The Purpose of Providence

Here's an issue that I've been struggling with: Does the notion of Divine Providence (DP) actually provide any substantial help for this life? I think that I've made most of these points below in various comments, but here they are in a streamlined argument. It seems to me that it does not. I start from the proposition that if DP were to provide help for this life, than it would provide an explanation for things of this life. However, something which explains everything within a given set of circumstances explains nothing in that set. DP explains everything within the set of temporal circumstances, at least for anyone reading this (pending rapture and other miscellaneous, questionable theological claims). Therefore, DP explains nothing concerning temporal circumstances.

Of course, this isn't exactly the happiest view, but I'm seriously wrestling with how to fill out the content of DP in a way that is actually meaningful for life, and for hope. These are my ruminations on why the answers I've heard so far just don't really help, and hopefully invitations for an answer that does make sense.

It seems that DP does not set any limits for the individual's life. God could do anything to this individual (and has in actuality done many both wonderful and awful things to concrete individuals), and we always have recourse to the mystery of the divine will. So, DP does not guarantee any specific circumstance in life.

Fine. So, let's get more abstract and say that DP guarantees the good of the individual without saying how this good will be attained (or even what specific good it will be; presumably, a given individual can be actualized in a variety of ways). However, this good would have to be actually good for the individual. Many individuals die in wretched circumstances, and unless universalism is true, many die forever apart from their salvation. So, DP doesn't guarantee the good of the individual. If universalism is true, then DP doesn't really change any possible situations in this life, so the conclusion remains.

One might say that DP can, however, assure the believer of their own good. However, even assuming the believer to be right (there would be many wrong believers with false hope, after all), there is the issue of exclusivism: that many appear for all intents and purposes to be believers , but really aren't (whether they lose faith, or never had it to begin with; the thing is that they appear to be like other believers both to others and to themselves). For these people as well, DP offers little hope. The issue is complicated on a strong enough inclusivist view to escape this problem, largely due to the fact that one would presumably be working outside of the dictates of both reason and revelation.

So, does DP assure us of ultimate goodness? Most likely, but this becomes so vague that it seems of little use. Also, whatever this "ultimate goodness" is, it can't be the world as it currently is. So, the only ones who might see such ultimate goodness in this life are those who would be on the cusp of history and the hereafter; most likely this will not be any of us, and at any rate has not been the majority of humanity. Therefore, DP does not give us any assurances about ultimate goodness actualized within our temporal lives.

Next we might look at specific Biblical passages. The Bible says that God will not let us be tempted beyond what we can bear. To be perfectly honest, I have an awfully hard time taking that verse at face value given the actualities of life; if this were really true, there would be less yielding to temptation amongst God's chosen. One can always in theory hold on a little bit longer; to point that out in a given situation is generally vacuous, and doesn't change the fact that God, knowing that a person would actually snap at a given point, tempted them beyond that point.

Then we have the verse about nothing separating us from the love of God, which can only extricate one once one explains what content there is behind this love. And any promises about God's ability to save say nothing about God's actually planning to save; His lack of saving can always be explained as part of some larger, mysterious plan (and thus we are back where we started).

So, what could DP help us to understand? It could help us to understand what will happen outside of our present lives in a couple of the above instances; it still is no guarantee that God will work everything for our good, though, if anyone is condemned. So, either universalism is true, or DP has no application to the individual's hope.

It may not have any application to hope, but perhaps it has some other application. By knowing the ultimate end of things, we can direct our lives along that same path. So, knowledge of DP can help us to orient our lives, assuming our knowledge of it to be accurate enough. Of course, that raises up a bunch of other issues (largely epistemological, though it also seems to again open up the doors to a soteriology based on practice), but it at least provides some use. There also remains the issue that the big picture may make sense, but it does nothing for most of the details of our lives.

So, in summary: DP is pretty much worthless for providing any sort of hope for the soteriological exclusivist, and doesn't say much (if anything) about what we can hope from God on any other soteriological view. Even if God is in control of every single event, managing every little detail, we have little cause to hope that this would end up making our earthly lives different from a cold, uncaring cosmos, or a karma-run infinite universe. If we have knowledge of how God is running the world, we can insert ourselves into that same story, but even this is more a matter of making our lives meaningful (or at least more meaningful) rather than actually providing hope for anyone's good.

Phenomenology of Spirit: Force and Understanding

I've been taking my time getting through Hegel; I finally realized that I couldn't continue without some sort of commentary or summary reading of Hegel, and further that I most likely have been misreading some sections. After going through this, I had to go back and reread this current section to try to make sense out of it. But, here is the next portion of Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit: Force and Understanding.

Outline

1. Notion of Force overcomes problem with Perception
1. Force must express itself
2. Necessity of active-passive poles show Force to be mere notion
2. Law as the Super-sensible Realm
1. Law must be unified, but only gives content as determinate particulars
2. No necessity to law, but simply description
3. Only constant difference...
3. Second Super-sensible Realm, Infinity, and Beyond
1. ...as well as constant unification
2. Since law is super-sensible "in-itself," everything must constantly differentiate and unify
3. Second super-sensible world opposite of first, to explain first
4. Interplay between two creates an "infinity," shows self-consciousness

Previously in Hegel, he has been looking at forms of consciousness, showing how each ,is inadequate for the task it has set out for itself. Sense certainty, in the end, cannot actually provide it's own certainty, nor can it account for the richness of its supposed content. This does not mean that we ignore it, but rather that there must be another level which can explain this. Perception makes some headway, but in the end cannot reconcile its vision of the object as both universal and particular. In addition, the possibility of deception removes poses a serious problem for Perception, which cannot explain how a thing can have its united grouping of particular properties based solely on sense perception. We need concepts to do this, and so we proceed to the Understanding.

Understanding's big problem in what follows is this: it posits some concept, some notion in order to fix the problems which it sees, but these notions always remain just that: notions in consciousness rather than a fix in reality. To start from where perception leaves off, Hegel posits force, which differentiates unities in its expression, and then unifies this plurality as well, binding together the object which is both many and one. However, since the force must express itself, there must be a soliciting force as well. These two forces, in turn, cannot exist without each other, and show that the idea of "two forces" is something merely in our minds rather than the structure of reality.

Further, we assume that there is an "in-itself" of the object, which the forces are supposed to be. Appearance supposedly joins this in-itself to our understanding, but what could this super-sensible world behind appearances be? Hegel responds that, on this level of consciousness (we must answer the question from Understanding's perspective, not from our own as philosophers looking on), the only thing that we can tell about this in-itself is that it is unified, that it is a constant difference (the one thing common to everything is that everything is different from everything else).

From here, one can try to posit laws behind the flux of the sensible world, but this does not work. For one thing, this supersensible reality is unified, but laws only tell us something when they are broken into parts (force equals mass times acceleration, for example, needs "force" to be split into "mass" and "acceleration," space and time; electricity needs to be split into positive and negative aspects). Either these aspects suffer the same fate as active and passive forces (they are mental constructs used to example a simple reality), or the describe things which are, at this level of consciousness, indifferent to each other (such as space and time). Any "necessity" to these laws is a sham, as the laws must only describe what is happening. They cannot explain.

But, Hegel continues, these laws do show something: what is simple, what is itself, must be unlike itself. Simple laws tell us nothing, so they differentiate into particular, determinate laws. These, in turn, show us that the unlike becomes the like: these particular, determinate, partial laws can only be insofar as their differences vanish. We are in a sea, as it were, of thing continually differentiating and unifying, never capturable in a single moment. But this is the nature of the super-sensible realm, then, and we must posit a secondary super-sensible realm which is the opposite of the first to make sense of this (note: I still don't understand this part, but I'll put down what I have so far).

If something is sweet, then by the rule of difference, it must be sour in the second super-sensible realm. A crime in the 1st must be justice in the second. These are also not merely one-possibility-against-anothers, but rather both are true of something; there is an inner world in which something can be unlike itself. There is a possibility of intentions, of meanings and thoughts which are not quite the same as the outside world. This removes the determination of the world in a way, and creates a self-reflection which is self-consciousness. However, there has been no nature given to self-consciousness yet, and so that is where Hegel continues is his next rather large section.

Worship and Play

I don't typically like to play, unless it involves learning a new language which I really shouldn't take on. I don't like sitting down and watching movies usually, I can't stand watching sports, and I usually put down video games after the first initial "play it for 10 hours a day" sprint (usually itself due to the fact that I only normally take time off from my studies to do different studies). I wonder if sometimes this is because I don't take worship seriously enough? Now, I don't mean that the two are coextensive; there is certainly play which is not worship, and work done well for the Lord is worship as well. However, work is something which is done for another reason, while play is something which is not; it is either purposeless, or for its own purpose and enjoyment. Now, the only thing which could be truly and rightfully done for its own sake is to enjoy God (c.f. Augustine's distinction between 'use' and 'enjoyment' in De Doctrina Christiana). So, proper play is always an enjoyment of God, though this can be through the created order (rejoicing in creation is implicit rejoicing in the Creator). If this connection is lost, then of course play makes little sense; why whittle away what little time we have doing nothing? But even for all of our work to make sense, it has to point to some goal. Since this life is not about our own attainment of this goal, by our own Promethean urges to steal the divine fire (thanks to Merton in The New Man for this analogy), this life ought not to be all about work, and time should be taken for worshipful play.