Chapter VIII: The Manner of Divine Providence, § 66
CHAPTER VIII: APHORISMS CONCERNING THE MANNER OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE
§ 66. Let the first aphorism on the manner of divine providence be: Ordinarily divine providence preserves the course of nature which it has established. Thus the heavenly Father “makes the sun shine and the rain fall” (Matt. 5:45); “God gives each seed its body as He wills” (1 Cor. 15:38). Therefore in those things which God has created in such a way that they act naturally, He preserves their power to act naturally, and in those things that He has created in such a way that they act freely, He preserves their power to act freely. From this we have the common statement of Augustine (De civ. Dei, bk. 7, ch. 30): “God administers all things which He has created in such a way that He permits them to exercise their proper movements.” (Gerson repeats and explains this in De consol. theol., bk. 2, prosa 4.)
Second.
§ 67. The second aphorism is: Although divine providence generally acts through means, let us not cling to them but always look back to their first cause. Second causes are of no effect unless God helps them.1 Ps. 127:1: “Unless the Lord builds the house, those who guard it labor in vain.” Hosea 2:8–9: “She did not know that I was giving her the grain; therefore I will take back My grain.” 1 Tim. 6:17: “As for the rich in this world, charge them not to set their hopes on uncertainty of riches but on the living God, who richly provides us with all things to enjoy.”
Third.
§ 68. The third aphorism is: Divine providence can also carry out its works extraordinarily without means. In this way Moses was preserved for forty days and forty nights without food [cf. Exod. 24:18]. A failure of secondary causes can easily be supplemented by the might of the first cause, which, of course, is a “self-sufficient cause” [αἴτιον αὐτοτελές].
Fourth.
§ 69. The fourth aphorism is: Even if the secondary causes are present in actuality, divine providence can still hinder and change their effect. He saved the three witnesses who were as though in the fire in Babylon [cf. Dan. 3:19–27], because secondary causes do not act without the influx of the first.
Fifth.
§ 70. The fifth aphorism is: From secondary effects divine providence can produce an effect other than what their property produces. In this way He produced water from a rock [Exod. 17:5–7]. He caused the waters to stand like a rock [cf. Exod. 14:22]. He turned water into blood and even into wine [Exod. 7:14–20; John 2:1–10]. The Lord of nature is not bound to the laws of nature. A donkey speaks [Num. 22:28–30], a spring gushed from the jaws of a donkey [Judg. 15:19 Vg], the sun stands still [Josh. 10:13], etc.
Sixth.
§ 71. The sixth aphorism is: Brute animals not only are subject to the providence of God but also either by natural instinct or in some other way feel and in some ways confess God’s sustenance and preservation. Ps. 104:27: “These all look to You to give them their food.” Verse 21: “The young lions roar, seizing and seeking food from God.” Ps. 145:15: “The eyes of all hope in You, O Lord, and You give them their food in due season.” Ps. 147:9: “He gives to the beasts their food, and to the young ravens that cry out to Him.” So, then, under the direction of Scripture, we should interpret the roaring of lions and the cawing of crows as meaning that they are seeking their food from God. At the same time, we must deplore the extreme corruption of our nature and the darkness of our mind caused by the fall, through which it happens that brute animals understand, so to speak, the providence of God better than human reason, just as Christ in Matt. 6[:26] sets up the little birds as our teachers.
Seventh.
§ 72. Because in the sustaining and governance of human nature two things stand out in particular—namely, life and the actions of humans—we shall have to explain in greater detail how divine providence acts and concurs with them. Therefore the seventh aphorism must be: The entry into, advancement through, and departure from human life are directed in particular by the providence of God.
§ 73. Concerning the miraculous formation of the fetus in the womb and the delivering thereof into the light, which is the entrance of a human being into this world, Scripture speaks in this way, Job 10:8–11: “Your hands (O God) fashioned and made me together round about. You have made me like clay. Like milk You have poured me out and curdled me like cheese. You clothed me with skin and flesh and knit me together with bones and sinews.” In this passage, the formation of the fetus in the womb is described with very meaningful words. For the seed corresponds with the milk with regard to material, conditions, manner of generation, places in which they occur, and their use. In fact, the first formation of the embryo is a sort of curdling (Aristotle, De generat. animal., bk. 1, ch. 20): “Just as in the curdling of milk the milk is the substance, but the fig juice or rennet2 is that which has the curdling element—likewise the emission from the male is divided within the female.” Ps. 22:9: “You took me from the womb.” Ps. 71:6: “You are He who took me from my mother’s womb.” Acts 17:25: “He Himself gives life and breath to all.”
§ 74. God so directs the course and progress of our life that not even a hair of our head falls from our head apart from His will (Matt. 10:30). Deut. 30:20: “He is our life and length of days.” Ps. 56:8: “He numbers our steps.” Ps. 139:2–3: “Jehovah, You know my sitting down and my rising up. You encompass my path and my lying down.” Prov. 22:2: “God makes the rich and the poor.”
§ 75. Regarding the end of life and departure from life, Scripture speaks in this way: “Since his days are determined”(
“divided, defined, precise”) “and the number” (Septuagint: ἀριθμητοί) “of his months is with You, and You have appointed his limits that he will not be able to pass” (Job 14:5). Ps. 139:16: “In Your book all the days were written that were to come, and not one of them existed yet.”
How marriage is fated.
§ 76. Moreover, on the basis of the preceding aphorisms, we must repeat here that divine providence neither removes nor is bound to secondary causes. Thus it will be readily apparent how it should be correctly understood when it is said that marriage is fated and that a definite end of life is fixed for every human being. You see, these should not be understood as referring to some absolute decree which excludes all causes both natural and voluntary. Instead, the foresight of God includes the activity of natural causes and the freedom of the human will. In fact, here, too, we must consider the obedience and disobedience of man toward God. The former is ordinarily repaid with a blessed marriage, prosperity, and long life, while the latter is ordinarily punished with an unhappy marriage, adversities, and a short life. Prov. 19:14: “A prudent wife is from the Lord.” Ecclus. 26:3: “A good wife will be given to those who fear the Lord.” Exod. 20:12: “Honor your father and mother that your days may be long upon the earth.” Ps. 55:23: “Men of blood and deceit shall not live out half their days.”
§ 77. Nevertheless we claim that these promises and threats of God must be taken with the exception of the cross and God’s privilege to act extraordinarily for just reasons, as when Nabal fell to the lot of Abigail [1 Samuel 25] and as when Josiah died in the first flower of his greening youth [2 Kings 23:28–30].
On the end of life.
§ 78. Accordingly, when one asks about the end of human life, a distinction must be made first of all between death considered simply and absolutely, and the hour and kind of death. After the fall, death itself is necessary to man according to the ordinary state and course of corrupted nature. Heb. 9:27: “Ἀπόκειται” (it is established, appointed) “for man to die once.” If one asks about the type and hour of death, we must be careful not to sink into the Scylla of Epicurean rashness nor into the Charybdis of Stoic necessity.
§ 79. God has established for each human being the hour and manner of his death, but not with an absolute decree which excludes all secondary causes. Indeed, the same God who has established the end of life is the same who promises the devout an increase of years and a blessed end of life. He is the same who ever hears the prayers of the devout, poured out for health and long life; the same who created natural means for recovering health and bids us to use them if they are at hand; and yet at the same time, in His just judgment, He threatens the wicked with a diminution of their years.
§ 80. Augustine discusses this subject (De Gen. ad lit., bk. 5, ch. 17): “Many things are going to occur according to lesser causes, but if so, they are also truly future events in the foreknowledge of God. However, if they are different in God’s foreknowledge, they shall happen just as they are there where He foreknows who cannot be deceived. For old age is said to be the future in the case of a youth, but if he dies before then, that future does not exist. So his future will occur in accord with how other causes are, both those woven into the world and those reserved in the foreknowledge of God. For example, Hezekiah was going to die according to some causes of the future, and God added fifteen years to his life [2 Kings 20:1–11]. Now by doing that, God was doing what He foreknew He would do and what He was planning to do from before the foundation of the world. Therefore He did not do what was not going to happen; indeed, this was all the more sure to happen because He foresaw that He would do it. Nevertheless those years would not be correctly called ‘added’ unless something were added which had been otherwise in other causes. Therefore, according to inferior causes, he had finished his life already; but according to those causes which were in the will and foreknowledge of God, he was going to finish his life when he did, for God had known from eternity what He was going to do at that time, and this was his true future. Now this was granted to him when he prayed for it even as God, whose foreknowledge cannot err, foreknew that he would pray in such a way that He would have to grant such a prayer. Therefore what was foreknown by Him was necessarily going to happen.”
§ 81. From this passage of Augustine, Nicholas of Lyra has taken the distinction which he uses in his commentary on Job 14. He says that the establishment of this end can be understood in two ways: in one way as it is in the ordinance of God, and in this way people cannot surpass the ends of human life by anticipating or postponing them, because His providence is infallible; in the second way, as it is in its exterior effect insofar as there is a definite period of human life on the basis of natural causes, and in some cases it is greater or less depending on the variety of one’s physical constitution. Accordingly, the limits of one’s life can be cut short by poor guidance, the sword, or other circumstances.
Eighth.
§ 82. Up to this point we have been showing how divine providence sustains and governs created things in general. Let us see how it concurs specifically with human actions. The eighth aphorism then must be: The providence of God concurs differently in relation to good actions of men than in relation to their evil actions. However, because some actions are good in civic terms and others are good in spiritual terms, we must treat the two distinctly.
§ 83. In actions that are good in civic terms, the providence of God occurs in such a way that it not only sustains the active nature and bestows the power to act, but it also commands, approves, and assists those actions. Meanwhile, in particular, it stirs up even unregenerate people to do them, and, contrary to the intent of those who do them, it applies them toward good ends. In this way it is said that God “called” King Cyrus and “grasped his right hand” (Isa. 45:1, 3).
§ 84. As to actions that are good in spiritual terms, God commands and approves them in such a way that He Himself causes and works them through the Holy Spirit, because “we are not sufficient of ourselves to think or do anything as coming from us” (2 Cor. 3:5). Now, after we are reborn by the Holy Spirit, we are driven in such a way that we also act; that is, one’s will cooperates (συνεργεῖ) through powers that are not of nature but are given by the grace of the Holy Spirit, and it is an active or cooperative instrument. We shall say more on this subject in our commonplace On the Powers of Free Choice [Commonplace XIV].
§ 85. As to evil actions, on the other hand, God does not command nor will nor aid them, nor does He drive people to them. We shall have to explain clearly how divine providence concurs with them so that we do not set up God as an idle spectator of them.
1 On first and second causes, see above, p. 58 n. 6.
2 In the ancient world, the acidic juice of the fig tree was used as rennet to curdle milk. Aristotle and those who followed his physiology did not understand generation as occurring with sperm and egg, but rather saw the female womb as fertile ground within which the male seed grew, or in this case “coagulated,” with the mother’s blood. Cf. On Christ (1625 Exegesis, Commonplace IV), §§ 54 (6), 90 (5), 103, 106.