What place Providence?

.. and I don't mean where the Big East school is going to finish in the standings for men's basketball this year.

I mean the notion that God exerts some measure of direction over life on this earth. In general, a benevolent direction.. or rather, a direction that tends toward our benefit over eternity.

Our last class in TS501 on Tuesday dealt with this issue, and some of the difficulties we face in both accepting it as true, and denying it as true. Here is an example in pictures:

What do you observe about this scene?

The class spent a few minutes speculating on the cause of this situation. What explains it? Looks like the truck went through a guard rail. What explains why it happened, where it landed, and how?

Well.. physics explains the landing, I guess. The speed of the truck, the resistance of the guard rail, the trajectory of the vehicle as it left the road, the shape of the hillside, the presence of the culvert, all contributed to the truck landing right side up. Right?

Why did it happen? Maybe the driver was drunk. Maybe he had the sun in his eyes. Maybe she was texting someone on her cell phone. Maybe he swerved to miss an armadillo. Maybe she spilled hot coffee on her lap. Who knows?

There's an explanation, we were sure of it. Natural laws of physics and the vagaries of human behavior combined to produce this effect.

Right?

Now a few quotes from the theologians:


“Natural science yields facts and theories about creation; but facts and theories alone do not constitute a worldview.”

“Theological, philosophical and scientific evidence are all relevant to answering important worldview questions, and any attempt to hermetically seal-off these disciplines will lead to incoherence…There is one God (or religious Reality) and one world, which we are all struggling to discover more fully.”

- Alan Padgett


“Ignorance of providence is the ultimate of all miseries; the highest blessedness lies in the knowledge of it.”

“How does God’s impulse come to pass in men?” These two statements perfectly agree, 'that man, while he is acted upon by God, yet at the same time acts!' "

- John Calvin


“How can we reconcile the comfort given by the confession of God’s providence and the dread that rises from events of this century? How are we to think of God’s care for the world given the success of modern science in explaining what happens? In our contemporary context, the only time we are allowed to speak of an ‘act of God’ is in the context of making insurance claims in the wake of earthquakes and hurricanes.” 

"Without a doctrine of providence the idea of God is largely irrelevant to what is actually happening in the world. Without a doctrine of providence, theology does not touch life. The view one holds with regard to providence affects your approach to action and prayer. For example, is a nuclear war necessarily going to occur or not occur by divine providence, or has God left this contingent on our prayers and actions, with the terrifying responsibility that this entails? The doctrine of providence allows us to counter the idea of fatalism."

- Kevin Vanhoozer


What has God's providence to do with this, you say? Take a look at the picture again.. from another angle:



Oh, my...

Now.. is the naturalistic explanation still satisfactory?

What was at work here? Physics and human behavior?

Or.. Divine Providence?

What do you suppose the driver who survived this thinks was at work?

For whatever reason, when we see a situation that is not *too* traumatic, something that is sort of everyday-ish, we think in terms of natural phenomena as explanation enough.

But.. when we witness something that is *profound*, we reach for an explanation that transcends natural phenomena, and we wonder "What did God intend? What was He doing? What role did He play?"

So is God only at work in the truly profound? Or.. in the routine matters of life?

Is His providence general or meticulous?

I like the idea of meticulous Providence in that I like the idea that God is involved in all facets of my life. :) I don't like the idea, though, when I think of some of the things that have happened in my life, that I'm pretty reluctant to ascribe to God.. :(

In class we didn't have an answer.

I don't either. Do you?