Providence and History

Scripture focus

And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.

Romans 8:28 KJV

At a glance

Summary of the chapter

Edward Gibbon called history "little more than the register of the crimes, follies and misfortunes of mankind," and Voltaire dismissed much of it as "accepted fiction" — verdicts that reflect a wider Enlightenment sense that human events are too chaotic to carry any real meaning. Edwards's sermon series A History of the Work of Redemption answered this cynicism with an opposite conviction: history is a coherent, providentially governed narrative stretching from eternity to the Last Judgment.

Edwards's approach placed him within the old genre of the Christian "universal chronicle," running from Augustine's City of God through Bishop Bossuet, works that began with creation and treated the whole world rather than one nation's story. What distinguished Edwards's version was its strong eschatological reach: it did not merely narrate the past and describe the present but confidently extrapolated the future, treating heaven, earth, and hell as three interconnected theaters of one continuous divine action.

Scholars disagree sharply about the work's value. Perry Miller praised its 'revolutionary insight' that historical meaning is something interpreters actively construct, while Peter Gay dismissed it as 'thoroughly traditional' Calvinist doctrine dressed as narrative. John F. Wilson's more balanced judgment — that Edwards understood human history as the production of a play that God had authored — captures why Edwards's providence excludes both blind chance and impersonal historical law: history has an Author with a purpose.

Key points

• Gibbon and Voltaire, two leading Enlightenment historians, regarded history as largely meaningless — a record of crime and 'accepted fiction' rather than a coherent story.
• Edwards's A History of the Work of Redemption countered this with a fully providential reading of all history as one narrative moving toward redemption.
• Edwards's work stands in the old Christian genre of the 'universal chronicle,' alongside Augustine's City of God and Bossuet's Discourse on Universal History.
• Unlike most chronicles, Edwards's history boldly extrapolated the future, treating heaven, earth, and hell as three connected theaters of one continuous divine drama.
• Scholars remain divided: some, like Perry Miller, find in it a pioneering insight about interpreting history, while others, like Peter Gay, see only traditional Calvinist doctrine in narrative dress.

A line worth remembering

It was not national or folk history but an effort to delineate the entire story of God's dealings with humanity.

McClymond & McDermott The Theology of Jonathan Edwards, ch. 15

Related Scripture

• Daniel 2:21
• Acts 17:26
• Isaiah 46:9-10
• Ephesians 1:11

For reflection and discussion

1. How would viewing your own life's events as part of a single divine 'drama' change how you interpret hardship or disappointment?
2. What is the difference between believing history has an Author and purpose, versus believing it is simply cyclical or meaningless?
3. Where do you see God's providence at work in events that seemed, at the time, to be merely random or chaotic?