RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Providence
was strongly resisted by Thomas Bradwardine and by Wyclif, the latter especially maintaining that all events occur of necessity. The question of providence was not discussed in the decrees or canons of the Council of Trent. The Roman Catechism, however, prepared at the direction of the Council of Trent, teaches that after the completion of creation the same divine providence which called all things into being accompanies and sustains them. The first official dogmatic statement of the Roman Catholic Church regarding providence was given by the Vatican Council, which set forth the doctrine that " God guards and governs by his providence all things that he has created," knowing " those things which shall come to pass by the free acts of creatures."
The traditional Roman Catholic teaching on providence was not deliberately revised at the Reformation, and yet this period marked
6. Early a decisive turning-point in the history Protestant- of the development of the doctrine. ism. The reason for this was practical, not theoretical. Belief in providence was no longer centered in an explanation of the universe, but in a realization, which must be practically experienced, of the fatherly care and guidance of God. This knowledge is of faith, not reason; and such faith was held by Luther to produce a theodicy by giving a practical solution to the problem of evil which, while not explaining every mystery, raises the Christian above the world by rendering him certain of the existence of a love that overcomes affliction, sin, and death. A similar line of argument was followed by Melanchthon and set forth by him in the Augsburg Confession. The Reformed Church gave to the dogma of predestination the importance which Lutheranism attached to justification by faith, but the very fact that this branch of Protestantism undeniably connected the doctrines of election and providence imperiled the eminently practical character of the Reformed belief in providence. In his treatise on providence Zwingli defines the doctrine as " the eternal and immutable governance and administration of all things," so that the free will of man is absorbed in the divine activity, man becoming merely a tool in the hands of God, and faith being made renunciation of individual merit, the conclusion being that God does all, and man nothing. This determinism really ends in making God the cause of evil and wickedness, but Zwingli did not shrink from this deduction, endeavoring to solve the difficulty by saying that moral standards are applicable to men and not to God. The distinctively Christian side of his teaching appears only in his treatment of election. A very similar position was taken by Calvin, whose " Institutes " give separate treatment to the subject of providence and to eternal election, treating the latter in conaection with the specific Christian teaching of salvation. In regard to the former, Calvin holds that all things are governed by divine providence, and that God " so uses the works of the wicked, and so turns their minds to execute his judgments, that he himself remains pure from all stain." His theodicy finds its best expression in his sermons on |
Job, delivered in 1554: " Since God loves us, we shall never be confounded; and so far are our afflictions from preventing our salvation, that they will be turned to our help, for God will take care that our salvation shall be advanced by them." The same thoughts are repeated by the French Confession (II., VIII., in Schaff, Greeds, iii., 360, 364) ; and the Heidelberg Catechism (Quest. 27, in Schaff, Creeds, iii., 316) likewise gives clear expression to this topic, insisting on the certainty of the believer that he is the object of the Father's care, and that no creature is separated from the divine love, God's will conditioning and ruling each and every act.
Orthodox Protestant scholasticism later made belief in providence a mere part of natural theology, thus depriving it of its real Christian 7. Protes- significance. According to this teachtant Scho- ing, belief in providence was an article lasticism. of mixed faith, that is, it was accessible to man's natural reason, though it could be fully known only from the Bible. Providence was considered to embrace three elements: foreknowledge, purpose, and execution of purpose, the latter forming the transition to providence in its relation to the world. Further distinctions were soon drawn between divine conservation, cooperation, and governance. The first of these implied continual creation; the second, postulating a difference according to the nature of the secondary causes, affirmed that " God cooperates unto effect, not unto defect "; and the third distinguished the modes of divine governance as permission (cf. Ps. lxxxi. 12; Rom. i. 24, 26, 28), hindrance (cf. Gen. xx. 6, xxxi. 24; Num. xxii. 12 sqq. ; II Kings xix. 35-36), direction (cf. Gen. 1. 20; I Sam. xvi. 1-13), and determination (cf. Isa. x. 12 sqq.). While providence watches over even the smallest, its modes differ. Creation as a whole is the object of general, or universal, providence; all mankind, whether good or bad, are watched by special providence; but the pious and faithful are under the care of " most special providence." Providence was also divided into ordinary and extraordinary, the former being that which is almost universally accomplished by natural mediate causes, and the latter that which operates through the agency of miracles. This complicated scholasticism long remained common to both the Lutheran and the Reformed Churches. During this long period of stereotyped dogmatism the real expression of the Protestant belief in providence must be sought especially in devotional literature and hymnology, which represent communion with God through Christ as the real 8. Pietistic source of a knowledge of God's proviand Mod- dence. During the course of the Pietern Views, istic movement, the foundation of the orphan asylum at Halle was the occasion of a dispute over the nature of divine providence. Francke considered this establishment, with the remarkable answers to prayer and the cases of individual salvation connected with it, as a monument of most particular providence. His opponents sought to reduce the whole matter to the level of pure natural happenings, contending that the introduction of human means excluded the op-
Providence