Providence refers to God's intervention in the world. This is an interesting topic to think about because it raises questions such as to pray or not to pray? Are miracles natural or supernatural?
Here are some notes on the topic made from theology classes and a few other book sources!
Would you call this natural, or supernatural?
On 5 October, 2015, the ICEJ Taiwan marching prayer group was raising the flag on the Jesus boat in the Sea of Galilee when a spectacular view appeared where I was standing. I filmed/photographed these with my own Iphone. Jump to 1:12 to view how the normal sunlight turned into a cross.
Providence as
Government:
l The purposive directing of the whole of
reality and the course of history to God’s ends.
l The general providence view holds that God
has general goals that he intends and actually attains, but with respect to
specific details, he permits considerable variance, allowing for human choices.
Traditional Arminians are among the general providence proponents. Emphasises on Biblical narratives that
depict people making choices, such as Adam and Eve, and the calls to sinners to
accept Jesus Christ.
l Specific providence: God ultimately decides
even the details of his plan and ensures that they eventuate as he intends.
Proponents of specific sovereignty contends that the Scriptures teach God’s
sovereignty over all that occurs. There are many impressive didactic
passages that seem to teach that God brings about all things: In him we
were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who
works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will (Ephesians
1:11).
The relationship
between Gods governing activity and sin:
l Willing that sin exist in the world is not
the same as sinning. God does not commit sin in willing that there be sin. God
has established a world in which sin will indeed necessarily come to pass by
God’s permission, but not by his “positive agency.”
l The Bible makes it clear that God is not the
cause of sin:
l but each person is tempted when they are
dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. (James 1:14)
l For everything in the world—the lust of the
flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—comes not from the Father
but from the world. (1 John 2:16)
l But if sinful actions of humans are not
caused by God, what do we mean when we say they are within his governing
activity? God can and does relate to sin in several ways as he can prevent it, permit
it, direct it, or limit it.
l God can prevent sin: When Abimelech, thinking that Sarah
was Abraham’s sister, took her to himself, the Lord came to him in a dream to
prevent this.
l God does not always prevent sin: Jesus said regarding Moses’s permitting
divorce: Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were
hard. But it was not this way from the beginning. (Matthew 19:8)
l God can direct sin: While permitting some sins to occur, God
nonetheless directs them in such a way that good comes out of them. For example,
the story of Joseph in Genesis, and the crucifixion of Christ. God
is like a martial arts expert who redirects the evil efforts of sinful human
beings and Satan in such a way that they become the very means of doing good.
Our omnipotent God is able to allow evil humans to do their very worst, and
still accomplish his purposes, even working through them.
l God can limit sin: For example, God permitted Satan to act on
Job but limited what he could do. “Very well, then, everything he has is
in your power, but on the man himself do not lay a finger.” (Job 1:12)
Major features of
God’s governing activity:
l God’s governing activity is universal
and extends to all matters: And we know that in all things God works for the
good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. (Romans
8:28). He may use seemingly “unclean” agents, such as Cyrus (Isaiah
44-45), to accomplish his ends. The Scripture talked mainly about the people of
Israel and not on the other nations. Lecturer Miyon Chung mentions: Salvation
is granted in through Christ. Does this mean that Koreans before the Medieval
Age have died? Probably not that simple as sometimes we don’t know what we are.
For example, Hungarian and Korean language have same linguistic roots. It may
not be correct to say that no one was saved in the Chinese race until the
missionaries arrived as Jews travelled a lot! Persian and Hellenistic empire
were very extensive. Persians established the cast system in India!! Northern
Indians are from Persian roots. People have been migrating for centuries and
centuries.
l God’s providence does not extend merely to
his own people: sun to rise on the evil and the good, rain on the righteous
and the unrighteous (Matthews 5:45).
l God is good in his government. As per
Romans 8:28. We must be careful, however, not to identify too quickly and
easily the good with what is pleasant and comfortable to us. Good is associated
with God’s purpose (v28) and that in turn is identified as the conforming
of his children to the image of his son (v29), which may sometimes involve
suffering trials (1 Peter 1:6-9) or enduring discipline (Hebrew 12:6-11).
l God is personally concerned about
those who are his. For example, one lost sheep (Luke 15:3-7).
l Our activity and God’s activity are not
mutually exclusive. Sometimes humans are conscious that their actions
are fulfilling divine intention, such as Jesus said he must do the
Father’s will (Matthew 26:42). Other times there is an unwitting
carrying out of God’s plan, such as Caesar Augustus decree (Luke 2:1)
that would make possible the fulfilment of the prophecy that the Messiah would
be born in Bethlehem.
l God is sovereign in his government.
He alone determines his plan and knows the significance of each of his actions.
We know that everything does have a significance within God’s plan, but we must
be careful not to assume that the meaning of everything should be obvious, and
that we will be able to identify that meaning.
l We need to be careful as to what we
identify as God’s providence. For example, German Christians endorsing action
of Hitler as God’s working in history. The folly of those statements
seem obvious from our perspective. But are we perhaps making some
pronouncements today that will be seen as similarly mistaken by those who come
a few decades after us?
Providence and
Prayer:
l What does prayer accomplish? If prayer has
any effect on what happens, then it seems that God’s plan was not fixed in the
first place. If God’s plan is established and he will do what he is going to
do, then does it matter whether we pray?
l There are two important facts: 1) Scripture
teaches that God’s plan is definite and fixed. 2) We are commanded to pray and
taught that prayer has value. Therefore, confess your sins to each other and
pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person
is powerful and effective. (James 5:16)
l From Scripture, in many cases God works in a
sort of partnership with humans. God does not act if humans do not play their
part.
l When Jesus ministered in Nazareth, he did
not perform any major miracles. Jesus was “amazed at their lack of faith” (Mark
6:6)
l Examples of faith which, demonstrated in
petition, resulted in God’s working: the woman with the haemorrhage (Matthew
9:20-22)
l Both petitionary and intercessory prayers
clearly form part of the order of providence, that great matrix of causes and
effects through which God governs the world.
l However, if there’s the belief that some
particular evil will be averted, and only if, an intercessor properly
intercedes for its removal, then the burden of responsibility for the
continuing evil falls squarely upon the shoulders of the intercessor: if only A
had prayed harder, X would have been adverted; but also, only if A had prayed
harder, would X have been adverted. Who is to blame for Auschwitz?
l The alternate view is that prayer is a
God-ordained means of fulfilling what God wills. Intercessory prayer is not one
means of settling God’s mind on a course of action, but one of the ways in
which the already settled mind of God effects what he has decreed. So the
‘burden of responsibility’ for the answering or not answering of intercessory
prayers is placed firmly upon the shoulders wide and strong enough to bear it,
the shoulders of God himself.
l Prayer does not change what God has purposed
to do. It is the means by which he accomplishes his end.
l Prayer is more than self-stimulation. It is
a matter of creating in ourselves a right attitude with respect to God’s will.
Prayer is not so much getting God to do our will as it is demonstrating that we
are as concerned as is God that his will be done.
l We do not always receive what we asked for. Jesus
asked three times for the removal of the cup, Paul for the removal of his thorn
in the flesh. In each case, something more needful was granted. For Christ’s
sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in
difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. (2 Corinthians 12:9-10). The
believer can pray confidently, knowing that our wise God will give us, not
necessarily what we ask for, but what is best.
Providence and
Miracles:
l Definition: Those striking or unusual
workings by God that is clearly supernatural. A divine operation that
transcends what is normally perceived as natural law; it cannot be explained
upon any natural basis.
l This can be looked at in terms of their
relationship to the laws of nature. There are several views.
l Naturalism is the idea or belief that only natural (as opposed to supernatural or
spiritual) laws and forces operate in the world.
n Miracles are actually the manifestations
of little known or virtually unknown natural laws. If we fully knew and
understood nature, we could understand and even predict these events. For
example, if we were to use this concept to describe Luke 5, the miraculous
catch of fish: unusual conditions were present so that the fish had gathered in
a place where they would not ordinarily be expected to be. The miracle came in
Jesus knowing where the fish would be. He did not create fish for the occasion,
nor did he somehow drive them from their places in the lake to where the net
was to be let down.
n Theistic naturalism: a God who has made a universe to operate
fully naturally, with ongoing divine sustenance of this natural order, but
without miraculous interventions. “God does not ‘interfere’ with the nature of
his creation, because such interference would be inconsistent with the modern,
scientific world-view.” (eg. R.Bultmann)
l Providentialism:
n “God does not ‘interfere’ with his creation,
but he has set up its natural processes so that they accomplish his purposes.
What are traditionally called ‘miracles’ are by this view rather ‘special
providences’ which are distinguished from ordinary providences not by any
mechanism but by our recognition of God’s purpose in the event.” (eg. Howard
Van Till).
n All events are both ‘natural’ and
‘providential’. Since all ‘natural’ events are God’s providential actions, it
is therefore invalid to think of qualitatively special divine action.
n Argument against: Biblical authors present
some events as unusual, not simply in the actuarial sense of ‘rare’ but in the
very mechanism by which they came about.
l Occasionalism:
n Denies the category of natural altogether.
Denies that created things have any natural causal properties; instead, every event
is entirely ‘supernatural’, all events are taken to be caused directly by God.
Since every ‘natural’ event is supernatural, it is therefore invalid to think
of any natural causation at all.
n “Laws of nature are not alternatives to
divine activity but only our codification of that activity in its normal
manifestation, and a miracle means nothing more than that God at a given moment
wills a certain thing to occur differently than it had up to that moment been
willed to occur.” (eg. Edwards, Kuyper, Berkouwer)
n “A miracle is not an abnormal or unnatural
occurrence presupposing the normality of nature, but a redeeming reinstatement
of the normality of world and life through the new dominion of God… Miracles
are not part of a supernatural order which intrudes upon an absolutized
“natural” order of things, thereupon creating a tension between miracles and
nature.” (G. Berkouwer, The Providence of God, p. 211)
n Argument against: But it is precisely
because the miracles of Jesus are often symbolic of the coming of salvation
that a supernaturalistic description of them is so suitable (the advance of the
kingdom is the work of the Holy Spirit). John 9:39-41 explicitly makes this
connection, where there is a direct parallel between physical and spiritual
blindness, and our blindness of heart needs a supernatural cure. Healing is
itself a special divine operation of divine power on ‘nature’.
l Supernaturalism:
n Affirms the existence of ‘nature’ as a
web of cause and effect. The view that God maintains his created things in existence
with their causal properties. The interaction of these properties gives us the
regularity of nature/a regular order of nature. Supernatural events may occur
when God transcends these natural properties to achieve some purpose.
n “There is such a thing as ‘nature’ as a web
of cause and effect, and… God’s ordinary providence is the preservation of the
things that he has made and concurrence in their effects… God is [also] free to
work ‘without, above, and against them, at his pleasure’.” (eg. Aquinas,
Protestant Scholastics, C.S.Lewis)
n Two views of supernatural forces:
u Miracles break the laws of nature. In
the case of the axhead that floated (2 Kings 6:6), this theory suggests that
for a brief period of time, in that cubic foot or so of water, the law of
gravity was suspended. The problem with this explanation is that suspending or
breaking of the laws of nature usually introduces complications requiring a
whole series of compensating miracles.
u When miracles occur, natural forces are
countered by supernatural force. Laws of nature are not suspended. In the
case of the axhead, the law of gravity continued to function in the vicinity of
the axhead, but the unseen hand of God was underneath it, bearing it up just as
if a human hand were lifting it. This view have the advantage of regarding
miracles as being genuinely supernatural or extranatural, but without being
antinatural.
l God’s working is not restricted to the
dimensions that we inhabit:
There may be more than the three spatial dimensions with which we are familiar,
so God would be able to perform actions that could not be accounted for by the
laws governing these three dimensions.
l When we look at the biblical examples of
miracles, we cannot be proponents of providentialism or occasionalism unless we
radically reject our ordinary perception of the world.
l The supernatural acts of creation. Certain
creation activities were accomplished by the word of God (Hebrews 11:3); he
merely spoke, and it was done (Psalm 33:9). Obviously, this type of divine
action is not being duplicated today since the creation process of the material
universe was concluded at the end of the initial week of earth’s history
(Genesis 2:1-2).
l Miracles which involved a temporary and
localized suspension of laws regulating nature. Jesus calmed a ferocious storm
on the Sea of Galilee (Matthew 8:23-27), and, on another occasion, he walked
upon the waters of the lake (John 6:16-21). Joshua Stops the Sun
l The manipulation of certain material things.
Christ turned water into wine (John 2:1-11), and multiplied a
lad’s loaves and fishes, so that thousands were fed (John 6:1-14).
n
Subject
to sense perception: The water that Jesus turned into wine could be tasted
(John 2:9)
l
Healing
of man’s physical body. The blind were made to see (John 9:1-7), and the lame
to walk (Acts 3:1-10), instant healing of amputated ear (Luke 22:50-51).
n Genuine miracles were not slow, progressive
processes; rather, they produced instantaneous effects. “And straightway he
received his sight” (Mark 10:52); “And immediately his feet and his ankle bones
received strength” (Acts 3:7).
n How can a perfectly restored ear, that had
been amputated, be explained by current processes (Luke 22:50-51)
l Virgin birth of Jesus: obviously contrary to
the course of nature. Joseph obviously knows that as he was operating under the
assumption that everyone else makes about how women come to be pregnant.
l Divine power over death. Lazarus, dead four
days, was raised (John 11:43-44), and, of course, the resurrection of Christ is
the very foundation of the Christian system (1 Corinthians 15:16-19).
l Expulsion of demons that had entered into
human bodies (Matthew 12:22).
n When Jesus performed signs, even his enemies
did not deny the effect of such; they merely attempted to attribute his power
to some other source (e.g., Satan; cf. Matthew 12:24).
l Miraculous power was demonstrated in both
the plant and animal kingdoms. Balaam’s donkey spoke with a man’s voice
(Numbers 22:28), and the Lord Jesus, in an object lesson relative to the
impending destruction of Jerusalem, destroyed a fig tree with but a word from
his mouth (Matthew 21:19).
l Ten plaques and the Crossing of the Red Sea.
The naturalists try to analyse these scientifically, with red toxic algae,
diseases, weather conditions, etc. Although the signs may be associated with
natural phenomena, their occurrence is clearly attributed to divine
intervention because there are references to Moses or Aaron stretching out
their hands, or a staff, in order to bring about the signs.
l Purposes:
n To glorify God: meaning that when miracles
occur today, we should credit God, who is the source of the miracle, not the
human agent, who is the channel.
n To establish the supernatural basis of the
revelation: in biblical times miracles often accompanied the revelations.
n To meet human needs: Jesus is frequently
pictured as moved with compassion for the needy and hurting people who came to
him (Matthew 14:14).
Resources:
Collins, John C.
The God of Miracles
Erikson, Millard J.
Christian Theology.
