Providence and History

THE STUDY OF HISTORY IS SOMETIMES CALLED "THE STUDY of His story." This play on words reflects the idea that all of history is the unfolding manifestation of divine providence. This was a prevailing view in the nineteenth century, when philosophers were preoccupied with devising a comprehensive philosophy of history. Hegel, for example, spoke of history as a process of collecting ideas. Marx sought to explain history in terms of the conflict of economic forces. The buzzword of the period then was evolution, which described history as a progressive development moving from the simple to the complex, marching inexorably toward a zenith point, or "omega point," of progress.

The nineteenth century was a period of unprecedented optimism. Faith in education and science led philosophers to believe that mankind was "coming of age," moving out of historical childhood and adolescence and toward full maturity, where disease, poverty, warfare, and social ills would all be solved.

There was a relentless confidence in the innate goodness of the human spirit. Human achievement was expected to usher in a utopian world.

The outbreak of World War I at the beginning of the twentieth century burst the bubble of optimism. And even this "war to end all wars" wasn't. A Bavarian paperhanger was not pleased with the terms of the Treaty of Versailles and promised to dance a jig in Paris when Germany got its revenge and the Lebensraum (additional territory) he promised. He danced his jig . . . over the corpses of six million Jews. The Holocaust spawned a generation of pessimistic existential philosophers later popularized by the beatnik movement.

Utopia lived up to its Greek meaning: "no place."

Sorokim of Harvard cataloged the first half of the twentieth century as the most violent century in recorded history—and that was before Vietnam, Desert Storm, Bosnia, the Palestinian wars, and a host of other international conflicts that have marked our time. By Sorokim's analysis the two most peaceful centuries of Western history were the first and the nineteenth. Philosophers began to ask if the promised evolution of human civilization was in fact a devolution.

The Biblical View of History

Is there a transcendent plan to world history? The Bible clearly teaches that there is. The biblical view of history stands in stark contrast to the ancient Greek view.

The "God is dead" philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche, wrote his doctoral dissertation on the conflict between two views of history in the ancient Greek world. On the one hand was the dominant view of the classical period symbolized by the Apollo figure. It was the view of telos, of order, harmony, and symmetry. The art of classical Greece depicted the forms of correspondence and coherence. Chaos was repudiated in favor of cosmos. On the other hand, there was the view symbolized by Dionysius. The Dionysius cult was known for its wild orgies known as Dionysian frenzies; here chaos triumphed over cosmos.

Nietzsche adopted the Dionysius model. He spoke of the victory of the "myth of eternal recurrence." This is a cyclical view of history, which, like the marathon dance in the movie They Shoot Horses, Don't They? goes round and round and round with no definite beginning and no point of termination.

This pessimistic view of history actually antedated the Greeks; it is described in the book of Ecclesiastes in the negative view of a life that is not lived "under heaven" but rather "under the sun." "Vanity of vanities," says the Preacher; "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity."

What profit has a man from all his labor In which he toils under the sun?

One generation passes away, and another generation comes; But the earth abides forever.

The sun also rises, and the sun goes down, And hastens to the place where it arose.

The wind goes toward the south, And turns around to the north; The wind whirls about continually, And comes again on its circuit.

All the rivers run into the sea, Yet the sea is not full; To the place from which the rivers come, There they return again.

All things are full of labor; Man cannot express it.

The eye is not satisfied with seeing, Nor the ear filled with hearing.

That which has been is what will be, That which is done is what will be done, And there is nothing new under the sun. (Eccles. 1:1-9) The tone of despair in this passage does not reflect the prevailing biblical world view. It states the perspective of the skeptic whose gaze does not reach beyond the sun. The cry "Vanity of vanities" is the credo of the nihilist who finds no ultimate meaning to human existence. It is the cry of the secularist whose life is

bound by the dimensional wall of the present that has no access to eternity. The vanity mentioned is not the vanity of pride, or hubris; it is the vanity of futility.

We could translate the words this way: Futility of futility, all is futility.

The emphasis on futility is linked to a view of history that is cyclical. It describes a situation in which the sun rises and the sun sets in a repetitive pattern that seems unceasing. The naturalistic skepticism that was the hallmark of Papa Hemingway is reflected in the title of one of his most important works, The Sun Also Rises. Likewise, the wind goes to the south and then turns back again, making a circuit. These images buttress the conclusion that there is nothing new under the sun and anticipate the Shakespearean lines: A poor player struts his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more. ... It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

The cyclical view of history is the idiot's tale. It is full of passion, of deep care and concern, but it doesn't mean anything ultimately.

This kind of pessimism is pervasive in our day. Ours is an age of secularism, and this secularism is not merely a cultural form, or a way of life. It is a world view.

A. Harvey Cox explained in his book The Secular City that the word secular is derived from one of two Latin words that were used to describe the world in which we live. One of those words, mundus, refers to this world in its spatial dimension, the here of the "here and now" (hie et nunc). It is the word from which the English word mundane is derived. The other word is saeculum, which refers to this world in its temporal dimension. It is the now, or the nunc, of the "here and now."

The core concept of secularism has to do with history. It assumes that all of history is locked into the here and now. There is time but no eternity. There is no access to the eternal, nothing that transcends time as we experience it day to day and moment to moment. We are people who "only go around once" so we go for the gusto now because the now is all there is or ever will be. Secularism as an ism has no place for the providence of God in its thinking because it has no place for the eternal.

By contrast, the Hebrew concept of history is linear. It is not cyclical. A circle has no starting point and no end point. The linear view of history has a beginning. This is the first lesson of sacred Scripture with respect to history. The opening words of Genesis declare, "In the beginning." Thus the first three words of the Bible are on a collision course with secular views of life and the world. The fourth word is even more so, "In the beginning God. . . ." We don't even have to get to the fifth word, created, to reach the point of conflict between Christianity and secularism.

The biblical view of history starts with a beginning in time. In fact it starts with the beginning of time. We cannot conceive of time itself except in physical categories. We measure time by relative motion between two or more objects: a second hand moving around a dial with numbers on it or a shadow passing over the surface of a sundial or sand seeping through an hourglass. Duration is a kind of motion, and without physical objects we have no concept of motion. Time remains an enigma to us in this regard.

We use the expressions "time marches on" or "time flies" (tempus fugit) to refer to the chronological movement of time. The biblical view sees an endpoint, a purpose, or telos, to this march, or flight, of time. History has a goal, which is established in eternity by God Himself. The idea that history is meaningful and purposeful is integral to the doctrine of the providence of God.

In modern skeptical and critical views of the Bible it is often said that the "history" with which the Bible is concerned is not ordinary history but a special kind of history called Heilsgeschicte by the Germans. This is "salvation history" or, as it is sometimes called, redemptive history. With these categories at work, many have concluded that the Bible's relationship to ordinary history is either nonexistent or superfluous and that it doesn't matter whether the biblical record is accurate historically. What matters, they say, is the revelation of salvation history.

Perhaps the most important New Testament critic of the twentieth century has been Rudolf Bultmann. Bultmann, the founder of the Bultmannian School of New Testament Theology introduced a new and radical system of interpretation of the Bible tailor-made to accommodate the Bible to modern world views.

Convinced that the biblical authors worked from an antiquated and erroneous view of the world and history Bultmann sought to establish a new theology which he called a "theology of timelessness." Salvation, for Bultmann, is neither linear nor historical; it is punctiliar, occurring at a decisive point. This means salvation is not something that is wrought in space and time on the horizontal plane of world history. Rather, salvation is vertical. It occurs in a "moment," which in a way analogous to Descartes's "point" is something that takes up time but has no definite duration. How long is a moment? How many moments are there in a second? A minute? An hour? It happens "suddenly from above" in an existential encounter, a decisive moment of faith.

Bultmann ripped salvation out of its biblical and historical context. His view of history and his view of redemption are utterly foreign to biblical categories and reflect more of an existential revision of Christianity than biblical faith. Historic Christianity stands or falls with its tie to ordinary history. Dutch New Testament scholar Hermann Ridderbos once remarked that though it is true that biblical history is redemptive history, it is also redemptive history.

Perhaps Bultmann's most vigorous critic was the European scholar Oscar Cullmann. Cullmann wrote three books, a polemical trilogy aimed chiefly at Bultmann. The first of these was entitled Christus und der Zeit, or Christ and Time. In this volume Cullmann explored the various words used in the New Testament with respect to references to time. He examined Jesus' use of the term hour as He frequently referred to His hour that had "not yet come." He pointed out the significance of two Greek words, chronos and kairos, that can be and have been translated by the English word time.

The term chronos refers to the ordinary moment-to-moment passing of time. It captures what we call "chronology." We get words like chronicle or chronometer from this Greek term. The word kairos is a bit more exotic. We do not have an exact corresponding term for it in English. The closest I can come to it is the English word historic. We can make a distinction between the historic and the historical. Everything that happens in time is historical, but not everything that occurs in time is historic. We reserve the word historic for events that are of crucial import for history, that appear to change or alter the course of history.

For example, the signing of the Declaration of Independence was not only an

historical event in American history, it was an historic event. Likewise such events as the stock market crash, the bombing of Pearl Harbor, and the assassination of John F. Kennedy were historic events.

In the New Testament, a kairotic event is one that is pregnant in significance. It is a moment in which the past reaches a point of culmination and has determining significance for everything that follows after it. The birth of Christ was such an event, as were His baptism, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension, as well as the events that occurred at Pentecost. In the Old Testament the Flood and the Exodus would be considered kairotic events. These events are "loaded" with redemptive historical significance and reveal something of God's purpose in history. God's work of redemption takes place in and through the arena of history. A kairos is not something that is trans-historical. It does not take place in some noumenal, or mythical, realm. It takes place in real time and in real places involving real people. This is the fundamental difference between history and myth. As critics of Cullmann have pointed out, the Bible is not a book of mythology. Jewish religion is already demythologized and differs markedly from other ancient mythic religions in its approach to sober history.

The Greeks didn't care if Athena really was born de novo (anew) from the head of Zeus as a matter of historical record. Christianity does care whether Jesus really was the incarnation of God in history and if He really did rise from the dead in space and time. Peter said it this way: For we did not follow cunningly devised fables when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of His majesty. For He received from God the Father honor and glory when such a voice came to Him from the Excellent Glory: "This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." And we heard this voice which came from heaven when we were with Him on the holy mountain.

And so we have the prophetic word confirmed, which you do well to heed as a light that shines in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts. (2 Pet. 1:16-19) The New Testament writers sought to give an account of what they saw with their eyes and heard with their ears. They stood in sharp contrast to the writers of

Gnostic literature who avoided knowledge received via the senses. The New Testament is not a Gnostic book. It is a record that purports to declare what really happened in space and time.

The idea of kairos concerns not only pregnant moments in history but also the end, or consummation, of history. It deals not only with things that have occurred, with things past, but also with things that have not yet happened, with things future. We see this in an interesting encounter that Jesus has with a demon: When He had come to the other side, to the country of the Gergesenes, there met Him two demon-possessed men, coming out of the tombs, exceedingly fierce, so that no one could pass that way. And suddenly they cried out, saying, "What have we to do with You, Jesus, You Son of God? Have You come here to torment us before the time?"

Now a good way off from them there was a herd of many swine feeding. So the demons begged Him, saying, "If You cast us out, permit us to go away into the herd of swine."

And He said to them, "Go." So when they had come out, they went into the herd of swine. And suddenly the whole herd of swine ran violently down the steep place into the sea, and perished in the water.

Then those who kept them fled; and they went away into the city and told everything, including what had happened to the demon-possessed men. (Matt. 8:28-33) At first glance this passage seems to suggest that Jesus negotiated with demons.

They recognized Him as the Son of God and complained that He would torment them "before the time." The word in the Greek text is kairos. The demons evidently knew that God had appointed a particular time, a kairotic moment in the future, when they would be subject to divine wrath and torment, presumably when they were destined to be cast into the pit of hell. They also knew that although all authority on heaven and earth had been given to the Son of God, that authority did not include changing the timetable for future events

established in eternity by the Father.

In any case, Jesus did not send the demons to hell. My guess is that He did not do this precisely because the demons were correct. It was not the time, or the kairos, for this. He did cast the demons out of the men. It was the time for these men's redemption and release from the torment they experienced at the hands of the demons. It was their time for redemption but not the time for the demons' ultimate punishment.

Some (perhaps they were animal rights activists) have complained that Jesus caused needless suffering for innocent pigs by sending the demons into them.

This accusation forgets the order of creation and the role mankind plays as vice regent in God's world. We have been given dominion over the animal kingdom.

Of course this is not a license for abusing animals, but in this case Jesus used the pigs as instruments of redemption for two human beings. This was not the first time in Jewish history when animals were sacrificed for the sake of mankind.

The principle was deeply rooted in the sacrificial system of the Old Testament.

(We might also ask what a farmer in this region was doing herding swine, since pigs were considered unclean animals.) No, the demons were not unfairly punished; they were forced to submit to the authority of Jesus and had to obey His command to leave the men.

All moments of history, the entire chronology of time, are in the hands of and under the supervision of Providence. The specific moments of kairotic events are rich, not only in their redemptive value, but in their revelatory value as well. The specific bears witness to the general. The events of redemption that happen within the framework of ordinary history give us the deeper assurance that all of history is in His hands. It means the crisis moments in our own lives are not expressions of vanity or futility. The tale of history is not left to idiots.

The Bible is concerned with a time that is moving in an appointed direction.

Times do matter. The former times have passed away, and we currently live in the "last times." The present time is a time of crisis for the world, a time in which every moment counts forever. It is the time when all men everywhere are called by God to repent and embrace Christ, as Paul declared at Mars Hill:

Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent, because He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead." (Acts 17:30-31)