Lesson 10 - Works of God (Providence)

Question 1

How is the doctrine of providence a source of joy for all creatures?

Answer 1

– Calvin: “ultimate misery”

1.) The Christian doctrine of providence is a source of joy for all creatures who know, trust, and love the triune God: Ps 97:1; Rev 19:6 (Psalm 97:1 - The Lord Reigns (providence); let the earth rejoice)

a. ) Shows God’s purposes:
b. ) Patient when things go against us
c. ) Thankful when things go well
d. ) Hopeful/Confidence in the future because of our faithful god and Father; nothing will seperate us from the love of God.
e. ) All creatures are so completely in God’s hand that without the divine will they can neither move nor be moved.

Question 2

What are the alternatives to the classical Reformed view of divine providence? Where do these views miss the mark?

Answer 2

Spectrum:

a. ) Pantheism - God and world are identical
- - God extends to everything
- - identical with laws of nature and science
- - denies secondary causes
b. ) Occasionalism - distinction, but in everything
- - extends to everything
- - mechanistic determination - reduction of causes; world is like a machine that runs automatically,
- - restricts human freedom to only spontaneity
c. ) Open Theism - future is open, God doesn’t know the future
- - Providence does not extend to free human decisions
- - denies the secondariness of secondary causes; operates independently of God
d. ) Deism - God and the world are distinct and distant
- - extends to work of creation
- - denies the secondariness of secondary causes; operates independently of God

Question 3

What does the classic reformed teaching of Providence affirm?

Answer 3

1. ) Existence of secondary causes
2. ) Variety and kinds of secondary causes: animate and inanimate, rational and non-rational
3. ) Classical Reformed understanding of freedom includes not only spontaneity but also liberty of contradiction and liberty of contrariety

Summary: In each case, different views of providence rest upon fundamentally different views of the God-world relation, effectively denying God’s “radical transcendence” of creatures (i.e., God’s status as “nonunivocal cause” of creatures).

1. Man → Son (univocal)
2. Man → House (Radical Transcendence) - nonunivocal

Question 4

What are the various aspects of providence? Briefly describe each.

Answer 4

1. ) Preservation (From God) – concerns the existence/being of creatures and their natures ; actively sustaining their existence (Heb. 1:3)
2. ) Concurrence/Cooperation (through God) - concerns the actions of creatures (Acts 17:28)
3. ) Government/Guidance (to God) - concerns the end of creatures; that action that leads the action of second causes to the end determined for them (Psalm 148)

Question 5

How does the doctrine of providence give understanding to the problem of evil?

Answer 5

1. ) The Bible affirms God providentially brings about evil, but it qualifies God’s providential relationship to evil in ways to preserve God’s unmixed and immutable goodness in relation to evil.
   - - God’s relationship to evil is not the same as his relationship to good (he gives permission to evil).
   - - Evil doesn’t happen without God’s providential concurrence and government, while God enables the person to act and ordains the end of that action, the intentionality is with the creature
2. ) God often providentially brings to pass evil as punishment for sin (2 Sam 24:1; 1 Chr 18:18ff; Rom 1:24, 26, 28).
3. ) In the death and resurrection of his beloved Son, God triumphs over evil, provides us with a Great High Priest who can sympathize with and assist us in our experience of evil, and inaugurates a kingdom that will transcend evil.
4. ) Ultimately, however, the problem of evil is inscrutable (Rom 11:33ff).