Program / Course 8: God, Trinity, and Creation / Lesson 7.1
What you will learn
- Define providence and its three traditional parts: preservation, concurrence and governance.
- Explain the distinction between primary and secondary causes.
- Describe how the traditions state providence, with attention to the Heidelberg Catechism, the Catechism of the Catholic Church and Orthodox teaching.
- Identify the main questions that providence raises and how later lessons take them up.
The big idea
Providence is the Christian teaching that God does not only make the world but also keeps it in being, acts with and through created causes, and guides everything toward its end. Traditional theology divides it into three: preservation (God sustains creatures), concurrence (God works with their own activity) and governance (God directs all events to his purposes). The doctrine is a source of comfort in Scripture, and it also raises hard questions about freedom, chance and evil that the rest of the module takes up.
Key terms
- Providence
- From a Latin word for foresight. God’s care and rule over creation, by which he sustains it and leads it to its end.
- Preservation
- God’s act of keeping creatures in existence with the powers he gave them.
- Concurrence
- God’s cooperation with creatures in what they do, so that their acts are truly theirs and truly depend on God.
- Governance
- God’s direction of all things to the ends he has appointed.
- Primary and secondary causes
- God as the first cause, who gives being and power, and creatures as secondary causes, who really act by what they receive.
- General and special providence
- General providence is God’s care for all creation. Special providence is his particular care for persons, especially believers.
- Pronoia
- The Greek word for providence, used by the Eastern fathers.
- Permission
- A term used in discussions of evil: that God allows an event without directly causing it. Its meaning is debated.
Background
The Bible speaks of God’s care over the smallest things. Jesus says that not a sparrow falls without the Father, and that the hairs of the head are numbered (Matthew 10:29 to 30). Psalm 104 describes God feeding the animals and giving the rain. Proverbs 16:9 says a man’s heart deviseth his way, but the Lord directeth his steps. Paul says that all things work together for good to those who love God (Romans 8:28) and that God worketh all things after the counsel of his own will (Ephesians 1:11). Acts 17:28 and Colossians 1:17 speak of the world as held in being by God.
The early church used the doctrine against two opposing views. Epicureans held that the gods take no interest in the world, and Stoics held that fate governs everything. The Christians rejected both. They taught that God cares and that the world is not ruled by blind fate. Augustine’s City of God, written after the sack of Rome in 410, is in large part a work on providence: it asks how God governs history, including its disasters. The Eastern fathers, such as Chrysostom, preached on providence to encourage the suffering.
Medieval and Reformation theologians gave the doctrine its familiar form. Aquinas treated providence in the first part of the Summa Theologiae and in the Summa contra Gentiles. The Heidelberg Catechism of 1563 gives a well-known summary in Question 27, in which providence is the almighty and ever present power of God by which he upholds heaven, earth and all creatures, and so governs them that nothing comes by chance but all by his fatherly hand. The Catechism of the Catholic Church, in paragraphs 302 to 308, also treats providence as God’s guidance of creation toward perfection.
Step-by-step explanation
Step 1: Preservation
Preservation says that creatures continue to exist only because God sustains them. Hebrews 1:3 says that the Son upholds all things by the word of his power. This is not a separate act from creation but the same act viewed as continuing. If God withdrew, creatures would not drift on but cease to exist.
The doctrine is not the claim that God sustains the world in the manner of a person holding up a heavy object. It says that creatures have their own natures and powers, and they have them because God gives them. A fire burns because it is fire, and it is fire because God sustains it as such. The order of nature, which scientists study, is for the Christian a form of God’s faithful preservation.
Step 2: Concurrence
Concurrence deals with the way God relates to what creatures do. The traditional answer is that God acts in and through the acts of creatures, which are really theirs. A plant grows from its own nature, a person decides, and yet in each case God is the first cause, giving the power to act. The two causes do not compete, because they are on different levels. The author of a play is not one of the characters, and the character’s lines are truly the character’s even though the author writes them. The comparison has its limits, since the author does not give the character existence.
Aquinas used this to argue that God’s causing an act does not remove its freedom. Because God’s causality works at the deepest level, giving the creature’s very being and action, it does not push the creature aside. Not all Christians accept this. Arminians and others hold that God’s cooperation is a general support that enables the creature but does not determine its choice. Others, such as Molinists, propose that God knows what creatures would freely do and orders the world accordingly. Reformed theology generally follows Aquinas more closely, though its picture of the human will differs. These differences are discussed in the next lesson.
Step 3: Governance
Governance is God’s direction of everything toward its end. Scripture speaks of the Lord as king over all, and the Reformers made much of the point. Governance includes ordinary events, where God works through natural causes, and extraordinary ones, which the tradition calls miracles, where God acts in a way that departs from the usual course. It also includes God’s use of human actions, including evil ones, to bring about good, as Joseph told his brothers (Genesis 50:20).
The tradition distinguishes ways that God governs. He rules the physical world through natural law, rational creatures through their wills and conscience, and the church through his word and Spirit. His ultimate end for creation is his glory and the good of creatures, which Christians hope will be completed in the new creation. The Westminster Confession says that God’s providence reaches to the first fall and all other sins of angels and men, in a way that does not make God the author of sin. How this can be so is the subject of later lessons.
Step 4: Comfort and questions
The Heidelberg Catechism says the doctrine brings patience in adversity, thankfulness in prosperity and trust for the future. Many believers have found it a source of comfort in suffering because it teaches that no event is outside God’s care. Romans 8:28 has been cited by generations of Christians for just this reason.
The doctrine also raises questions. Does God’s governance leave room for chance? If God directs every event, how are human actions free? If God governs everything, how can he not be responsible for evil? Christian traditions have answered these differently. The module treats these questions in order: first sovereignty and freedom, then the problem of evil, then Christian responses.
- What difference does it make to say that God sustains the world at each moment?
- How might I explain concurrence to someone who thinks God and natural causes compete?
- Which texts on providence comfort me, and which trouble me?
- Do I think of providence as general or particular, or both?
- How should the doctrine of providence affect planning and effort?
- What would I need to say about evil to keep the doctrine credible?
Examples
A farmer’s harvest
A farmer plants, waters and tends a crop. The rain falls and the sun shines, and the crop grows. A Christian may say the harvest is the farmer’s work, the work of nature and the gift of God, all at once. The doctrine of concurrence says these do not conflict.
The sparrow
Jesus uses the example of a sparrow, which sells for very little, to say that God knows and cares about each creature and values his followers far more. The teaching is not that God manages each detail like a puppeteer, but that nothing is outside his care.
Joseph in Egypt
Joseph is sold into slavery by his brothers, jailed unjustly, and later rises to rule in Egypt. He tells his brothers that they intended evil but God intended good (Genesis 50:20). The story is often used to illustrate how providence can use human wrongdoing without excusing it.
Different perspectives
Catholic
The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that God guides creation toward perfection through divine providence. God acts through secondary causes, and the freedom of creatures is real. Catholic theology holds that God permits evil, which is never willed by him, and brings good out of it.
Orthodox
The Orthodox emphasize that providence includes human cooperation with God. John of Damascus wrote that God foreknows but does not predetermine human acts. Orthodox writers speak of God’s care for each person and of the world as moving toward theosis, communion with God.
Reformed
Reformed theology gives the doctrine special prominence. Calvin’s Institutes, Book 1, chapters 16 to 18, teach that God governs all things, including human acts, and that there is no chance. The Heidelberg Catechism and the Westminster Confession state it in detail, with the claim that God is not the author of sin and that secondary causes remain real.
Lutheran, Wesleyan and others
Lutherans affirm that God preserves and governs all things and have a strong teaching on his hidden care. Wesleyan and Arminian traditions affirm providence but emphasize that God’s governance allows genuine human freedom and does not determine each event. Both lines stress the comfort of the doctrine.
Open theist and process views
Open theists hold that God directs history without determining the free choices of creatures in advance, and that he responds as events unfold. Process theologians hold that God influences the world by persuasion. Defenders of the older views reply that these accounts reduce the biblical picture of God’s rule.
Why it matters
Providence is the doctrine that connects theology with daily life. People ask whether things happen for a reason, whether prayer can change anything, and whether God is in control. The answers given by the tradition set the frame in which these questions are discussed. Seeing the distinctions of preservation, concurrence and governance makes it possible to talk about God’s action without either making God a cosmic manager or leaving the world to chance.
Common misunderstandings
Misunderstanding: Providence means that everything happens for a reason that makes it good.
Correction: The tradition says that God brings good out of events, but it does not say that every event is good. Evil remains evil, and the traditions debate how God stands to it.
Misunderstanding: If God governs everything, human effort and prayer are pointless.
Correction: The tradition teaches that God works through secondary causes, including human effort and prayer. Aquinas says that prayer is one of the ways that providence works.
Misunderstanding: All Christians understand providence in the same way.
Correction: They share the core, but differ on how God’s action relates to human freedom and to evil. Reformed, Catholic, Orthodox, Arminian and open theist views differ significantly.
Misunderstanding: Providence is a purely religious idea that has nothing to do with natural science.
Correction: The traditional doctrine says that natural laws are part of God’s governance. The relation between providence and chance in nature is discussed by theologians and scientists, and views vary.
Knowledge check
What are the three parts of providence?
Preservation, in which God keeps creatures in existence. Concurrence, in which God cooperates with creatures in their actions so that the acts are truly theirs and depend on God. And governance, in which God directs all things toward the ends he has appointed.
What is the difference between primary and secondary causes?
God is the primary cause who gives being and power to everything. Creatures are secondary causes who really act by what they receive. The two do not compete because they act at different levels, just as an author and a character can both be the source of a line in a play.
Name two biblical texts on providence and what they say.
Matthew 10:29 to 30 says that not a sparrow falls without the Father and the hairs of the head are numbered. Romans 8:28 says that all things work together for good to those who love God. Ephesians 1:11 says God works all things after the counsel of his will. Any two with accurate descriptions are acceptable.
What questions does the doctrine of providence raise?
It raises questions about human freedom if God directs everything, about chance in the world, and about evil, since God governs a world in which wrongdoing and suffering occur. The next lessons take up divine sovereignty and freedom and the problem of evil.
Think it through
- When have you found the doctrine of providence comforting, and when has it seemed hard to believe?
- How might the idea of concurrence change the way you think about your own actions?
- What does it mean to trust God without ceasing to act?
Independent assignment
Reading Question 27
In your own notebook, write about 400 words. Read Questions 26 to 28 of the Heidelberg Catechism. Summarize what the catechism says providence is and what practical results it expects. Then say which parts of the answer a Catholic, an Orthodox Christian and an Arminian would accept without hesitation, and which they might question. Do not send this to anyone.
Further study
- Zacharias Ursinus and Caspar Olevianus, The Heidelberg Catechism Read Questions 26 to 28.
- Catholic Church, Catechism of the Catholic Church Read paragraphs 301 to 314 on divine providence.
- Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae Read Part I, Questions 22 and 103 on providence and the governance of the world.
- John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion Read Book 1, chapters 16 to 18.
- Westminster Assembly, The Westminster Confession of Faith Read chapter 5, Of Providence.
- Matthew 10:29 Two sparrows sold for a farthing.
- Romans 8:28 All things work together for good.
- Colossians 1:17 By him all things consist.
- Hebrews 1:3 Upholding all things by the word of his power.