Chapter XI: Refutation of Arguments with which Providence is Attacked
CHAPTER XI: REFUTING THE ARGUMENTS WITH WHICH PROVIDENCE IS ATTACKED
§ 142. Therefore this concludes our discussion on the difficult question of how the governance of divine providence functions in all things and in the lives and activities of people. If one keeps the words published here before his eyes, he will easily escape the Scylla of the fated necessity of the Stoics and the Charybdis of the blind luck of the Epicureans.
What to think about the prosperity of the ungodly.
§ 143. Chemnitz is correct in pointing out that, when we think about providence in the midst of serious temptations, “we are all by nature either Stoics or Epicureans.” However, we tend to be disturbed especially by the prosperity of the ungodly and the calamities of the devout, for we draw this conclusion: “If all things are subject to the providence of God, surely things should turn out well for the good and badly for the wicked.” However, we must know that the reasons for this inequity are very just, and we shall explain these in their own place [§ 146]. Let us look especially at their end, Job 21:7: “Why do the wicked live, reach old age, and grow mighty in wealth?” This is immediately followed by v. 18: “They will be like straw before the face of the wind and like chaff which the storm scatters.” Ps. 73:2–3: “My feet had almost stumbled because I was envious of the arrogant when I saw the peace of those who had sinned.” But v. 18 follows quickly: “You have placed them in slippery places; You make them fall into ruin.” Jer. 12:1: “Why does the way of the wicked prosper? Why do all who lie and act wickedly thrive?” However, this is quickly followed by v. 3: “You gather them like sheep for the slaughter and prepare them for the day of slaughter.” (See our earlier disputation On the Nature of God [1610 Loci Theologici, locus 3], the chapter on the justice of God [§§ 149–62], where we treated this argument in detail.)
Arguments against the providence of God: Is God concerned about oxen? 1 Corinthians 9.
§ 144. Here we must explain the apostle’s statement, 1 Cor. 9:9: “Is God concerned about oxen?” This certainly must not be understood absolutely, as if God has utterly no concern for beasts of burden and other creatures of lesser dignity. In fact, He is “the God of the spirits of all flesh” (Num. 16:22; 27:16). Ps. 136:25: “He gives food to all flesh.” Ps. 147:9: “He gives to the beasts their food.” Ps. 36:6: “He saves men and beasts.” Rather, we must take the words comparatively, that God does not have the sort of concern for oxen as to give the Law for their sake, as the context shows, for the apostle adds in the verse immediately following: “Does not Scripture say this for our sake? Were not these things written on our account?” [1 Cor. 9:10]. Ambrose explains this as follows: “God is not concerned about cattle for their own sakes but on our account; it was for our sake that He created them, and therefore He cares chiefly about us.” Jerome (commentary on Habakkuk 1) explains it in this way: “God’s concern for animals and humans is not equal.”
[That] if providence is established, the choice of man is removed.
§ 145. Our confidence about providence is upset also by other thoughts. (I) “If providence did exist, no human choice would be left.”
We respond. Augustine writes (De civ. Dei, bk. 5, ch. 9): “It does not follow that if God has established a certain order of all causes, then there is nothing [left] in the choice of our will. In fact, our very wills are in the order of causes which is certain to God and which is contained in His foreknowledge, because human wills are also the cause of human actions,” etc. De civ. Dei, bk. 7, ch. 30: “God so administers everything He created that He also permits them to exercise and execute their own impulses.” This statement of Augustine is cited by Gerson (De consol. theol., bk. 2, pro. 4), and from it he concludes that God not only preserves the natures of things and their powers to act but also holds all things so subject to His dominion that He is able to turn aside their ordinary courses. He says: “Surely, if God allows things to execute their own impulses, it follows that He can also change them; otherwise He would no longer be permitting things to act, but they would act whether He wanted them to or not.” Therefore this is how we must think of it: as the first cause does not exclude a second cause,1 nor a universal its own particular,2 so the providence of God does not remove freedom from the human will in matters that are subject to it.
Many things happen in a confused and disorderly fashion.
§ 146. (II) “If providence were to exist, why do so many things happen in a confused and disorderly fashion?”
We respond. Augustine (De ordine) teaches that “God is the Creator and Preserver of order”; however, the nature of that order is not always nor everywhere obvious to our dull minds, especially since the counsel of God’s wisdom has been concealed from our eyes. The governance of the world depends on the wisdom, goodness, righteousness, and power of God. But if some things in particular do not appear to us to be in harmony with the goodness of God, they are in harmony with God’s justice, and vice versa. Wisdom 8:1: “[Wisdom] orders all things well.” Wisdom 12:15: “Since You are righteous You rule all things righteously.” Wisdom 15:1: “But You, our God, are kind and true, patient and controlling all things in mercy.” Damascenus writes well (Orth. fid., bk. 2, ch. 29): “We must wonder at all the works of His foreknowledge. We must praise them all. We must accept them all without question, even if they appear unjust to many, because the foreknowledge of God is beyond our understanding and comprehension.” Consequently, we should not judge the works of God before the end of the show [ante quintum actum], for if we make a guess on the basis of the beginning or the middle, we would not be doing anything else than trying to make a decision about a statue by Phidias3 on the basis of one finger. We must first consider all the parts of the body if we want to grasp the proportion and symmetry of the entire work. We cite the statement of Bishop Fulbert: “Because the human mind of itself is incapable of investigating the causes of God’s disposition, it should reverently close the eyes of erroneous debate to that which it cannot comprehend.”
The great inconsistency of storms.
§ 147. (III) “If the providence of God exists, why are storms so inconsistent?”
We respond. Augustine writes (De Gen. ad lit., bk. 5, ch. 21):
There are some who think that chance and fortune drive the part of the world that is earthly and human and of the lower atmosphere, which moistens the lands and waters with its exhalations where the winds and clouds rise up. But against such people the psalm speaks which, after describing the praise of the celestial bodies, turns itself also to things below and says: “Praise the Lord from the earth, you great sea creatures and all deeps, fire and hail, snow and frost, stormy wind fulfilling His word!” [Ps. 148:7–8]. For nothing seems as susceptible to chance as all those stormy and turbulent qualities with which the surface of this lower heaven (which also not undeservedly is given the name “earth”) is changed and altered. However, when it adds “fulfilling His word,” it shows clearly that the order of those things, subject to the command of God, is unknown to us4 rather than absent from the nature of the universe.
[That] the various monsters and natural defects are opposed to providence.
§ 148. (IV) “If providence does exist, where do monsters5 and natural defects come from?” We respond. Aristotle (De generat. animal., bk. 4, ch. 4) calls monsters “deviations (παρεκβάσεις) of nature.” Nevertheless we must be aware that monsters do not result apart from the intent of the first cause or the nature that makes nature, that is, God Himself; for His providence precedes the outcomes of everything and His wisdom arranges them. Augustine (De civ. Dei, bk. 16, ch. 8): “God is the Creator of all things, and He certainly knows where and when things should or should have been created. Knowing the beauty of the whole, He stitched it together from the likeness or difference of its pieces. He who cannot look at the whole, however, is offended by the supposed deformity of a piece because he does not know with what it fits or to what it is related.” Thomas ([ST,] part 1, q. 22, art. 2): “Nothing removes itself from the order of the universal cause, but sometimes from the order of a particular cause.” Boethius (De consol., bk. 4, pres. 4) explains this with the example of lines which are drawn from the center to the circumference and are held in by the area. Therefore if a line does not fall onto this point of the circumference, it must fall onto another. “So also in nature, if something has gone away from the order commanded it, it will fall back into another order.”
1 See above, p. 58 n. 6.
2 See below, § 149, for a discussion of the universal cause (God) and particular causes.
3 The Athenian Phidias (ca. 480–430 BC) was one of the most famous sculptors of classical Greece. On the finger of one of his most famous statues, Zeus in Olympia, he inscribed “Pantarkes is beautiful,” meaning either “the almighty [Zeus] is beautiful” or “Pantarces [a certain young boy] is beautiful.” Centuries later, Clement of Alexandria disapproved of the statue because it was pagan and implied homosexuality; cf. Clement of Alexandria, Exhortation to the Heathen 4 (ANF 2:187).
4 Read nos with Cotta instead of non.
5 I.e., deformed births.