Faith and Reason: The Cradle of Truth by Verschuuren Gerard

Author:Verschuuren, Gerard [Verschuuren, Gerard]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: En Route Books and Media, LLC
Published: 2017-09-18T00:00:00+00:00

Providence

The “God of reason” has sometimes been caricaturized as the God of deism. In the 17th and 18th centuries, during the Enlightenment—the “Age of reason”—deism became popular among intellectuals who, raised as Christians, believed in the one God of Natural Theology but rejected all forms of revealed religion (theism). The God of deism—“nature’s God”—has often been described as a God who once made the world, but more like a watch-maker who makes a watch, lets it run its own course, and then abandons it to itself—the “hands-off” approach of an absent landlord, so to speak. This means that the God of deism does not intervene in the affairs of the world, and contrary to what is maintained in theism , no supernatural events or miracles can be ascribed to God. However, this is not necessarily the way Natural Theology sees it. If God were to take away for one instant his sustaining power, the entire creation would at once fall back into nothingness. So everything fully depends on God, even in Natural Theology. God preserves and governs the world, so nothing happens without the will or permission of God.

Nevertheless, the “God of Faith” takes us much further than the “God of reason.” What Faith “adds” to reason is that the “God of reason” has not remained utterly hidden for us but actually “spoke” to us and still keeps “speaking.” He is actively involved with his creation and with each one of his creatures. The “God of Faith” is the God of history who is intimately and perpetually involved with the affairs of humanity. He is not a God merely of the past but also of the present and the future. He is the eternal “I AM ” (Ex. 3:14), the One “who is and who was and who is to come” (Rev. 1:4).

This is how Divine Providence is understood: as care exercised by God over the Universe, his foresight and care for its future. Though the term itself hardly occurs in the Scriptures—or at least it is translated in various ways—the closest comparison can be found in Genesis 22, when Abraham takes his son Isaac to a mountain so as to sacrifice him to the Lord, and then is asked by his son, “where is the lamb for the burnt offering?” Abraham answers him “God will provide for himself the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.” And then, when the angel of the Lord stops him from sacrificing his son, Abraham finds a ram in the thicket. So he calls this place “The Lord will provide”—which means, God will take care of it.

That passage reflects basically how we understand Divine Providence: God, by his providence, is in charge of all that happens to his creation and to all its creatures—he takes care of everything. His providence is not just some general oversight of the world, leaving the details worked out by someone or something else. Rather, he is behind every detail of the Universe—from the falling of a sparrow to the number of hairs on your head.

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