The Providence of God

Fergusson, David

doi:10.1017/9781108683050

Cited by 24 publications

(33 citation statements)

References 88 publications

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“…For his part, Fergusson contends that the diverse scriptural teachings about the provident God 'should not be forced into one single form or theory'. 25 I agree completely. My question remains, however, whether Fergusson tends in this direction by repeatedly stressing God's weakness and by generally reserving God's sovereignty to God's eschatological provision -as well as by rejecting the metaphysical precisions that ensure that speaking about divine sovereignty, and about divine transcendence and immanence, makes sense in the first place.…”

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confidence: 59%

“…Wisely, with regard to Scripture's diverse witness to divine providence, Fergusson underscores that we must avoid the temptation toward 'a systematic resolution of tensions within the text by allowing one model to dominate or exclude others'. 26 I say amen to this. In the doctrine of providence, God's absolute sovereignty and power to save must be fully affirmed alongside God's struggle to conquer the wickedness that afflicts his people and God's love-filled 'weakness' in allowing some rational creatures (e.g.…”

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confidence: 94%

“…Against theodicy and determinism (for which divine 'permission' is ultimately a mere mirage), Fergusson rightly adds that 'we should strenuously resist any equation of this with a justification for everything that happens, or the (stronger) view that God positively wills every outcome'. 19 Fergusson is correct, furthermore, to warn against accounts of predestination that make the problem of evil worse by conjuring a God who, solely due to his own will, does not give some rational creatures the efficacious grace needed to avoid eternal damnation, and who thereby eternally creates them for the radical misery of damnation. 20 Many psalms express an attitude that is near to despair, as the people and/ or the psalmist suffer grievously from the attacks of enemies and from personal desolation and disease.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Refusing to Resolve Tensions

Levering

2021

Int J Systematic Theology

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Providence is one of the most difficult of all theological subjects, and we are in David Fergusson's debt for writing such a cogent, erudite and eloquent book about it. Fergusson argues that the work of many of the great theologians on the doctrine of providence, over the centuries, has been deeply inadequate. In particular, he is concerned about the view that nothing falls outside God's providential plan. Fergusson suggests that this view of providence links God too closely with evils; and, besides, it is evident that 'the world is not the way God wants it to be'. 1 Fergusson is well aware that there are theological ways of explaining the coherence of a strong doctrine of divine sovereignty with the existence of so much wickedness. Generally, theologians make a distinction between God's active and permissive will. In willing the good (ultimately the good of the consummated kingdom), God does not will evils but allows them to occur. God moves all creatures to their act -finite actuality depends for its motion upon infinite actuality -but God is not responsible for human falling away from what is due in the action. Thus God is not responsible for sin. Yet, God is fully in charge because his providential plan encompasses from eternity all creaturely acts, and therefore his ultimate will cannot be frustrated. Some thorny questions arise here, as Fergusson shows. Most importantly, evil is not an instrument that God needs or requires for accomplishing good (otherwise evil, insofar as it was a necessary instrument, would be good). Why then does God, in his eternal plan, choose to accomplish good through such horrendous evils? For example, if God is fully in charge and if God by grace can convert the sinner, why did God not ensure that, by grace, Hitler freely stopped before he was able to implement the Holocaust?Fergusson argues that part of the problem is the theological choice to locate providence in the doctrine of God. The result of this choice is that divine providence becomes fundamentally a philosophical or metaphysical topic, distanced from the diversity of the scriptural portraits of God's providential

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Refusing to Resolve Tensions

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2021

Int J Systematic Theology

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“…Given the glaring contradictions that arise when asserting traditional notions of divine providence, Fergusson describes his project as one of 'criticism and recovery', while also 'attempting reconstruction to rescue it [providence] from earlier distortions and wrong turnings'. 10 To that end, Fergusson wisely chooses to focus his investigation on a systematic examination of the doctrine of providence in close conversation with lived religion, with special attention given to the pastoral significance of providential thought in Christian faith. Not surprisingly, much attention is given to the problem of evil and innocent suffering, as well as theodicy, a rational explanation as to why God allows evil and innocent suffering.…”

Section: The Problem With Providencementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Refreshingly, Fergusson discourages us from placing too much stock in the adequacy of our various theodicies, by framing the discussion in terms of pastoral care: 'Even if we could come up with a convincing explanation of why God permitted or willed evil, would that help those who make journeys of pain amid the shadows'. 11 As evidenced by the pastoral reflections of Jason Micheli, who was diagnosed with an incurable form of cancer, the existential turmoil of the believer extends beyond the self-centered cry of despair: 'Cancer doesn't lead you to ask, "Why me, God?" Cancer leads you to wonder why God, whom we call Light, cannot seem to enter or act in our world without casting shadows'.…”

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Provisional Providence? Reconstructing Divine Providence in a Fragmented World

Rodríguez

2021

Int J Systematic Theology

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The ancient Hellenized world could perhaps be divided into two broad, somewhat incompatible cosmological worldviews: the pre-Socratic perspective embodied by the philosophy of Heraclitus (c. 540-480 BCE), and the Socratic point of view most fully actualized in the works of . Heraclitus viewed the cosmos as ever changing, chaotic, and in a constant state of flux: 'You cannot step twice into the same river, for fresh waters are ever flowing upon you'. 1 Legend has it one over-enthusiastic disciple of Heraclitus took things a step further by proclaiming: 'One cannot do it even once'. 2 In other words, the universe presents us with plurality and constant motion, which challenges the belief that the universe is a rationally ordered place. Despite his disciple's assertion, however, Heraclitus believed reason attempts to systematize experience into a coherent unity, so the very fact that the human mind is capable of organizing the maelstrom of sensory experience points us toward a real underlying unity, even if such unity includes within it change as a necessary component of the material universe.The Platonic ideal, however, suggests that our sensory experience of a universe in flux is but a shadow of the real, eternal and unchanging Forms. For Plato, in The Republic, sense perception cannot yield true knowledge, so that which is true is both infallible and real: 'as the opinable is to the knowable so the image is to the model it is made like'. 3 In other words, that which we represent in thought must have some basis in reality. Since sensory perception is unreliable

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Reclaiming the Biological Design Argument: A Preposterous and Dangerous Idea?

Kojonen

2021

Palgrave Frontiers in Philosophy of Religion

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The Providence of God

Cited by 24 publications

References 88 publications

Refusing to Resolve Tensions

Refusing to Resolve Tensions

Provisional Providence? Reconstructing Divine Providence in a Fragmented World

Reclaiming the Biological Design Argument: A Preposterous and Dangerous Idea?

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