Divine Action and Providence

Explorations in Constructive Dogmatics

Zondervan, Oliver D. Crisp, Fred Sanders

• Publisher: Zondervan Academic
• Year: 2019
• eBook ISBN: 9780310106890
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Studies

Thinking Clearly and Deeply about the Theology of God's Intervention in the World.

The claim that God acts in the world is surely a basic theological claim, but it's one that has been understood in a wide variety of ways in the Christian theological tradition. In some accounts, God appears as the largest, first, and most powerful agent. In others, God is portrayed as the transcendent ground of all finite agency, while never acting on the same plane as other agents...

Divine Action and Providence represents the proceedings of the seventh annual Los Angeles Theology Conference, which invited theologians across Christian traditions to contribute their constructive accounts and proposals to the theology of God's relation to and intervention in the world.

The eleven diverse essays in this collection include discussions on:

• The particularity and detail of divine action.
• Recovering the identity of the God of providence.
• The theological meaning of the course of history.
• The nature of omnipotence.

Each of the essays collected in this volume engage with Scripture as well as with others in the field—theologians both past and present, from different confessions—in order to provide constructive resources for contemporary systematic theology and to forge a theology for the future.

CHAPTER 1

METICULOUS PROVIDENCE

OLIVER D. CRISP

Q. What do you understand by the providence of God?

A. God’s providence is his Almighty and ever present power, whereby, as with his hand, he still upholds heaven and earth and all creatures, and so governs them that leaf and blade, rain and drought, fruitful and barren years, food and drink, health and sickness, riches and poverty, indeed, all things, come to us not by chance but by his fatherly hand.

—HEIDELBERG CATECHISM , Q. 27

THUS THE HEIDELBERG CATECHISM , and it is difficult to think of a better, more evocative characterization of meticulous providence than that. Put in more prosaic language, we might say that if providence is the general theological term we give to divine preservation, concurrence, and governance with respect to the created order, meticulous providence is (very roughly) that species of doctrine which stipulates that the scope of divine preservation, concurrence, and governance encompasses all that comes to pass.¹ There are many biblical passages that suggest such a view. For instance, Proverbs 15:3 tells us that the eyes of the LORD are in every place, beholding the wicked and the good. Proverbs 16:33 states that “the lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the LORD.” Matthew 10:29 has Jesus saying, “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Father’s care.” And in the opening chapter of Ephesians, we read that we are “predestined according to his purpose who works all things after the counsel of his will” (Eph 1:11). Paul, in addressing the Areopagus in Acts 17, is reported as saying that God gives “to mankind life, breath, and everything.” And quoting the pagan poet Epimenides with approval, he goes on to say that “in him [i.e., God] we live and move and have our being.” The writer to the Hebrews observes that God upholds “all things by the word of his power” (Heb 1:3). This is just a small sample of the many biblical passages that suggest God’s providence is meticulous in nature.² Nevertheless, there are a number of ways in which this could be construed—different metaphysical pictures with which these biblical passages are consistent.

For instance, does meticulous providence mean God directly and immediately causes all things distinct from himself—along the lines envisaged in occasionalism, the doctrine according to which we are merely the occasions of God’s action in creation, not actually causing anything ourselves? (This view can be found in the work of Jonathan Edwards and Nicholas Malebranche, amongst others.)³ Or is it, as The Westminster Confession 5.2 claims, that God “orders” all that comes to pass “to fall out, according to the nature of second causes, either necessarily, freely, or contingently” (emphasis added)? (This, or something very like it, is the sort of view one can find in the theology of John Calvin and many of his successors.) Perhaps the fundamental theological claim of meticulous providence should be construed to mean God concurs with every creaturely action so as to ensure a particular outcome obtains in every circumstance. On this view, effects are produced by both God and creatures immediately and simultaneously. (This doctrine, which can be found in many versions of Thomism, is also a position adopted by some in the Reformed tradition.)⁴ Finally, it may be that God ensures that the world he creates includes exactly the history it does, down to the smallest detail, by bringing about that world in which human creatures make the particular set of free choices he desires them to make. (This view is consistent with Molinism, or the doctrine of middle knowledge, which is one of the most popular accounts of providence amongst contemporary analytic theologians, though it is historically a Jesuit position.)⁵

There are other views besides these, of course. I mention these four because they are important fixtures in the history of theological discussion of providence and because they illustrate the fact that one can agree that the scope of God’s providence is indeed meticulous and yet construe that in very different ways—including ways that do not presume some version of theological determinism. God’s meticulous oversight of all that comes to pass could mean he is the sole immediate cause of all that comes to pass; or the immediate cause of some but not all things (because he utilizes secondary or creaturely causes); or a concurring “cause” bringing about things immediately and in conjunction with the immediate causal activity of creaturely agents; or by means of some other act of divine ensurance⁶ that makes certain that human free actions unfold precisely as he intends. Yet clearly these are very different views about the nature of divine oversight of creation, each of which can plausibly be said to be versions of meticulous providence.

Rather than offer an overview of all of these various options, which can be found elsewhere in the literature,⁷ I will focus on two rather different ways of construing meticulous providence with a view to showing that the doctrine is more expansive than might be thought at first glance. It is “roomy” enough to include within its bounds accounts of providence that are determinist as well as accounts that are libertarian. This somewhat unexpected thesis has theological implications for how we frame our discussions of meticulous providence, as I shall indicate at the end of the chapter.⁸

To this end, the argument proceeds as follows. In the first section, I shall set out a number of preliminary conceptual distinctions. Then, in a second section, I shall outline two distinct accounts of meticulous providence. The first of these I shall call the secondary cause account. It follows in broad outline the sort of view that is defended by Calvin and some of his intellectual heirs in Reformed theology, though it is not identical to the views of Calvin, strictly speaking. On this view, God determines the history of the world bringing about all that comes to pass, usually mediately, by means of secondary causes such as creaturely agents. The second view I shall outline I will call the concurrence account. As already intimated, it follows the general outline of an approach to meticulous providence that can be found in Thomist thought.⁹ Nevertheless, the version I shall outline does not utilize Thomist metaphysics. It is inspired by a Thomist approach rather than being Thomist strictly speaking. The substance of this account of meticulous providence is that God’s act of concurrence with creaturely causes does not infringe the libertarian freedom of creatures but somehow preserves it whilst also ensuring all that comes to pass. Having given an outline of these two versions of meticulous providence, I turn in a third section to assess these two ways of thinking about divine action in creation, closing with some reflections on the theological upshot of this comparison.

PRELIMINARY CONCEPTUAL DISTINCTIONS

To begin with, we need to expand upon the notion of meticulous providence. Thus far I have said this is the view according to which the scope of divine preservation, concurrence, and governance encompasses all that comes to pass. Preservation, concurrence, and governance are the three traditional dogmatic heads under which providence is usually discussed. They are not necessarily distinct divine actions but more like different modes of the one divine act, or different aspects of the one action of divine providence. God is said to preserve the world he has created in existence by the immediate exercise of his power. For defenders of meticulous providence, without such an act of divine preservation, the creation would immediately cease to exist. God also acts in concurrence or “agreement” with creaturely actions, without which no creaturely action would take place. So God’s providence is necessary in order for creatures to act as well as continue to exist. And God governs his creatures by means of his constant oversight of the creation, ordering all things to the goal or consummation for which he has ordained the created order in the first place. Thus there is nothing that obtains in creation without God’s preservation of, concurrence with, and government respecting that thing. Absent God’s preservation of, concurrence with, and government respecting that thing at each moment of its existence, it would not exist. In this way, according to the doctrine of meticulous providence, all that exists in creation is in some important sense radically dependent on God’s preservation, concurrence, and government. The idea is similar to the way in which a person’s thoughts are radically dependent upon their continuing to think those things in order for the thoughts in question to continue to exist.

Now, meticulous providence so understood is often thought to be equivalent to determinism. I take it that determinism is, in the words of Peter van Inwagen, “the thesis that the past determines a unique future.”¹⁰ That is, the past determines exactly one future physical state of affairs. Put a bit more expansively, suppose that the past up to midday yesterday is summarized in the proposition p. To this, add a complete account of the laws of nature, summarized in the proposition l. Determinism is the view according to which the conjunction of p plus l entails a unique future state of affairs. In other words, p + l entails that you are reading this sentence right now rather than, say, basking in the sunshine on Manhattan Beach, skiing at Big Bear, or whatever.¹¹

Of course, there are different sorts of determinism. Usually, when analytic philosophers talk about determinism, they are interested in physical or causal determinism. (I shall use these two terms interchangeably since I presume that causation is a relation that obtains between physical things.) Philosophers are interested in the way in which one thing may causally affect another in the physical universe in which we live. So causal determinism is the thesis that a particular event, y, is causally necessitated by x, if x is some acting thing or some event, such that, given x, the unique event y must happen because x makes it happen.¹²

By contrast, theologians like to talk about theological determinism. This is not the same thesis as causal determinism because the idea is that God, an immaterial agent, determines a unique future for the created order. This includes the physical creation but does not comprise it. For presumably there are many things that are not physical in the created order, such as angels and demons. Yet on the theological determinist view, God is said to determine their actions as well. What is more, some theological determinists seem to think that God’s meticulous oversight of the creation, which involves his ordaining all that comes to pass, does not involve him physically or causally bringing things about in the world. His action is logically prior to physical causation and is sometimes said to be what informs or gives rise to such physical causation.¹³

Be that as it may, one clear difference between theological determinism and causal determinism is that according to theological determinism, it is God that determines what comes to pass, whereas on causal determinism, physical events in the past plus the laws of nature determine a unique future physical state of affairs. Perhaps God utilizes physical events to bring about unique future physical state of affairs. If that is right, then at least some versions of theological determinism imply some version of physical or causal determinism. Nevertheless, the two theses are conceptually distinct.

With this in mind, let us turn next to compatibilism and incompatibilism and how they bear upon meticulous providence. In this context, compatibilism is the thesis that determinism is compatible with human free will and moral responsibility. Notice that I use the term determinism without qualification in the previous sentence. This is because whatever sort of determinism is in view, the issue is whether that form of determinism (whether causal, theological, or whatever) is consistent with human free will and moral responsibility. We might also worry about the free will and moral responsibility of other nonhuman creatures such as angels or primates. But we need not trouble ourselves with such complications here. It is sufficient for our purposes to focus on the free will and moral responsibility of human creatures irrespective of whether there are other rational creatures that also have free will and moral responsibility.

If compatibilism is the thesis that determinism is compatible with human free will and moral responsibility, incompatibilism is the thesis that determinism is incompatible with human free will and moral responsibility. Either determinism is true, or human free will and moral responsibility is true, but not both. There is no possible state of affairs in which both determinism and human free will and moral responsibility is compossible, on this way of thinking.

Next, let me say something about libertarianism, since this will be ...

Table of contents

• COVER PAGE
• TITLE PAGE
• COPYRIGHT PAGE
• DEDICATION
• CONTENTS
• ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
• CONTRIBUTORS
• INTRODUCTION
• 1. METICULOUS PROVIDENCE
• 2. PARTICULAR PROVIDENCE AND THE DETAILS OF DIVINE ACTION
• 3. WHO IS THIS KING OF GLORY?: RECOVERING THE IDENTITY OF THE GOD OF PROVIDENCE
• 4. PROVIDENCE: A DEFLATIONARY MANDATE
• 5. DIVINE PROVIDENCE’S WETENSCHAPPELIJKE BENEFITS: A BAVINCKIAN MODEL
• 6. DIVINE AND CREATED AGENTS IN ASYMMETRIC CONCURSUS: A BARTHIAN OPTION
• 7. DIVINE PROVIDENCE: A DISTORTED THEOLOGY OF HISTORY?
• 8. OLD AND NEW ACTIONS OF GOD: REIMAGINING DIVINE AGENCY AFTER THE APOCALYPTIC TURN
• 9. THE DEVIL’S WORK: DIVINE PROVIDENCE AND ITS ANTITHESIS
• 10. SHOULD A CHRISTIAN BE AN OCCASIONALIST?
• 11. “SO THAT WHERE I AM, THERE YOU MAY BE ALSO”: DIVINE ACTION AND DIVINE PROVIDENCE IN THE BEATIFIC VISION
• SCRIPTURE INDEX
• SUBJECT INDEX
• AUTHOR INDEX