The Providence of God

God carries out His decrees in two ways: through creation and through providence. In His providence, God makes effective His decree, which is His plan for the world that He made in eternity past and that establishes whatsoever comes to pass in history. God in His providence governs all things, which results in the fulfillment of God’s eternal plan.

This understanding of God’s governing and intervening in the world is opposed to the philosophical worldview of deism. Deism teaches that God created the world, set its physical laws in place, and left it to run on its own. In deism, God now has nothing more to do with the world. Christianity, however, believes that God governs all His creatures and all their actions, as Westminster Larger Catechism 18 states. There are three elements to God’s providence: His governance of all things, His concurrence (by which God works in, through, and with creation), and His preservation of creation.

The old adage holds true: For want of a nail the shoe was lost, for want of a shoe the horse was lost, for want of a horse the rider was lost, for want of a rider the battle was lost, for want of a battle the war was lost, for want of the war the kingdom was lost. The tiniest events can change the course of history completely. If even one atom of the universe is not under God’s control, then a rogue atom could completely unravel and inhibit God’s plan from coming to fruition. Therefore, if God is to achieve His purposes, then all things must be under His control. He must not only be able to see the future infallibly but also to direct it utterly. God’s providence prevents complete chaos from happening. In the example of our adage, if God’s plan is that the kingdom not be lost, then His providence must govern even the nail and keep it from being lost.

Proverbs 16:33 says, “The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the Lord.” Even events that supposedly happen by “chance” are under God’s providential care. Perhaps the greatest proof from Scripture is the book of Esther. God’s name doesn’t appear in Esther, but that does not mean that He was not actively at work. In Esther, every turning point hinges on something that just “happens” to take place. The largest and most important example is the sleepless night of King Ahasuerus, during which God’s providence directs him to remember Mordecai’s service to the king. This sets the stage for the downfall of Haman, the rise of Mordecai, and the salvation of God’s people. Equally important is the moment when Esther presents herself to King Ahasuerus, and the king extends the golden scepter, thus granting her life and an audience wherein she can plead for her own life and the lives of her people.

God’s providence ordains all things that come to pass, but those things ordinarily come to pass through secondary means rather than through God’s direct intervention. These secondary means can be necessary, contingent, or free (Westminster Confession of Faith 5.2). Necessary causes involve those things that are part of the ordinary rhythm of creation, such as the sun’s rising and setting and the passing of seasons. Contingent causes involve events wherein one thing leads to another, such as a billiard ball’s rolling across the table when it is struck by the cue.

Free causes involve the choices of creatures. According to the Westminster Larger Catechism, God’s providence governs the actions of angels (Q&A 19) and humans (Q&A 20). The fall of some of the angels was permitted (see Jude 6; 2 Peter 2:4). Regarding human beings, the providence of God controlled—among other things—the location of man in the garden of Eden; giving man marriage, work, and the Sabbath; and entering into the covenant of works with Adam.

Importantly, divine providence does not eliminate our responsibility. God governs our actions and decisions, but we still have real power to cause things to happen and He does not force us to do things we do not truly want to do. He works in, through, and with our desires to achieve His purposes in such a way that we make things happen and God makes things happen. His motives are always good and holy, though ours may not be. We call this the doctrine of concurrence—God’s will and man’s will concur or come together to produce a result even as God and man do not always have the same intent. Perhaps the best example of this is the case of Joseph. Both Joseph’s brothers and God wanted Joseph out of Canaan and away from the family, but God wanted it for the sake of something good (to save many people) and Joseph’s brothers wanted it for something evil (they were jealous of Joseph).

God’s providence also includes His work of preserving the universe. According to Hebrews 1:3, God through His Son “upholds the universe by the word of his power.” Creation does not have an independent existence, and it ultimately does not sustain itself. If the Lord were to stop upholding the universe, everything except God would blink out of existence. By His work of preservation, God sustains all things.

The providence of God is a great comfort to believers, since it means that God has evil on a leash (see Job 1–2) and that God controls all things for the benefit of believers (see Rom. 8). The providence of God also strengthens believers to face trials and suffering (see James 1:2–4). It also takes much of the sting out of death and all other evils in this world, since God overturns the evil in those events for the sake of the good of His people and for the sake of His glory.