INTRODUCTION
There is probably no point at which the Christian doctrine of God comes more into conflict with contemporary worldviews than in the matter of God’s providence. Providence means that God has not abandoned the world that he created, but rather works within that creation to manage all things according to the “immutable counsel of His own will” (Westminster Confession of Faith, V, i). By contrast, the world at large, even if it will on occasion acknowledge God to have been the world’s Creator, is at least certain that he does not now intervene in human affairs. Many think that miracles do not happen, that prayer isn’t answered and that most things “fall out” according to the functioning of impersonal and unchangeable laws.[1]
The world argues that evil abounds. How can evil be compatible with the concept of a good God who is actively ruling this world? There are natural disasters: fires, earthquakes, and floods. In the past, these have been called “acts of God.” Should we blame God for them? Isn’t it better to imagine that he simply has left the world to pursue its own course? This is where I think that the theology of providence comes so handy in addressing some of these speculations if not all. Providence in the daily dynamics of our lives has in many ways more actual pertinence than the doctrine of creation. In fact both theologians and philosophers of religion have given attention to the pressing issues that arise when we try to understand God’s action in the world and I believe that once again focus on what we call providence would become very useful.
Providence, according to Erickson, is “…the continuing action of God by which he preserves in existence the creation he has brought into being, and guides it to his intended purposes for it.”[2] He goes on to explain what preservation and God’s government mean which are thought of as the two main aspects of providence. He says, “Preservation means that God maintains the creation that he brought into existence. Government means that God is actively engaged in achieving his purpose in his creation and that sin cannot thwart those purposes.” Tiessen seems to agree with Erickson when he says that “…we will think of providence as God’s activity of preserving and governing the whole of creation.”[3] Grudem on the other hand presents a third aspect of providence which he calls “concurrence”[4], which Erickson and Tiessen have absorbed into “government”.
In dealing with the doctrine of providence, there are three (3) main practical issues that crop up: prayer, miracles and the existence of evil and suffering. The major considerations of this work would heavily rest on prayer and miracles and this is not to say that the existence of evil and suffering does not merit our consideration. There are references in the Bible where evil is attributed to God, a typical assertion of Jewish culture, where to them everything that happens proceeds from God. But in contemporary sense the question that is asked as, if God is all good and loving how can he visit us with evil? The implications of this and its ramifications will not be spilled out in this work.
In fact, my desire to research into this particular area or topic that has been notably absent from theological discussion today grew out of a burden to (petition) intercede and also learn more about the subject of providence. I initially felt that my petition prayer was inconsistent with the doctrine of providence that I confessed. I say inconsistency because systematic theology I think has an emphasis on consistency, and many times I hold a model of providence that understands God to be in control of the details of my life but a perspective on salvation that assumes that the outcome rests with the free choice of individuals.
This work will focus on answering the following questions, what the place of providence is in the theology of God, how God’s sovereignty plays with the free willed man he has created, does God still work miracles today and finally does God respond to prayer. These are important because they will help readers, Christians especially to understand what providence brings to bear in an understanding of God and his role in the world he has created.
Although some theologians and Christians alike assert to a model of providence that God has created a world that is governed by laws of physical and moral order and therefore he does not intervene to protect people from their own actions or inactions, God both cares and is actively involved in all that goes on in the world and in the individual lives of the people he has created because his acts of preservation and governance, prayer and miracles are some of the indications of his care, love and involvement in the world.
PRESERVATION AND GOVERNMENT
From the definition of providence it is necessary to consider the aspects; Preservation and Governance. Though the term providence is not found in scripture it has been traditionally used to summarise God’s ongoing relationship to his creation. In talking about preservation and government as aspects of providence, Erickson is quick to point out that “preservation and government should not be thought of as sharply separate acts of God, but as distinguishable aspects of his unitary work.”[5] Preservation includes providing the means for humans to remain in existence. To this end, preservation and government sometimes overlapping are of a unified working of God[6].
Preservation
According to Erickson preservation is “God maintaining his creation in existence. It involves God’s protection of his creation against harm and destruction, and his provision for the needs of the elements or members of his creation.”[7] This is a more detailed explanation but not different from Grudem’s where “God keeps all created things existing and maintaining the properties with which he created them.”[8] On the other hand Baelz affirms this but with a twist to it. He says that “…He is the origin and the goal of the universe, its alpha and its omega. His love sustains the world as it is and draws it towards the perfection which it has in it to attain. There is no question as to whether God is in-charge of the world or not. According to Tiessen’s own model of providence, which is actually carved from the Calvinist model of providence: A Middle Knowledge Calvinist Model of Providence, preservation is put in the contest of a God “who brought things into reality where nothing existed before and who then preserves their continuing existence and rules over creation in a sovereign and all powerful way.”
Several Scripture references actually talk about God’s preservation as a whole. In Colossians 1:17, Paul talks about Christ as the one “…in him all things hold together”. Here Paul’s use of the word "all things" is in reference to the universe. This is true because the previous verse, verse 16 confirms it. Paul consistently affirms that “in him we live, and move and have our being; ….” (Acts 17:28), this is to say that if Christ were to stop his continual sustenance of the world, all except God (the Triune God) would cease to exist. Again, in Exodus 13:21, God is seen as preserving the people of Israel, the people he calls his own. He does so as he goes before them “by day in a pillar of a cloud, to lead them the way; and by night in a pillar of fire, to give them light; to go by day and night” [KJV]. Here God is seen as guiding and preserving the people of Israel so that his ultimate purpose will be fulfilled. In the verse 22 of the same chapter, God does not take away the pillar of cloud by day, or the pillar of fire by night from the people. This is a sign of God’s jealous guiding of the people of Israel through history in order to preserve them from harm or evil. This, Peter Baelz attests are what the believer sees as “sees signs of the divine activity and providence in the world, and these support his (believer) faith”[9]. Again Baelz is quick to add that those activities of God “…become his signs of his activity only when combined with a non-inferential apprehension of God.” I think this is very true and helps in our understanding of what are the activities of God objectively.
Finally in history, there are many instances where we can see God’s preservation at work. The Biblical passage of Joseph being sold into slavery in Egypt is also seen as God’s way of preserving and providing for the needs of his people at the time of famine. Joseph is taken to Egypt in God’s plan to make provision for his people. Throughout the history of missions, it is clear that the sovereign God has worked his way out in order to preserve his word and made it available to us in this dispensation. From the days of the early Church (early century) to Roman Catholic Missions, from the days of the “Great Century” (missions to China , Africa etc.) to the era of the New Millennium (twentieth-century martyrs), God is seen to have preserved the Gospel and Christianity that it cannot be said today as a western religion. In this way Erickson says “God’s work of preservation also means that we can have confidence in the regularity of the created world, and can plan and carry out our lives accordingly”[10] which we have at times taken for granted.
Government
Government according to Grudem, indicates that “God has a purpose in all he does in the world and he providentially governs or directs all things in order that they accomplish his purpose.”[11] Erickson asserts to this meaning of government when he says that the government of God means his "activity in the universe so that all its events fulfil his plan for it. He assets that in a broader sense government includes preservation only that here the ‘emphasis is more fully on the purposive directing of the whole of reality and the course of history to God’s ends.’”[12]
The Lord’s sovereignty and governance is not just toward the generality of the universe but also in the circumstances of the lives of individual persons. This is expressed in Hannah’s profound expression of praise to God in 1 Sam. 2:6-7 after she had been inspired by a miraculous answer to her prayer for a son (Samuel). In 1 Cor. 4:6-7 the Bible says “…. For who maketh thee to differ from another? And what hast thou that thou didst not receive it, why dost thou glory, as if thou hadst not received it?” [KJV]. This is an indication that all that we have have been received from God to whom then praise is due. When the early church in acts 1:23-26 wanted someone to replace Judas as had been prophesied by the prophet, they prayed to God to show them between Justice and Matthias whom the Lord had chosen. After their prayer they cast lot and it fell on Matthias whom they enrolled with the eleven apostles. At this point God’s governing activity is to be thought of in a very large range of spectrum. As Erickson argues that “the sovereignty of God is not merely a matter of the circumstances of life or the behaviour of the subhuman creation. He firmly asserts that ‘The free actions of humans are also part of God’s governmental working.’ He evidently supports this claim when he cites the departure of the Israelites from Egypt regardless of the argument that God coerced the Egyptians in this matter through the plagues and particularly the death of their firstborn. This he says that the Bible is clear that the granting of the Israelites’ request was a free decision on the part of the Egyptians.”[13]
In Grudem’s exploration of Concurrence as a separate aspect of providence he asks the question of free will, and this is how he puts it “Are we “Free”? Do we have “Free will”? If God exercises providential control over all events are we in any sense free?”[14] His answer he says “depends on what is meant by the word free. He contends that to some extent we are ‘free in our will and in our choices.’”[15] “In creating other beings with self-determination, God has surrendered none of his control, contends Tiessen in his Middle Knowledge Calvinist model of Providence but comes to terms with the fact that ‘this does not mean that God is effectively the only agent ….’”[16] Peter Baelz on the other hand invites us to “rethink our ideas of God’s power in accordance with the way in which that power was expressed in the life of Jesus.”[17]
While Calvinists and Arminians have some disagreements on whether man is absolutely free in relation to God’s sovereignty, there exists some agreement on the fact that man makes a willing choice. Arminians believe that the issue goes beyond just making willing choices and sees man as libertarian free beings thereby saying that God has limited his own control. Although divine self-limitation is often the case, Sarot considers it an unfortunate choice of term and rather prefers to speak of God’s self-restraint.[18] On the other hand Calvinists reject this position presented by Arminian and say that God has not surrounded his control and this also does not suggest that he is effectively the only agent as articulated by Tiessen. Tiessen goes on to say that “it means that God can work within his creation so that free self-determining creatures do what they want to do but always in a context over which God maintains his sovereign prerogative and in which he could prevent things from taking place or bring about different outcomes, without taking away the creature’s self-determination.”[19]
On my conclusion on the sovereignty of God and man’s free will, I cannot agree more with Berkouwer when he suggests that “when permission is used to indicate the manner of Divine ruling, by which he grants room within his ruling for human freedom and responsibility, then the line of Biblical thinking has not been wholly abandoned. For this freedom, this creaturely freedom, receives a place in God’s rule of the world.” For Christians I think the answer to Grudems question of whether we are free will be biblical and that does not mean being based, or refuted, by a few proof texts. One arrives at one's own understanding of God and his work in the world through a general impression drawn from the entire text of Scripture. Such an understanding of God is the one that fulfils the demands of Scripture, experience and reason most satisfactorily.
MIRACLES AND PRAYER
Miracles
Definitions
According to Grudem, a miracle “is simply a less common way of God’s working in the world ….which points to God’s power being at work to cause amazement and wonder.” [20] But Erickson chooses to refer to miracles as “special supernatural works of God’s providence that are not explicable on the basis of the usual patterns of nature.”[21] In Erickson’s definition, it is to some extent suggestive that miracles are different kinds of working by God. I think Grudem’s definition is more preferable and consistent with the Biblical doctrine of God’s providence. Therefore miracle is to some extent God’s intervention in the natural order of things in order to sustain the universe or guide a particular individual in fulfilling his (God) will.
This is why I do not agree with Tiessen when he says that “…the request for a parking space… would be virtually impossible to demonstrate that the provision of such parking spaces was of significance in the big redemptive-historical picture.”[22] He claims that God is involved in the very detailed of our individual lives and that God sustains or guides us to fulfil his eternal purpose, yet he thinks that, for example, if a Christian who desires to set a good example for others to follow as a light in his work place requests for a parking space, why would God deny him? As to what accomplishes God’s own purpose should be left to him alone and we should not think for him.
The Nature of Miracles
A miracle in its original sense of the word may be used to designate any extraordinary event adapted to excite surprise and rouse attention. The words used in the Bible in reference to miraculous events do not inform us of their nature. The most common of these are; something separated or singular, something designed to confirm, remarkable events confirming the authority of prophets, extraordinary manifestation of divine power. In most of these cases the terms express the design, rather than the nature of the events to which they are applied. The explanation given by Charles Hodge as to whether a miracle can be known might give us a clue to the nature of a miracle. He says;
To prove an event in the external world to be miraculous, we have only to prove that it is not the effect of any natural cause, and that it is to be referred to the immediate agency of God. To produce this conviction, moral evidence is quite as effective as any other. Such an event may be, as far as we can see, supernatural, either in its nature or in the mode of its occurrence, but that alone would not justify us in referring it to God. Much depends on the character of the agent and the design for which the wonder is wrought. If these be evidently bad, we cannot be convinced that God has wrought a miracle. But if both the character of the agent and the design of his work are good, then we are easily and rationally convinced that the wonder is really a miracle.[23]
From Erickson we can develop some conceptions which I think depicts the nature of miracle in relation to natural laws or the laws of nature.[24] They are;
a. Miracles are actually the manifestations of little known or virtually unknown natural laws. An example of this conception is demonstrated in Luke 5, where there was a miraculous catch of fish. According to this conception Jesus did not create fish for the occasion but rather an unusual condition was present so that the fish had gathered in a place where they would ordinarily be expected.
b. Miracles break the laws of nature. In the case of the axe-head that floated in 2 kings 6:6, Erickson notes, that the story suggests that for a brief period of time the law of gravity was suspended. In effect God turned off the law of gravity until the axe-head was retrieved.
c. When Miracles occur natural forces are countered by supernatural forces. In this view, the laws of nature are not suspended but only that a supernatural force is introduced which negate the effects of the natural law. Citing the case of the axe-head, the laws of gravity continued to function in the area of the axe-head, but the unseen hand of God was underneath it, bearing it up. At this point, it is quite clear that there should “be no problem when we encounter events that run contrary to what natural law would dictate”[25] says Erickson. These I think is not whole evidence enough to know or identify a miracle because they are only conceptual and not factual. I hold to the view that even though the Bible is not clear on the nature of miracles, as moral beings we can still identify one and that is why we have a name for it; ‘miracle’.
The Purpose of Miracles
Even though miracles have several purposes as identified in Grudem’s work (5 purposes), Erickson puts them in three (3) main purposes which I think is the summary of Grudem’s five. Erickson acknowledges that “the most important of them all is to glorify God.”[26] It is always evident that in biblical miracles the beneficiaries as much as the observers of miracles generally responded by thanking and glorifying God. This is an indication that today when we experience miracles we should rather glorify God instead of the human agent whom God uses.
Secondly, miracles were to establish the supernatural basis of the revelation, which often accompanies them, Erickson says. He further says that “we note, too, that miracles often came at times of especially intensive revelation. This can be seen in our Lord’s ministry (e.g., Luke 5:24).”[27] The third purpose Erickson considers is that miracles come to meet our human needs. He contends that “Our Lord frequently is pictured as moved with compassion for the needy, hurting people who came to him. He healed to relieve the suffering caused by such maladies as blindness, leprosy, and haemorrhaging. He never performed miracles for the purpose of putting on a display.”[28] In concluding on miracles the question that come to my mind is should Christians seek miracles today? And the answer would be that, it depends on which purpose a person seeks miracles. Our quest for miracles today would seem more appropriate when our motivation is a Christ-like compassion for those in need and a burning desire to see Christ’s kingdom advance and his name glorified.
Prayer
The issues on prayer or prayer under God’s providence are too broad that some Scholars like Peter Baelz have devoted a whole book in discussing it. Prayer has been a concern for some Christians especially in the theology of God’s providence. The question of whether prayer really matters to God or does God answer prayer in his providential working has been the dilemma of many Christians. In his Hulsean Lectures, Peter Baelz addresses the issues brought to our attention by a consideration of prayer and providence. [29] He seem to suggest that God has chosen to complete his creative purpose through and with human beings, and that prayer is “a discipline in which man seeks to learn what is the divine will for him here and now in his present situation”.
We cannot expect to hear an inner voice instructing us what to do but must deliberate and decide “in reflection on the eternal purposes of God revealed in Christ and nourished by faith in God’s secret activity”[30] within us. Tiessen seems to agree with Baelz when he also says that God “has given his children the privilege of participating in his program for establishing his kingdom on earth”[31] In John Cobb’s definition of prayer he says it is “a means of adjustment – adjustment of the individual to situations in the world and especially to the large purpose of God”[32] In his response to Cobb, Philip Cooley finds no place in Cobb’s work for “prayer as the request for, and expectation of, divine intervention.”[33]
The Effectiveness of Prayer
According to Baelz, the believer has become “God’s fellow-worker, and is called to participate in the divine ministry of reconciliation. This ministry, in which God himself may be said to be active, since it allows the fuller expression of his will, is a ministry both of prayer and of work.”[34] He also grants that empirical evidence for answered prayer is difficult to produce because prayer does not work mechanically. But in some instances in Scripture like Dan. 9 where Daniel prays for the deliverance of the Israelites it took the angel Gabriel 21 days to penetrate the warfare in the heavens to come with the message to inform Daniel that “your words were heard, and I have come in response to your prayer” (Dan. 10:12).
And also in 1 Kings 18 we find the story of God using a person to accomplish his will through prayer. It is the account of Elijah praying for rain after three years of drought. James 5:17-18 mentions this occasion, and we know from his account that not only did Elijah’s prayer bring rain, but they also had stopped rain three years earlier. The only logical answer to the question of why Elijah needed to pray is simply that God has chosen to work through people. In his affirmation of the earlier point, Baelz says, “but we are not treating petition and answer in any mechanical way; we are setting the prayer in the context of a relationship between man and God which is all-embracing …this particular prayer is a significant factor in shaping what follows after.”[35] In talking about the effectiveness of prayer Baelz says that “No doubt the believer’s own experience has a lot to do with the question of whether he does or does not believe that God answers prayer….. The question at issue is this: is God such that we should expect him to answer prayer in this way? In coming to grips with this question the believer takes as his norm the insights associated with the person of Christ.”[36]
It is no doubt that from Arminian to Calvinists the relevance of prayer in God’s Providence is held in esteem. We all think of prayer as both important and effective. The problem is how it works in the mind of God. All the models on the providence of God and the different theories on providence only explain what theologians think is going on when we pray. The struggle when it comes to prayer is its explanation on how it fits in the mind of God looking at providence and not the experience of God’s grace that is shared by all.
RECOMMENDATION AND CONCLUSION
This study lay to bare a seminal research to show that God both cares, governs and is actively involved in all that goes on in the world and in the individual lives of the people he has created. It is clear that building a Christian worldview on the theology of providence will always be a “work in progress”. From the study, I can confidently conclude that the man God created is a libertarian free being who is responsible for the choices he makes and further, its consequence. Also God is sovereign in his divine providence and that places a responsibility on man towards God’s providence. By obedience in faith towards God, he works his providence through man. The representation of man, the second Adam, who is Christ, demonstrated this kind of faith in God of our emulation. God’s providence should be understood as God both preserving and governing the universe to fulfil his ultimate purpose and will. From Phil. 2: 8, the author depicts the obedience of Chris in this way, “And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.” [KJV]
God’s comprehensive providential care is exercised in such a way that creatures act spontaneously, normally choosing what they do without external constraint. Consequently they are morally responsible for their actions, even though God has included those acts within his eternal purpose. The good things we do as a result of God’s gracious influence upon us bring glory to God and the evil we do by his permission is strictly our own culpability.
For the Christian, his/her libertarian freedom finds its limitation and expression in God’s sovereignty. This is because he submits his will in the ultimate will God. It is in this will of God that he finds expression. References like, Act 17:28, “For in him we live, and move, and have our being…”, and in Phil. 4:13, Paul says, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” and many others are proof of this claim. The Knowledge of God cannot be concluded or exhausted in Language, History, and Inspired Revelation alone without Faith. The Christian or theologian’s faith protects him during the process and helps him put his revelation in a religious context. Essentially, an understanding of Biblical history that is marked by an understanding of human imperfection and faith in the mystery of divine intent is required.
This is to say that if God is to be understood only in the coherence of our theology, then he cannot be that infinite and all-knowing God as attributed to him and therefore faith will have no place in our pursuit to know God. In essence, we would deny the theology of miracles and conclude that God does not answer to our petitionary prayer. This is actually not the case because our willingness to obey and submit our free will to his ultimate will, gives us the confidence that when we pray as the bible says ‘he hears us’ and ‘answers us not because he ought to but because we pray according to his will. And so the author of the book of James is right when he points out to why our prayers are not answered sometimes by saying that, “…. Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.” Jas. 4:1-2 [KJV].
After going through this research work it is realised that there are a lot to learn and point out to the Christian in order to build a stronger and better relationship with the God who cares for his people and also works with them in order to bring to pass his eternal purpose in their lives. Therefore the need for further research work into the subject of providence is encouraged to better understand God’s work in the universe at large and also in the lives of the human individual. I acknowledge that this research work is not exhaustive enough and further work on why there exist evil in the world and its implications on it and on the people in it, and also a deeper insight into the whole theory of providence would help on the discussions of God’s providence and in the life of the Christian who seeks to know more about the God he/she believes in.
[1] James Montgomery Boice, “The Sovereign God”, http://www.the-highway.com/providence_Boice.html (accessed 10th December, 2013)
[2] Millard J. Erickson, Christian Theology, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Academic, 1998), 413
[3] Terrance Tiessen, Providence and Prayer: How does God Work in the World? (Downers Grove, Illinois: Inter-Varsity Press, 2000), 15.
[4] Wayne grudem, Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine (Leicester, England: Inter-Varsity Press, 1994), 315.
[5] Erickson, 414.
[6] For further study on the relationship between the two aspects of providence; preservation and governance, refer to the work of Gerrit Cornelis Berkouwer, The Providence of God (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1952), 74.
[7] Ibid.
[8] Grudem, 316.
[9] Peter Baelz, Prayer and Providence: A Background Study (New York: The Seabury Press, 1968), 119.
[10] Erickson, 419.
[11] Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine (Leicester, England: Inter-Varsity Press, 1994), 331.
[12] Millard J. Erickson, Christian Theology, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Academic, 1998), 420.
[13] Erickson, 422.
[14] Gruden, 330.
[15] Ibid.
[16] Terrance Tiessen, 291.
[7] Peter Baelz, Does God Answer Prayer? (London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1982), 26.
[18] Marcel Sarot, “Omnipotence and Self-Limitation,” in Christian Faith and Philosophical Theology: Essays in Honour of Vincent Brummer Presented on the Occasion of the Twenty-fifth Anniversary of His Professorship in The Philosophy of Religion in The University of Utrecht, ed. Gijsbert van den Brink, Luco J. van den Brom and Marcel Sarot (Kampen, The Netherlands: Kok Pharos, 1992), 175.
[19] Terrance Tiessen, 291.
[20] Grudem, 356.
[21] Erickson, 432.
[22] Terrance Tiessen, 301.
[23] Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, ed. Edward N. Gross (Grand Rapids: Baker Bk House, 1988).
[24] Erickson, 432-34.
[25] Erickson, 434.
[26] Ibid.
[27] Ibid.
[28] Ibid.
[29] Peter Baelz, Prayer and Providence: A Background Study. The Hulsean Lectures for 1966 (London: SCM Press, 1968)
[30] Ibid., 110.
[31] Terrance Tiessen, 337.
[32] Cited from “To pray or Not to Pray: A Confession” (Nashville: Upper Room, 1974), 18, in Phillip Allen Cooley, “Selected Models of the God-World Relationship in the Twentieth Century Theology: Implications for the Contemporary Doctrine of Providence” (Ph. D. dissertation, Southern Baptist Theological seminary, December 1981), 143.
[33] Phillip Allen Cooley, “Selected Models of the God-World Relationship in the Twentieth Century Theology: Implications for the Contemporary Doctrine of Providence” (Ph. D. dissertation, Southern Baptist Theological seminary, December 1981), 143.
[34] Peter Baelz, Prayer and Providence: A Background Study (New York: The Seabury Press, 1968), 108.
[35] Ibid.,116.
[36] Ibid.
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