6), we call it a miracle.
• Science can only study and answer "how" things "use to happen". The Scientific Method requires that a hypothesis be confirmed experimentally, leading to a predictable result. Therefore, Science cannot assume the existence, nor can it investigate miracles, which are exceptions to the rule. The question of "why" the laws of nature are as they are cannot be treated with the tools of Physics and Science, because it is immune to experimentation and testing. It belongs to the realm of Metaphysics, which includes the study of Religion. (This part is not official Lutheran theology, but it is my own explanation.)

Good and Evil Actions

• Concerning the concurrence of God in the actions of moral beings (humans and angels) we must distinguish between good and evil actions.
• Evil Actions:
  • God in His perfect holiness is so opposed to evil actions that he hates, forbids and condemns them (Lev 19:2; Ps 5:4-6).
  • God often prevents evil acts from occurring (Ge 20:6; Ps 33:10).
  • Whenever He permits evil actions to happen, He so controls them that they must serve His wise and holy purposes (Ge 50:20; Ps 91:10-12; Ro 8:28). God "only regulates it, and fixes a limit to it, determining how far it should progress and how long it should last [and when and how He will hinder and punish it], and all this to the end that it should serve His elect for their salvation, notwithstanding that it is evil in itself." [The Formula of Concord, Art. XI] (Pr 16:9; Job 1:12, 2:6)
  • How much does God cooperate (concur) in sinful actions?
    • God concurs in them only in so far as they are acts, not in so far as they are evil (God concurs in producing the ‘effect’, but not the ‘defect’).
    • Hence, God is neither the author of, nor an accomplice in evil acts.
    • We can say that God "permits evil, or suffers it to occur" (Ps 81:12; Ac 14:16; Ro 1:24,28).
  • But such permission is:
    • not kind indulgence, nor mitigation of the Law, nor a weakness in God, nor indifference to sin.
    • rather a negative act, inasmuch as God does not place insuperable difficulties in the way of the sinner, who rushes into iniquity by his own free will (Jas 1:13,14; Mk 7:21-23; Ro 1:24-28; 2Th 2:11-12).
    • God indeed permits, but does not will that which He permits.
  • Both people’s conscience and the Scriptures maintain that humans, and not God, are personally responsible for their acts (we are not like robots, or mere instinct driven animals) (Ro 2:14,15; Mt 12:36).
• Good Actions:
  • God works the good acts unbelievers do as citizens according to His general government of the world, and rewards them with earthly and temporal blessings (Ex 1:20,21).
  • God works the spiritually good acts in the believers by the operation of the Holy Ghost, who bestows not only the ability to do good, but also works the good act itself (Php 2:13; 2Co 3:5).

Necessity and Contingency

• "Must things happen just as they do happen (necessity), or could they happen otherwise (contingency)?"
  • On the basis of Scripture we have to maintain both, the necessity of things, and the contingency of things.
  • Necessity: from the viewpoint of divine providence we say that things are predetermined (Mt 26:54; Ac 4:27,28; Job 14:5; Ps 139:16; Ps 115:3).
  • Contingency: from the viewpoint of human responsibility we say that all things are done freely and contingently, therefore, no one is coerced or forced to sin (Mt 26:14-16, 26:24; Jn 19:12; Mt 27:5; Jas 1:13,14; Ps 55:23; Isa 38:5; Ac 27:33-36; Eph 6:2,3).
  • Failure to uphold necessity leads to Epicureanism and atheism (things happen without God, by chance or by a rule independent of God).
  • Failure to uphold contingency leads to fatalism and Stoicism (disregard of the divinely ordained means).
• We are bound, both in realm of nature and of grace, to the means which God has appointed for our welfare, such as medicine for the body (Lk 10:34; 1Ti 5:23), and the means of grace for our soul (Ro 10:17; Mt 28:19).
• Although God himself is not bound by the means He appointed (which explains miracles and how someone could be saved without being reached by the church), it is both foolish and sinful to try to ascertain divine providence a priori, by setting aside the God-appointed means (Mt 4:6,7).
• The Scripture passages that describe the day of death as contingent must be regarded as gracious revelation for our admonition and consolation. They do not make God less immutable in essence or decrees (1Sa 15:29; Mal 3:6).
• As Martin Luther said: we pray as if everything depended on God alone, but we should work as if everything depended on us.

Final Comment

• Although these explanations contain logical contradictions (e.g. necessity vs. contingency) and do not satisfy the human reason, we must confine our thinking to these limits that are set in Scripture (2Co 10:5).
• Here is a practical example of the need of contradictions to explain things that are too complex:
  • Different (and contradictory) map projections are necessary to translate the three-dimensional real surface of the Earth's geoid to a two-dimensional picture of the globe in a map. All globe representations are "true", even though they contradict each other. For example, the cylindrical projection of the globe shows Greenland bigger than Brazil, which is false, but the polyconic projection (orange peel) that shows the countries in correct size, breaks up Canada into disconnected parts, which is false. Similarly, God must make use of some contradictions to explain certain truths, for which there is no equivalent in nature or in our limited logic, such as the Trinity and Unity of God, and the two natures, human and divine, of Christ. Each of the apparently contradictory statements is true within their limits of application and all are necessary to form a clearer picture of the revealed truth.

References

Text extracted mostly from:

• F. Pieper, Christian Dogmatics. Vol. 1, Concordia Publ. House, 1950.
• J. T. Mueller, Christian Dogmatics. Concordia Publ. House, 1955.
• E. W. A. Koehler, Sumário da Doutrina Cristã, Editora Concórdia, 2002.

(Carlos Lange is a member of Riverbend Lutheran Church in Edmonton.)