Theology & Doctrine · FaithLogic

Providence — God's Government of All Things

Scripture teaches that God, having made the world, continually upholds it in being and governs everything in it toward his purposes — the vast and the tiny, the free acts of people and the fall of a sparrow — without being the author of sin and without cancelling human responsibility. The traditions divide over how God's sovereignty and human freedom fit together.

In brief

The parts of the doctrine:

• Preservation (conservation) — God continually keeps all things in existence; they do not carry on by themselves (Nehemiah 9:6; Acts 17:28, 'in him we live and move and have our being'; Hebrews 1:3, 'he upholds the universe by the word of his power').
• Concurrence (cooperation) — God works in and through the ordinary operation of creatures and their causes, so that every event is both fully the creature's act and, at a different level, under God's governance (Philippians 2:13, 'God who works in you, both to will and to work'; Proverbs 16:9, 'the heart of man plans his way, but the LORD establishes his steps').
• Government — God directs all things to their appointed ends: nature (Psalm 104; 147:8–9), nations (Daniel 2:21; Acts 17:26), rulers (Proverbs 21:1), 'random' events (Proverbs 16:33, 'the lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the LORD'), and the details of a life (Psalm 139:16).

Providence and evil. God is sovereign over evil without being its author or approving it. The classic test case is Joseph: 'you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good' (Genesis 50:20) — the same act, evil in the brothers' intention, purposed by God for good. The cross is the supreme case: 'this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified' (Acts 2:23) — a wicked act that accomplished salvation. God is said to 'ordain' or 'permit' evil in a way that never makes him complicit in the sin, whose guilt lies wholly with the creature.

The main disagreement — sovereignty and freedom:

• Reformed / Augustinian: God's providence is meticulous and effectual — nothing happens outside his eternal decree, including free human choices, which he ordains through, not against, secondary causes (compatibilist freedom: people freely do what they most want).
• Molinist: by 'middle knowledge' God knows what any free creature would freely do in any circumstance, and providentially arranges circumstances so his purposes are achieved while choices remain libertarian-free.
• Arminian / classical Wesleyan: God sovereignly grants humans genuine libertarian freedom; he foreknows all outcomes and governs providentially, but permits (without decreeing) sinful choices, and some things are contingent on human response.
• Open theism: God governs a genuinely open future, taking risks and responding as events unfold; he does not foreknow or ordain free choices. (Rejected by the historic traditions.)

Synthesis

FAITHLOGIC ANALYSIS. Providence is the doctrine that God runs the world he made — all of it, all the time, on purpose. Scripture says this at every scale: he feeds the ravens and numbers your hairs; he raises up Assyria and brings it down; he turns the king's heart like a channel of water; the lot in the lap and the arrow shot 'at random' land where he decides; and the worst act in history, the crucifixion, happened 'according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God' — carried out by men who were entirely guilty for doing it.

That last sentence is the whole difficulty and the whole comfort. Scripture holds the two sides together without flinching — 'you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good' — and the traditions are all trying to state carefully what the Bible asserts casually. The Reformed say God effectually ordains even sinful acts through secondary causes, the act being the creature's and the evil the creature's alone. Molinists say God achieves his ends by knowing and arranging what free creatures would freely do. Arminians say God grants real libertarian freedom and permits, without decreeing, its misuse. Each account pays a price somewhere — on the problem of evil, on the unconditional force of Romans 8:28, or on the texts that put wicked acts inside God's plan. What no historic tradition will say is that the world is partly out of God's hands, because then his promise that 'all things work together for good' would be a hope rather than a guarantee.

Part of the FaithLogic Theology & Doctrine library. Open the full study for the original languages, the early witnesses, the councils, and the arguments.