Systematic Theology - Creation and Providence - Part II

Here is the segment on Providence:

Creation and Providence (Continued)

Providence:

Creation was not a single act in which a transcendent God, acting like a watch maker, put things in motion and left them to their own devices. Instead, God is involved in the ongoing transformation of the world. God not only originated creation, but also serves as sustainer and director of that creation. This is often referred to as God’s providence. Karl Barth best surmises this idea writing, “Everything that is, is created, upheld, and ruled by the one true God” (Barth, 57). How this happens can be best described by the Latin terms conservatio, gubernatio, and concursus. That is to say, God’s ongoing act in creation, or providence, exists as preservation, governance and cooperation (Pöhlmann, 22).

This admission has two very distinct implications. First, providence requires us to return to God’s attribute of omniscience. God acts in accordance with what God knows. Most doctrines of providence will push this idea, suggesting that God acts with the foresight or foreknowledge of what is going to happen (Abraham, 2007). So long as this ongoing activity of God does not violate the aforementioned understanding that God never acts coercively, it is an embraceable idea. The second implication is that God continuously provides for creation in line with His good purposes. These purposes can be described as God ‘making all things new’ by ordering relationships that work for “covenant fidelity in freedom” as the goal for the right order of God’s creation (Morse, 222). No matter how we delineate God’s good purposes, we are called to trust that God’s activity will never be in accordance with anything else other than God’s character and nature.