‘Deus Habet Consilium’ - The Providence Conference, Day 1 - III

Alister McGrath - The Secularization of Providence

Though I have read many of his excellent books, I had never up to this point heard Alister McGrath give a lecture. I have to say this was a virtuouso performance in terms of sheer communicative ability and clarity of thought. McGrath is a master lecturer - on top of his material, clear, concise, interesting, on top of power point technology and so on. Very impressive.

His material was very interesting too, and set in train one of the themes of the conference which was the relation between scientific theories of causality (namely, evolution) and theological thought about the same (namely, providence). McGrath began with three issues: Darwinism as a view of reality that leaves no space for Providence; the elimination of the transcendent; and the elimination of Providence as a doctrine. What he was trying to indicate was that we could in fact have Darwinism and Providence, despite what Dawkins and other agrressive atheists say. McGrath was at pains to point out that Dawkins has smuggled in metaphysical claims, stretching Darwinism beyond its brief.

Darwinism has in the hands of Dawkins and co become a worldview - indeed, a totalizing vision of reality. It now operates as the explanatory principle par exellence. But at this point it becomes quite vulnerable. Because it must admit its own provisionality ... A further unresolved tension in Dawkinsism is that between 'rationality' and 'chance'.

(my notes unfortunately peter out somewhat after this point... suffice it to say, McGrath is optimistic about the potential for natural theology. He is giving the Gifford lectures soon, so it should be interesting to see where he goes with this.)

‘Deus Habet Consilium’ - The Providence Conference, Day 1 - II

The second paper was delivered by Prof. Andrew McGowan from Highland Theological College: ‘Providence and Common Grace—A Reformed Perspective’.

McGowan's paper suggested that the Dutch Neo-Calvinist explanation of 'common grace' offers the most promising way forward for Reformed dogmatics. Especially, he commended to us the work of Herman Bavinck. Talking to Prof McGowan later, he told me that Bavinck had been a fairly late discovery for him. The recent translation of his works by John Bolt and others has been not before time.

McGowan began by noting how Calvin's doctrine of common grace gave a very positive account of the human arts and sciences even among the reprobate. That is, God's providence serves to ameliorate the effects of the fall to such a degree that it is possible to see his blessing in human civilisation outside the church. For Calvin, nothing takes place without God's deliberation: he is intimately involved in every aspect of the created order. Calvin was of course prepared to attribute both good and bad harvests to God - he was not prepared to countenance any dualism (this was something contested by others at the conference, notably David Bentley Hart). Calvin does have a doctrine of secondary causation of course: and will not allow the Sovereignty of God to absolve us from blame. But the doctrine is a great encouragement to believers. Though our natural and spiritual gifts are somewhat damaged, we do retain a certain aptitude in the arts and sciences. No splitting of nature and grace for Calvin! Everything good we do is the result of grace. Grace is why human beings are not as bad as they could be.

In post-Reformation theology this identification of nature with grace was continued. But the theme of common grace is not picked up or emphasised in the 17th century documents and confessions, McGowan noted.

It wasn't until ABraham Kuyper that common grace was given its due attention as a doctrine. Kuyper developed the theme on a grand scale, but also he pushed the antithesis between the Christian and the non-Christian. He developed the idea of Christianity as an entire worldview (following the Scot James Orr in this). He also developed his doctrine of sphere sovereignty.

Bavinck's exposition of common grace is, for McGowan, a superior model. He rejected natural theology while maintaining general revelation. Common grace (not nature) is the basis for special grace. Nature and grace are not set in opposition, but rather grace purifies and restores nature. This is a key to Bavinck's theology! There is 'an organic relationship between nature and grace'. This is also a key to his very interesting doctrine of Scripture (which differs from Warfield's rather problematic one).

The fall damaged but did not eradicate the imago dei. But common grace is not enough to restore us. It compels us, but does not change us. Christ does not create an entirely new order, then, but transforms what is. Bavinck roots common grace in the incarnation...

So, where according to his doc of common grace Kuyper advocated the development of Christian institutions - a Christian university, a Christian newspaper, a Christian political party, Christian schooling and so on - Bavinck, who was much closer to Calvin and much more moderate in this, held that the antithesis was of principles and not of people. Common grace properly understood means that we don't have to listen to Christian music: we can observe the operation of common grace in human music making in general.

McGowan left me wanting to purchase the remaining volumes of Bavinck's dogmatics! I wonder too, if one rejoinder to 'creation' 'science' is that it lacks a proper doctrine of common grace in its outright suspicion of non-Christian scientists. It couples paranoia with all its other problems.

‘Deus Habet Consilium’ - The Providence Conference, Day 1 - I

Day one at the Providence conference was 'Protestant dogmatics' day (by and large.) We were given the most curiously diffident welcome by an obviously disinterested University bureaucrat, which contrasted with the air of expectation amongst the conference attendees!

1. Owing to a late arriving plane, Professor John Webster of Aberdeen opened the conference in the place of Katherine Sonderegger with a paper entitled 'On the Theology of Providence'. It was an inspiring beginning, though not designed for note taking I am afraid! Webster gave a characteristically dense thesis statement which he then proceeded to unpack (I wish I could have recorded what it was!). Providence is a contrary doctrine, because it contrasts with our experience of the world. That is what makes its task urgent. Providence is a 'distributed doctrine': in formal terms, its dogmatic location lies both within theology and economy. It must of course preserve its Christian specificity. Most properly, Providence is a description of salvation history. We grasp the knowledge of Providence by faith that is the result of mortification and vivification. And what we have revealed to us is that there is lament, but not tragedy - we realise that God is for us (by the cross). Knowledge of Providence thus becomes practical knowledge - faithful reason's receiving of consolation.

God orders his world out of his divine life and blessedness: he bestows life on the creature, and then sustains it, for he cannot merely 'make'. He gives being for a historical nature. Providence is an expression of the love of God which helps the creature to flourish. It is not only an aspect of cosmology; it is a teaching about the creature's dependence in an ongoing way on the creator. Creation bestows being... which then has its own independence...but needs help to persist. The church is the interim relocation of the goal of the creature.

Of course, the big problems for any doctrine of providence are the creature's freedom, and the problem of evil. How is Providence for the creature's good? Webster asserted that God's governance actually secures the creature's freedom - proper creaturely freedom that is. Freedom is not WON From God, but rather given by him and receieved by creatures. God moves us with an inner movement. As Turretin said, it is the fount of all error to equate liberty with spontaneity. Caused causes are still properly (though secondarily) causes.

Providence is a gospel consolation. But we must reach that comfort at the right pace. Belief in the doctrine of providence is something learned...

Report from Aberdeen

Kosta Milkov and I headed oop north on Monday for the Providence Conference. And what a feast it turned out to be: 18 top-draw speakers crammed into 3 days. I have to say that the standard of the papers was uniformly high. The organisers should be congratulated for identifying an issue that is evidently on the boil - and attracting an impressive range and calibre of speakers. The one drawback of such a packed programme was that each speaker was allowed a cold hour, which almost all speakers used completely, and so there was very little time for questions and interaction.

Time now for some general comments and observed themes - more specific ones to follow. I was interested that Calvin was a prominent and properly celebrated and respected reference point, at least for the Protestant speakers. David Bentley Hart of course made a very significant attack on Calvin's doctrine of providence from an Orthodox perspective, but that Calvin was a reference point at all was, to me, a very significant in modern theology. Aquinas was of course prominent in the more Catholic papers. A key issue it seems to me is what Charles Taylor calls 'the disenchantment': that shift in metaphysics that occured at the time of the reformation which can be seen as the harbinger of the modern scientific and mechanistic world view. By reducing Providence to causation, (the argument runs), the presence of God has been chased out of the world itself. Further, by proclaiming God as Supreme rather than as properly Transcendent, the mistake has been intensified in all Western theology since. Deism and then atheism are inevitable.

Sarah Coakley suggested that a new model of evolution as co-operation might actually complement theology and so end the war between them. This was an interesting countepart to Alister McGrath's paper (what an excellent speaker he is) responding to Dawkins attack on providence. Kathryn Sonderegger proposed that, counter to most traditional accounts, death itself prior to the fall was 'natural', and even a sacrifice the creation offered to its maker. We ought to seperate first and second death, especially in our readings of Romans 5 and so on.

Another strong theme in the conference was the consideration of the use of providence in Public theology. Notwithstanding an inevitable Americo-centricism here, there were three excellent papers on political theology. Oliver O'Donovan's influence was palpable, which makes me very happy: and we had proper and convincing accounts of political engagement and just war (Hauerwasianism is getting rather monolithic and tiresome!). I was especially intrigued by Philip Zeigler's use of the English Civil War and Oliver Cromwell (much maligned of course) in this. Trust in God, and keep your powder dry!!

Of course, the pastoral implications of Providence were never far away, and we had two excellent contributions on this theme. Providence is in a very real sense the ground and comfort of the Christian life.

Anyhow, these are just some first broad brush strokes. More to come!

Off to Aberdeen

Canterbury Cathedral. So far we have visited Worcester, Gloucester, Oxford, Coventry, St Albans, St Paul's London, York, Salisbury and Canterbury.

Tomorrow I fly up to Aberdeen to attend ‘Deus Habet Consilium’ An International Conference on the Career & Prospects of Providence in Modern Theology.

See the conference programme here. I am especially looking forward to Alister McGrath, John Webster, Andrew MacGowan and David Bentley Hart.

My dream is to blog as I go, but I am not sure what internet facilities will be available. So perhaps a full report on Thursday.

Hart on Providence

Does God do micro-management? And more importantly: how do we account for human freedom as a real and not imaginary gift of God if we have a view of God's providence that is too unvariegated? What is more: how can we account for God's providence without accusing him of commiting evil?

Hart says:

Certainly all Christians must affirm God's transcendent governance of everything, even fallen history and fallen nature, and must believe that by that governance he will defeat evil and bring the final good of all things out of the darkness of 'this age'. It makes a considerable difference, however - nothing less than our unerstand of the nature of God is at stake - whether one says that God has eternally willed the history of sin and death, and all that comes to pass therein,as the proper or necessary means of achieving his ends, or whether one says instead that god has willed his good in creatures from eternity and will bring it to pass, despite their rebellion, by so ordering all thigs toward his goodness tha even evil (which he does not cause) becomes an occasion of the operations of grace. And it is only the latter view than can accurately be called a doctrine of 'providence' in the properly theological sense: the former is mere determinism. (p. 82)

This makes a good deal of sense to me: it has to be possible that God does not will the death of a sinner, but that the sinner does indeed die. (2 Peter 3:9). And, if we are not careful in our attribution of all causation to the will of God, God merely becomes the devil in disguise. Aquinas posited a primary level of causation (ie God's) which transcends the secondary causes which are merely finite. So, my decision to get a cup of coffee in the morning is truly mine, though it arises out of appetites and conditions that aren't mine - my body, the world's economy that enables cheapish coffee to be delivered to me, the fashion to drink coffee etc. God does decide for me, at that level: but his providential will surrounds and transcends my will at every side. This means that I don't have to fall for those 'open God' theologies, which are beneath contempt, frankly.

Hart does not however deal with a couple of passages which seem to indicate a more micro-managing approach: Jesus talking about the sparrows and the lilies, for example....

The Doors of the Sea - Where was God in the Tsunami?

David Bentley Hart's small book The Doors of the Sea has finally reached me. I am surprised how vehemently it is an attack on certain Reformed understandings of the sovereignty of God - but then again, I do think that there is something weird, even perverse, about the way God is celebrated as a pure absolute will by some Reformed writers (though this is probably caricature, Hart provides some gob-smackingly callous examples of Reformed responses to the tsunami).

I thought this point was well made (among others):

...disturbing as it may be, it is clearly the case that there is a kind of 'provisional' cosmic dualism within the New Testament: not an ultimate dualism of course, between two equal princinples; but certainly a conflict between a sphere of created autonomy that strives against God on the one hand and the saving of God in time on the other...To say that God elects to fashion rational creatures in his image, and so grants them the freedom to bind themselves and the greater physical order to another master - to say that he who sealed up the doors of the sea might permit them to be opened again by another, more reckless hand - is not to say that God's ultimate design for his creatures can be thwarted. It is to acknowledge, however, that his will can be resisted by a real and (by his grace) autonomous force of defiance, or can be hidden from us by the history of cosmic corruption, and that final realization of the good he intends in all things has the form (not simply as a dramatic fiction, for our edification or his glory, nor simplay as a paedagogical device on his part, but in truth) of a divine victory. (p. 61-62)

I think provisional dualism is right: it allows for this 'autonomous' force of defiance, with which we have to deal, and whom we are to take seriously, but also ensures that God isn't somehow threatened ultimately by the struggle.

Seumas on Cyprian on Martyrdom

Seamas sent me a copy of his project on Cyprian's theology of martyrdom. And very interesting it is too. Here are a couple of highlights from his conclusions:

Confession consummated in martyrdom is ultimately grounded in Christ's martyrdom. Martyrs do not follow Christ so much as Christ confesses through them.

Cyprian repeatedly relates the reward of martyrdom to fidelity, not to the act of martyrdom itself. In doing so he shows a real insight into the nature of providence, the justice of God, and the vicissitudes of life.

Cyprian, following Tertullian, situates the key theological issue as idolatry. Confession and persecution in his context does revolve around the issue of idolatry, not merely persecution for the sake of being Christian, and the tortures of Christians are aimed at apostasy through idolatry, not infliction of penalty per se. Cyprian’s exhortations involve a strong urging to true worship, by unmasking the reality of idols and idolatry, gravely warning of the consequences, and reinforcing the superiority of Christian religion. Cyprian’s treatment demonstrates a theological depth and integration with doctrine unprecedented with regard to martyrdom. This integration is thoroughly Christological, centered around the person and work of Christ, and monotheistic: to confess Christ is to worship God.

Christian music for kids and the sovereignty of God

For one of my kids, the music of that great Aussie Christian entertainer Colin Buchanan has really started to catch on. And it is great stuff. We call it 'Calvinism for Kids!'

However, I notice that in the album I have anyhow ('Remember the Lord') he overwhelmingly emphasises the Sovereignty of God. So: 'My God is So Big'; 'Nothing Takes God By Surprise'; 'Old Black Crow' (about providence); 'And God Said'.

We are more than half way through the album before Jesus and the Gospel get a mention ('We all like sheep have gone astray'). But the direction of the theology is from God's sovereignty to God's grace: whereas, I would have thought to go the way around. We know of God's sovereignty, and his power in creation and his providential care from the cross outwards...

The possible problem of starting with Sovereignty is (and it is an old problem for some Calvinism): a tendency to make God seem remote and inscrutable, so that the statements about the love of God seem to strike a jarring note. Colin's terrific doctrine of creation means that he points to creation as evidence of God's power, but he tends to just assert God's love rather than give evidence of it in the same way. It's there, but it comes down the list.

Thoughts? Anyone else noticed?

NOTE: I think Colin is a special gift of God to Australian Christians and want it to be understood that I 100% support his work and I have purchased and play lots of his CDs. And will continue to do so.

New Testament faith in providence

The saints of the Old Testament could have prayed the Lord's prayer on the basis of the memory of God’s historical acts and the witness of the prophetic word. Their faith was not in a different Lord. But the New Testament adds to the history of God’s people the decisive appearance of the Son of God (Heb 1:1-3; 11:39-40). In his death and resurrection, the kingdom of God inaugurated. We have from the story of Abraham and Isaac the view of divine providence as not merely the provision of sustenance but the provision of a sacrifice that God himself demands of his creatures. God himself is the provider of what he requires of men and women. On the other hand, Jesus’ own teaching about the kingdom of God points to its eschatological nature. The world and its history as they are lie under the judgement of God. Its destiny, as things stand, is to be wound down, unravelled and subject to destruction. The testimony of the New Testament authors, on the basis of the resurrection of Christ from the dead in the power of the Spirit, is that Jesus Christ was the sacrifice provided by God to meet his just requirement and reconcile fallen humankind to himself. This was not only decisive for individuals, but indeed for the destiny of the whole created order (Col 1:19-20; Rom 8:19-23).

What Paul knows, and what he doesn't...

The gospel of Jesus Christ is the noetic point on which a belief in providence has its entire basis. Belief in providence is not an inference from history; nor is it a claim to know the pattern of the times. It is not augury or cloud-reading. Belief in providence is not a claim to special knowledge of the providential plan, but merely a claim to knowledge that there is such a plan and that has been made by one with the power and the will to accomplish it. From the covenant history which culminates in the Son of God’s action for salvation of the world we learn of the purpose and character of God to which all other history is ordered. When Paul exclaims, at the end of his troubling discussion of the election of Israel in Romans 9-11 –

O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! 34 “For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor?” 35 “Or who has given a gift to him, to receive a gift in return?” 36 For from him and through him and to him are all things.

– he is not expressing in apophatic terms a despair of ever knowing the ineffable deity who must himself remain ever discreetly hidden behind a cloud of unknowing, but rather his joy in the righteous and loving character of God revealed in the gospel of his power (Rom 1:16). Though the plan of God is a yet concealed from view, his character has in fact been made known in gospel. This thought is Paul’s consolation.

Barth on the Christian seeing differently

Barth's chapters on Providence highlight the existential and pastoral aspects of the doctrine. The doctrine of Providence is in a very real sense all that separates the Christian who lives in the world of tsunamis and cancer and his neighbour who lives in the same world. What makes him different? Firstly, Barth says that is because the Christian as a creature affirms his own 'creaturely occurence'. That is, the Christian accepts his own being as a creature and not as a being of pure will, or an evolved organism. But he goes on...

Our answer can be the very simple one that he sees what the others do not see...What makes him a Christian is that he sees Jesus Christ, the Son of God, in the humiliation but also in the exaltation of His humanity , and himself united with Him, belonging to HIm, his life delivered by Him, bu also placed at His disposal. (C.D. III.iii.241)

Being a Christian is looking with different eyes on the same view.
It is merely a matter of seeing things differently.

Gunton on Providence and the Spirit

Gunton's great contribution (one of) was a reinspection of the theology of the Spirit and his role in the work of God towards the world.

The Spirit is both the one who upholds the human Jesus in the truth of his being and calling and the one who, by mediating the Father's action in raising him from the dead, transforms his body to the life of the world to come. All particular acts of providence derive from and take something of the shape of the paradigmatic redemptive act. The Triune Creator p. 177-8

It is worth asking what this means, 'take something of the shape of'...? A martyrdom, for example, is a particular act of providence which certainly derives from the resurrectional work of the Spirit - but does it take something of the shape of it? He continues:

As a form of enabling personal action, providential action, the Spirit's action is that which libeartes things and people to be themselves, as, paradigmatically, the Spirit's leading enable the human Jesus to be truly himself in relation to God the Father and the world. p. 184

I like especially how he picks up the way in which the Spirit ministered to Jesus in the Gospel narratives - something somewhat eclipsed in the Augustinian tradition.

Emil Brunner on Providence

Ever wondered what to think when the next Grammy-award winner thanks Jesus for her success? Hear Brunner:

If the Cross of Christ be the greatstumbling-block of the world, then the visible fate of so many Christians in the olrd, measured by the standards of the world, is also a stumbling-block. Things do not happen as they do in little pious tracts; they do not 'always turn out for the best'. God does not take sides with his own, in the sense of the secular idea of good fortune or happiness....

But this does not mean that there are no visible signs fo divine help and guidance. A purely ascetic and heroic conception of Divine Providence is just as untrue as an exaggerated eudaemonistic idea of the experience of faith or of the divine promise. The undercurrent of divine co-operation comes to the surface now and again. To try to eliminate this feature from the life of the saints...would be to act in a very arbirtrary manner. God constatly give his own 'signs' of His fatherly guidance; clear witness to this truth is given by those apostles who had such a full share in the suferings of Christ that they have a valid claim to the title of 'martyrs'.
The Christian Doctrine of Creation and Redemption, p. 158-9

Augustine on martyrdom

In particular it was the Donatist crisis that prompted Augustine’s reflection on martyrdom in the period 410-415 AD. For the Donatists, literal and bloody martyrdom was a measure of the authenticity and purity of their Christianity, in contrast to that of the tainted Church with its traditores. By contrast, Augustine emphasized the necessity of a true faith and the unity of the Church for authentic Christian martyrdom. Suffering itself is not enough – in fact, Augustine vigorously opposed the Donatist fixation on suffering as an end in itself. Without love, suffering is meaningless – therefore, the schismatics who attack the unity of the church cannot claim the title martyrs because they lack caritas. It was the cause, not the suffering, that made a martyr. The long Christian tradition of glorifying suffering had been a false trail – and pathologically so.

Need a martyr suffer then at all? When the persecutions had ended – what was to become of martyrdom, which had been such a feature of Christian self-identity in the first three centuries? Could there be a retention in some form of the martyrological impetus without the need for shedding of blood? One Christian answer, as Judith Perkins observes, was that the martyrological spirit was sublimated into ascetic practices as a way of replicating the test of the arena. But this was not quite Augustine’s teaching (though he wasn't opposed to asceticism). As he explained, Divine Providence had allowed persecutions in order that the ‘number of martyrs or witnesses for the truth might be completed or consecrated, and that by them proof might be given that we must endure all bodily sufferings in the cause of the holy faith and for the commendation of the truth’ (City of God X.32). In the new era, however, the war was to be waged inwardly. Trials and temptations were not found to be lacking now that the external threat had diminished. Now, temptations were persecutions. The lesson of the martyrs was there for the Christian to learn the virtues of self-sacrifice and patience.

Providence means 'how'...

Reflecting on providence - and especially on Abraham's discovery of God the provider - with my supervisor yesterday he observed that God's providence is not a teaching about the ending of all questions about why something might have happened to me or to my loved ones. Rather, trust in God's providence is reflected in a transformation of our questions, from 'why' questions into 'how' questions. Trust in the providence of God means knowing that 'God works all things etc'; but it is not a claim about how this is going to be brought about. It is not a trust indicative of an end of questions, therefore; indeed, the Bible invites precisely this kind of questioning from the human side and doesn't give us a secret knowledge into the workings of providence that they might be silenced.

Following our meeting together, I learnt that another (young-ish) friend of mine, in addition to Byron, has contracted cancer...

Six theses on Temptation and Providence

My task is here to draw together some of the themes of our discussion of temptation and providence, as they related to martyrdom as the pattern of the Christian life. We have proceeded by establishing that temptation – or more rightly, peirasmos, which includes temptation and also trial– is genuinely a part of the narrative logic of martyrdom. But what does this observation itself in turn reveal?

1. Peirasmos as temptation is a given of human existence: it is Adamic. It is a feature of the primal human story; and also part of the redeemer’s experience in identifying with hapless human beings. Human identity is not ever constructed aside from this inner battle with sarx and diaboloj. We do not know of a time when human subjects did not have to face these opponents.

2. Peirasmos is a test of the free human response and obedience to the divine call. As such, it tests our awareness of our own identity as his creatures – our recognition of our maker’s voice and our responsiveness to him. It describes not the moment of that call, but our memory of the call at the moment when it appears to be gainsaid in our experience: ‘did God really say…?’ The trial or temptation comes to us as a contradiction of the Word of God: it came as temptation in the garden, and in the post-lapsarian era has been intensified through the unyielding nature of the world itself.

3. The peirasmos threatens the individual with her own disintegration as a person. It leads to the captivity of the self to the world of sin, the flesh and the devil (to use New Testament language). The biblical history is a history of the human subject’s utter capriciousness; of the human individual’s unwilling inability to be truly herself, even to herself. That is to say, trial and temptation throw into question – a question not readily answered – what the ingredients of an authentic human life might be. For Gregersen, under the pressure of trial and temptation ‘both the objective arena of the world and the subjective arena of the self are seen as unreliable. Only God is reliable.’ We see something of this disintegrating human subjectivity under the power of sin famously expressed by Paul in Romans 7:7-24: ‘O wretched man that I am!...’

4. It was necessary for Jesus Christ to undergo peirasmos to demonstrate his total solidarity with humankind and to defeat the evil one. The trials and temptations of Jesus in the wilderness and in Gethsemane are shown so that it might be known that there was one who passed through the peirasmo,j known to us all and emerged victorious over Satan. These episodes reveal not only Satan’s impotence against the Son of god, but also the fittingness of Christ to become High Priest and sacrifice. The cross of Christ itself is the sign of his ultimate defeat. (This is a theme in Pauline theology: ‘He disarmed the rulers and authorities and made a public example of them, triumphing over them in it.’ Col 2:15 )


5. In answer to the peirasmos of human experience, Christ re-invites trust in the providence of a covenanting God – whose providential care of the world is revealed most completely in him. We learn much from the manner of his victory: he reaches down into the Word of God and rests on it; he submits his will to God as he prays, for the good of others. Further, he himself carries out the divine providential action in his death and resurrection, by these actions enabling the world ‘to become itself by action within, and over against, its fallen structures’.This is inclusive of human beings; who rightly respond when they cry out to the Lord for deliverance.I have in mind in particular Romans 8:19ff, where the redemption-action of Christ has its effect in terms of the adoption of human beings into the family of God and also the future liberation of the creation itself, which elicits much groaning under the present conditions of trial. The Lord’s prayer – the prayer taught by the Son of God to his disciples – gives voice to this felt disparity in human experience.

6. Christ’s disciples are thrust anew into an experience of peirasmos: the weakness of the flesh, the hostility of the world, and the attacks of the Evil One. As they seek to imitate Christ, peirasmos naturally features as part of that mimetic action; as it was part of the narrative logic of his life, so it is now of theirs. Satan renews his efforts against those whose determination is to defy him; though it is not by their strength in this battle that he is defeated. The victory belongs already to God himself. The peirasmos may result in bloody martyrdom: as such it is entirely unsurprising, because it is the outworking of battle already fought.

Abraham's Test and the Providence of Yhwh

Genesis 22:1-19 tells the story to which Israel looked back for the revelation of Yhwh Yireh - ‘Yhwh the provider’. It was the story of Yhwh’s trial (nissah) of Abraham, too. At the outset, a word comes from God that makes Abraham’s experience of God to this point baffling (22:1). He cannot see the pattern of the divine plan. He cannot make sense of this command according to some rational scheme; or according to some morality to which he imagines that God is subject like everyone else; or, by dint of some hermeneutic strategy lately learned, hear something other than what he has heard. He does not even begin to doubt his own sanity. There is the semblance of cruelty in the request, even: God reminds him that he, Abraham, loves his son (22:2).

With what attitude does Abraham set out on his journey? In the other pieces we have of his story, we have presented to us a fearful doubter. In Egypt he presents his wife as his sister; in the disastrous begetting of Ishmael, he is seen (with Sarai) as attempting to foreshorten the gap between the divine promise and its realization in his life. In those tests he stumbled; here now, he silently presses on towards the mountain. He cannot see what is ahead, but rather only possesses the promises of the God who called him. As he says to Isaac, ‘God himself will provide the sacrifice’. That is the perspective that to which he clings.

At the climax of the story, the angel stays Abraham’s hand; and the ram – a superior sacrifice? – is found caught in the thicket. This provision of God of course is not merely a result of his action as a supreme being – if it were, then this whole episode would certainly be an exercise in divine sadism of the hapless human subject. However: this is not the God that Abraham encounters here; he proceeds on the basis of the God who has previously revealed himself to him, and meets at his journey’s end the Yhwh Yireh. Abraham receives the provision of a ram as a demonstration of God’s determination to be the Lord of the covenant with his people in its concrete history.

Jesus on providence

Jesus’s own teaching on providence in the Sermon on the Mount (Mt 6:25-34) is not a statement about the order of things as they are, but a bold declaration about coming of the kingdom of God.

He urges his hearers against anxiety about material provisions, but to be comforted. He asks them not worry about their ‘lives’. The birds are well-fed; the lilies are finely dressed. In both cases this happens without the labour of those who benefit. Yet: ‘[A]re you not much more valuable than they?’ (6:26) Jesus here highlights what has traditionally been called God’s ‘general’ providence in upholding even the smallest parts of the natural world. The fact of this provision for the natural world should prompt a reassurance of the ‘special’ providence of God for his people, and an end to running like the pagans after material securities.

And yet, the Sermon itself begins with recognition of the fraught conditions of lived experience for the people of God: mourning, persecution, being slandered and insulted, and so on (5:11-12). Whatever the providence of God means here it is not merely that his people will be well fed and beautifully clothed. There is no promise that consists in an earthly prosperity or security, which would be temporary in any case (Mt 6:19-21). The promise in which this faith in providence rests is a promise that the kingdom of God will bring vindication – that is the implication of the blesseds (Mt 5:1-12).

There is an inescapable future-sense in this view of providence. He recognizes that the experience of life as it is – and especially for the people of God – is not of itself reassuring without reference to the future fulfillment of the divine promises. The disciple of Jesus has to refrain from worry, and pursue as a priority the kingdom of God. In other words, as Bonhoeffer puts it:
The Christian lives from the times of God, and not from his own idea of life

The Joy of Providence

'Belief in God's providence is the practical recognition that things are as we have said. [Barth has just been describing providence as God's caring co-existence with his creatures] It is the joy of the confidence and the willingness of the obedience grounded in this reality and its perception. In the belief in providence the creature understands the Creator as the One who has associated Himself with it in faithfulness and constancy as this sovereign and living Lord, to precede, accompany and follow it, preserving, co-operating and overruling, in all that it does and all that happens to it. And in the belief in providence the creature understands itself as what it is in relation to its Creator, namely, as upheld, determined and govened in its whole existence in the world by the fact that Creator precedes it every step of the way in living sovereignty, so that it has only to follow...' Church Dogmatics, III.3.14

But what of the uncertainty of our experience? Our feeling of God-forsakeness (check the Psalms sometime!). Ultimately, as Barth will argue, the Christian belief in providence is belief in Christ. That makes all the difference...