Fortuitous or Providential?

Fortuitous or Providential?

Providence Within Presuppositional Systems of Thought

It's come to my attention lately that there is a confusion among Christians as to events being fortuitous or God's providence.  Simply put, fortuitous means, "good (or bad) fortune happening by chance".  Providential means, "an event caused or guided by God".

In philosophic thought there are two extreme presuppositional systems both deterministic in view.  The first, as Francis Schaeffer called it, is the belief in "the uniformity of natural causes in a closed system”.  In other words all things are determined by nature and all actions by men can be explained by mechanical behaviorism,  Man therefore has no free will, he moves according to his DNA programing in predictable ways.  In naturalism everything that happens is fortuitous.

The second (unidentified by Schaeffer) is what I will call, the uniformity of divine causes in a closed system.  This is the system of Calvinistic determinism, in which all things and all events are controlled by God.  The only difference with naturalism and Calvinism is that Calvinism replaces nature with God as causing all things.  Both naturalism and deterministic Calvinism deny that mankind has free will.  In both systems mankind is nothing more than a machine; a puppet being pulled by the strings of nature or the strings of God.  In Calvinism everything that happens is providential.

But Schaeffer described the biblical presuppositional system as one which believes in a "uniformity of natural causes within an open system."  It means that the physical universe operates by natural causes, but that both God and man can intervene.  Mankind is able to express their personal will upon the world within the limits of natural law.  God is also able to express his personal will upon the world but is not limited by natural law, he is free to break natural law if it suits him.  Free will exists for both God and mankind within this system.  Events can be either fortuitous or providential depending on whether God intervenes or not.  Schaeffer defends this presuppositional system as being the one that fits actual human experience.

Providence Defined by Covenant

Paul Ramsey stated, "Never imagine that you have rightly grasped a Biblical idea until you have reduced it to a corollary of the idea of covenant."  I believe this to be true.  The Bible informs us that God deals with mankind through the convention of covenant.  In fact God has never dealt with mankind outside of a covenant.  Covenants by definition are relational agreements between two or more free-will parties.  Without free-will there can be no covenants.  According to Mont Smith, the best way to describe God is that he is a covenant maker and covenant keeper.  In fact the most often used adjective to describe God in the Bible is "chesed", usually translated "loving kindness", "kindness" or "love".   It's New Testament equivalent is "agape" love.  Chesed implies "covenant keeping".  God always keeps his covenant thus he shows loving kindness to Israel.  "Your God is God, a faithful God who keeps covenant and hesed with those who..." (Deuteronomy 7:9)  "I will maintain my hesed to him forever, and my covenant with him shall never fail" (Psalms 89:28) "Let your steadfast love (hesed) and Your faithfulness preserve me" (Psalms 40:11)

Following Ramsey's suggestion, to reduce biblical ideas to a corollary of the idea of covenant, the idea of God's providence can be defined as, "God working to bring about his salvation plan through the making of covenants and keeping covenant promises". Thus if an action can be directly connected to the making of a covenant, and in particular the New Covenant in Christ, or the keeping of a covenant promise then we have good reason for identifying that action as providential.  It's best to understand this though scriptural examples.

God promised Abraham that his descendants would be slaves of a foreign country for 400 years but that at the end of that time he would punish that nation and bring them back to Canaan with great possessions. (Genesis 15:13-16) Thus we can see how the dreams of Joseph which brought about his persecution and his being sold into slavery, God being with him and making everything he did succeed, his rise to power in Egypt by interpreting Pharaoh's dream and leading Israel to dwell in Goshen were all providential events.  In order for God to honor his promise to Abraham, Israel had to be led into Egypt.  Furthermore all the events of the Exodus, including the hardening of Pharaoh's heart, the passover and Israel's return to the promised land were providential to bring about his promise to Abraham.  Abraham was faithful to keep his end of the covenant and God never lies and must honor his promises.

God foretold his plan to make the New Covenant through his prophets.  Thus the events surrounding the birth of Christ were providential.  The angel announcing the conception and birth of Christ to Mary, the timing of his birth with the census to bring about his birth in Bethlehem, the coming of the Magi to present him gifts though their knowledge of the prophesies of Daniel and Christ's escape to Egypt and subsequent return to Nazareth were all providential events.

The ministries of Christ, the Apostles, Paul and the Holy Spirit during the "times of the end" of the Old Covenant were all providential and necessary for the establishment of the New Covenant.  Similarly the events leading up to and through the destruction of Jerusalem fulfilled all the prophesies relating to covenantal change.  Physical Israel received the full curses promised within the Old Covenant and the New Covenant was totally and perfectly consummated.  Events that brought about covenantal change were all providential.  God was working to bring about his salvation plan through the making of covenants and keeping covenant promises.

Providence and Covenantal Imperative

With the ending of the Old Covenant, physical Israel was made irrelevant, and with the full consummation of the New Covenant we shouldn't expect to see any more providential events to establish it.  The full ministry of Christ from incarnation to parousia is complete.  No prophesies remain to be fulfilled.  God is obligated to keep the spiritual promises given in the New Covenant but nothing beyond that.  There is no covenantal imperative or necessity for God to act or interfere in nature again for all time.  His plan of salvation is complete.  He has given the church, his corporate body, the responsibility for the continuance of the growth of the kingdom.

Old Covenant promises were physical. (Deuteronomy 28)  The promises of the New Covenant are better, spiritual ones. (Ephesians 1:3; Hebrews 8:6; John 6:27; 2 Peter 1:4, 2:5; Romans 15:27; Hebrews 12:18-24, )  The fulfillment of the spiritual promises for each faithful individual believer who is party to the New Covenant continues forever.  Thus we should expect God to positively answer prayer for spiritual things every time we pray for them; 100% of the time.  If we pray for forgiveness of sins and we have faith that what we pray for is already received, provided we forgive others, even though forgiveness is an unseen thing, we can have assurance that God has forgiven them. (Matthew 11:24-25; Hebrews 11:1)  Answers for prayers for physical blessings should not be expected.  Except for a few coincidental, unimportant matters, I have found "God's providence" in un-promised physical matters to be elusive.

It is important for God's answer to prayer be 100% certain.  If his answer to prayer is arbitrary and can't be counted on for physical things then how can we be certain our prayers for forgives are not also granted arbitrarily?  When we pray to God, is God spinning a wheel of fortune?  Should providence be defined as just another form of fortuitous luck?  "Spin...oh lucky for you, today you are forgiven.  Spin...oh, too bad, today you aren't forgiven."  For the Calvinist, God arbitrarily grants grace to people, saving some and damming others at is good pleasure.  For them the arbitrary answering of prayer is of no concern.  God's in control and he does what he wants; everything is providential.  But for any of us who believe in free will, the dilemma is a great one.

I believe that God's providence is limited by covenantal imperative; that is he has never revealed his will or acted apart from his covenants.  Schaeffer described the difference between man and the animals was his ability to "verbalize"; that the answer was in language.  Hugh Ross identifies the difference between man and the rest of creation as the "ability to have a relationship with the Creator".  I am willing to go a step farther and say the answer goes beyond language (as some animals have demonstrated the use language) or mere relationship.  I believe the answer is found in the ability to make and keep covenants of which verbal language and relationships are necessities.  The first thing God did with Adam was have him learn language by naming the animals.  The Adamic covenant was not made until both Adam and Eve were able to verbalize, and today the New Covenant is not ratified until the verbal (or written) gospel is heard, understood and acted upon.  Schaeffer said, "Propositional revelation", was how God reveals himself to mankind.   Propositional revelation and covenant are synonymous.

Providence never reaches outside the realm of covenant.  During the Old Covenant period, God never punished peoples or nations outside of his covenant promises to Israel and he does not do so today.  He does not cause natural disasters to happen to judge people unrelated to his covenants.  Such events are fortuitous.  Disease, death, natural disasters, chance meetings, falling in love to some extent, winning the lottery, good results from choosing to go to one school over another, finding a nice house to live in and good or bad times for deciding to go visit friends are all fortuitous things.  God's providence is not involved.  The test for providential involvement is: Can the event  be connected to the making of a covenant or to the fulfillment of a covenant promise?  If no covenant imperative exists, then providence is not at work.

The mixing of Covenant Promises

Mont Smith has shown that all covenants are comprised of parties, terms and promises.  The parties of a covenant are the persons involved.  The terms are the obligations of the weaker party and the promises are the obligations of the stronger party.

In the Old Covenant the parties were God and Israel (the blood descendants of Abraham through Jacob).  The terms of the covenant were for Israel to keep the 613 laws of Moses; Ten Commandments included.  The promises were physical, national and earthly and there were two types.  Israel received physical blessings if they faithfully kept the covenant and curses if they didn't. (Deuteronomy 28)  The Old Covenant was strictly between God and Israel.  It involved no other peoples or nations.  Gentiles outside of the covenant were not expected to keep the terms of the covenant nor could they claim the promises. Today the Old Testament must be treated as exemplary (examples of God working through covenants) but not binding upon anyone in the New Covenant.  

The New Covenant parties are God and anyone who believes, repents and is immersed (baptism) into Christ.  New Covenant parties are not restricted by race as in the Old Covenant, but everyone of all nations is called.  The terms of the covenant are to live like Christ and participate in the ministry of reconciliation. (How can a person be Christlike without a deep desire to seek and save the lost like He did?)  The promises of the New Covenant are spiritual.  They include forgiveness of sins, resurrection from the dead, adoption into God's family, incorporation into the Body of Christ and everlasting life in relationship with the Creator.

During the 40 year period beginning with the ministry of Christ to the end of the Old Covenant in A.D. 70 both covenants existed simultaneously.  Jewish Christians could claim covenant promises from both covenants and indeed the Apostles were promised physical promises within the Old Covenant "present age" and eternal life within the New Covenant "age to come". (Matthew 10:29-30).  But post A.D., 70 Christians cannot claim Old Covenant promises for two reasons.  Reason one is that the covenant was abrogated. (Hebrews 8:13)   If it doesn't exist one cannot claim it's promises.  Reason two is that no one other than the pure blood descendants of Jacob were ever parties to the covenant in the first place and they don't exist anymore.  If people seriously desire Old Covenant blessings then they must prepare themselves to receive the curses as well.  One must consider if the blessings received for following the meticulous law are worth the curses received when they are not fully able to carry them out.  Personally I think it best to be content with the spiritual promises.  I have no confidence in my ability to keep the law.

One of the biggest errors of the church today is the mixing of covenant promises.  Christians claim both sets of promises (ignoring the curses of course).  They pray for anything and everything under the sun whether physical or spiritual.  "God bless me this way,  God bless me that way."  They ask for physical protection of themselves and family members, physical healings for every kind of ailment, success in business and the meeting of monetary needs, success in school and the passing of entrance examinations.  They even pray for God to control the weather for them and claim that when it coincidentally works out in their favor, "God did it!"  Thus any fortuitous physical event is interpreted as providential.  All one need do is count his blessings.  "See, God has answered your prayers.  He is doing miracles daily for you!", they say.  Unfortunately if miraculous signs are occurring naturally every day then they cease to be miracles, they become mere fortuitous events, and any sharp agnostic is quick to point this out.  With this kind of "Christian irrationality" offered to them it's not hard to understand why agnostics disbelieve the real miracles of the Bible.  They throw out the baby with the bath water and I find it hard to blame them.

The church must develop a better understanding of covenant, what the constituent parts are, how they work and how God has used covenants to reveal himself to us.  The idea of covenant is the string that combines all the pearls of truth we find in the Bible into a neckless that is understandable, rational, reasonable, edifying and beautiful.  The Bible is not a dispensational buffet were we can pick and choose what we like; ignore the parties and choose something from this covenant, and something from that one.  Then load up with lots of promises and boil down all Christian responsibility to, knowing God love and prayer.  And when prayer becomes focused on physical things, things that the pagans seek after, then the heart of the religion is lost.  We no longer seek the kingdom of God and it's righteousness, a spiritual kingdom, a Christlike lifestyle.  When most of the church believes that the "holy land" is a physical place in the Middle East rather than the hearts of devout believers it has lost it's way.

Fortuitous or providential?  Human experience teaches us that both exist.  An understanding of covenant imperative explains why the physical events we experience are fortuitous, while the New Covenant spiritual promises we receive are providential.  It explains why prayer for physical things usually ends in disappointment but prayer for spiritual things can always be counted on.  Knowing that can set us free from the worries of this life and help us focus on what's important, our hearts and how we live.  It's not what happens to you in life that's important, it's who you become!