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.
2 comments:
Hmm. There's a lot here. Let me make just a couple of comments.
1. You write:
"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."
- I don't think I agree with you here. I interpret my own experiences with temptation successfully in light of this verse. Typically I can see my own way out of tempting circumstances. I don't see any reason to suppose that God doesn't in any of these cases furnish sufficient grace to allow me to escape or resist temptation. On occasion God's intervention via coincidences is discernable: as when recently a friend told me that his daughter called him on his cell phone as he was being tempted to go to an adult bookstore. On other occasions God has simply given us enough grace in the form of autonomous choice-making power to resist or escape. When tempted to say something hurtful, I can--as Proverbs frequently enjoins--keep my mouth shut. When tempted to lust I can close or avert my eyes, physically remove myself from my present situation, and/or divert my mind by a phone call, a prayer, a book, etc. Perhaps your experiences have been different than mine, but I see no reason based in my own experience to think God fails to provide people with the ability to avoid evil and do good.
2. I am wondering if a lot of issues stemming from our apparent lack of good information regarding God's will reduces to issues stemming from our apparent lack of good information regarding what is good. You may already have suggested as much in your post. If this is correct, what we need to do is cultivate our epistemic virtues with respect to moral knowing--i.e., to cultivate phronesis. However, as I am a fallibilist--not just about God's will and morality but about knowledge in general, so I don't think this is ad hoc--there is likely no escaping surprises regarding what God does allegedly for our good. So I'm saying that these problems are never going to go away entirely. But I'm also saying that we probably can grow into a better epistemic condition than we are in presently, and that these problems might diminish somewhat as a result.
(Related to point 2, please take a look at my recent post on my own blog: Theology in Sickness and in Health if you haven't already)
3. This one's an afterthough, but shouldn't be. What can we learn from looking at the earthly life of Jesus in asking questions about Providence? Does it seem that Jesus always had perfect knowledge of God's will? How does it seem Jesus responded to evil around him? Specifically, how did Jesus' presumed belief in Providence affect what Jesus did in the context of evil in the world around him? What does this say about how belief in Providence should affect the character and actions of Jesus' disciples?
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Oh, and have you read Spiegel's book on "The Benefits of Providence"? (This is really just a yes/no question, out of my curiosity.) I read part of it in draft a long long time ago. Anyway, it seems that sort of book would be relevant, either to respond to some of the concerns you're raising or to demonstrate the astonishing lack of substantive response in theological literature to such concerns.
You bring up some good points, Scott.
Re 1: If God specifically (that is, in a determinate, particular way not reducible to the nature of things) were to help us in our temptations, I would expect to see this as a regular event. Now, I certainly could interpret some events in this light, but not most (or even many, in my case). So, I could turn to things such as our free will and reason, which could provide an escape from sin, though the use of these does not really need DP (though a proper understanding of reason, etc. may require God as an explanation). Providence may actually be in action, but not really in such a way as to contribute to the hope of the believer.
Re 2: This one is a bit harder. I readily admit that we don't have a good understanding of what is best for us in this life; however, it seems that Hell is never an ultimate good for one, and most likely annihilation as well. Now, these may be the best goods available within a given situation; if someone has rejected prior attempts at divine leading, there may be nothing better than annihilation. However, it seems to stretch the notion of "good" beyond recognition to say this is the absolute ultimate good (though maybe a way out would be to say that there is no absolute ultimate good for a given person?).
Re 3: I always have a problem going to Jesus' life on issues like this. He seems to have such a clear understanding of God's presence and will; his lack of epistemological difficulties, at least as far as Scripture is concerned, make me wonder whether he really was tempted as I am. At any rate, I find it hard to turn to Scripture for help.
Re Spiegel's Book: I too read his first draft, though I do not remember much of what it contained. I do remember that he argued that strong views of DP provide better pastoral responses than weak views, but I've also heard the reverse on pretty much the exact same cases (if a family member has been brutally murdered, is it better to say that it was for a reason within God's plan, or that God was caught off-guard but at least was not complicit, and grieves as much as you do?).
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