Dogmatics 50 Captioning provided By: Caption First, Inc. P.O. Box 1924 Lombard, IL 60148 ******** This text is being provided in a rough draft format. Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) is provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings. ******** >> We don't see much of God's action in the world. Well, I mean, it isn't all that apparent. The world pretty much seems to run itself. How is God involved in the world? >> David, let me begin by saying that the question you're asking about belongs to the topic of divine providence, divine providence. Sometimes this is also called continuous or continual creation. We touched on this already when talking about the small catechism on the first article of the creed, and its accents. Its stress is not on God's work in the beginning, but rather on God's work to make me and to sustain and preserve my life. That accent is a matter of providence. When the catechism teaches us that God not only gave me my eyes, ears, members, reason and the like, but still preserves them, that's talking about providence. When the catechism speaks about the clothing and shoes, the house and home and all those things that God gives for me in my life, that's talk about providence. When the catechism speaks about God doing this out of His goodness and mercy, that's a matter of providence. Divine providence is God's care for creation. God's care for everything that He's made. In Genesis, we learned that on the seventh day God rested from His work of creation. But that doesn't mean that God rested altogether. You might say that what God did was to continue to be active in caring for everything that He made. The scriptures teach us that the triune God made all things in the beginning, but they also teach us that the triune God continues to take care of us and to direct not only us but all things in the universe. That is to say that all things have their existence because of God and they continue to have their existence because of the work of and the plan of God. As a dogmatic topic, then, as a topic, a matter that we look at in dogmatic theology, divine providence is intimately connected with the doctrine of creation. In fact, the two are impossible to separate and even hard to distinguish cleanly. But the point about speaking of providence as a topic is not to make a distinction with creation or some other topic, but rather to make sure that we pay close attention to God's ongoing work in the world, God's ongoing care and direction and guidance of creation. As Mark Kemnet put it: God will not depart from this workmanship as a carpenter who lives a house when He has built it or a ship which has been constructed. But under the article of creation, we must always understand the perpetual preservation and sustaining of long-created things. And this understanding is necessary for the church, so that it may know that God is daily at work in the world and embracing with His Fatherly care especially those to whom He has given His work and is defending them, watching over them, nourishing and freeing them from all dangers and troubles and is unwilling to do anything which would take away anything good from those who seek the Lord. Now, the idea that God would care for everything that He made is consistent with what we learned about His work of creating in the first place. Remember that when we talked about why God created, we acknowledged that God created freely. But we also acknowledged that it was a consistent thing to say, consistent with His character to speak about God creating out of His goodness because He is love. Now, it also makes good sense to see that not only did God once make the universe out of goodness and love, but that He would continue to be good and loving toward it. And the doctrine of providence brings that out. Again, God has not just created the world and set it in motion. He's not like Kemnet said a carpenter who leaves the house once it's constructed, or a ship builder who let's the ship go once he has made it, or a watch maker who sells the watch once he has made that. Christians believe and teach that God personally made all things and then is personally involved in all things, in every person's life, in all matters in the universe, from the smallest to the greatest, from the most fleeting to the most enduring. Now, if we want to unpack the notion of divine providence a little further, then we might consider the question what does providence consist of? And it would seem to consist of at least these things: First, God's concern for what He has made. That His presence with His creation and then His work to sustain, to aid, to preserve, and to guide everything that He has made. And then discuss also His activity in and with creation. How He's involved in the activity of the world. In other words, what we want to do here are look at some basic ways in which the Bible and by which Christians have spoken of God's providential activity. A basic way to speak about that in the Bible, a basic way that Christians have done so, is to speak about God having concern for creation. He is even concerned with seemingly low and insignificant creatures. As Jesus said famously in the sermon on the mount: Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air. They do not sew or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow? They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not only Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothed the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will He not much more clothe you, you of little faith? And the same kind of concern for all creation is reflected in these words of Jesus. Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from the will of your Father. And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So don't be afraid, you are worth more than many sparrows. And we can say that God is concerned with both the good and the evil as, again, Jesus says He causes the sun to rise on the evil and the good and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. So, speaking of God's concern for all of creation for the good and evil, the righteous and the unrighteous, this is one way of speaking about God's providential activity. Another way of speaking of God's providential activity is to speak about God's presence. When things go wrong, terribly wrong, how do we react? Maybe something like this. Where was God? And what constitutes a powerful confession of faith in the face of trouble, anxiety? How about the words of Psalm 46: God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. What we're getting at here is that God's care for us is often thought of in terms of His presence. We have talked already about God's presence, and when we're considering it in this context we have to realize that we can understand God's presence in two different ways. Now, first, we should recognize and acknowledge that God is always and everywhere personally present. This is a notion of God's omnipresence. God's care for His creation happens not in a distance, but presently. Right here, with us. God is active. God is working. God again has not simply set the world in motion and is watching it and perhaps acting here or there. But He is always and everywhere involved. And that's the notion of His presence. God is personally active in everyone's life. God is personally present throughout the universe, and so nothing happens by chance or by accident. That's one notion of presence, to go along with providence. But, second, we also want to understand when the scriptures speak about God as hiding His face or withdrawing. From what we have just said and from what you have talked about in terms of God's omnipresence, we cannot say that what is hidden or withdrawn is God himself. God is always and everywhere present and active. But then what can this mean? What can it mean for God to hide His face? What can it mean for God to withdraw from us? What can it mean for God to be away from us? What is missing, what is hidden in this case is the sense of God's care for you or for me, for us. And, of course, when this is the case, then a mere explanation, something like this: No, God is right here. God is omnipresent. God is everywhere. That kind of explanation provides no comfort, for what's wrong is not a faulty doctrine of providence. No. What is wrong is that God's grace is not evident. God's love is not evident. And there the way to approach that is to make the promise of God's grace, to assure them that God will not abandon or God will not leave you, that he will not fail to make good on His word. But those are ways in which we speak about presence in terms of God's providential activity. God is always present and active, that's His providence. And God especially promises to be good to His people, in that way being a help, being present. Another aspect of our talk about providence that is in terms of sustaining or preserving, Paul brought this up when he spoke to the Greeks on Mars hill. God, He says, gives to every person life and breath and everything, and He said of God in Him we live and move and have our dream. God gives life and God sustains and preserve life. That's another dimension of God's providence. And we recognize that, for instance, every time we pray: Give us this day our daily bread. Now, finally, then, in -- after talking about these aspects of providence, let's relate the doctrine of providence in God's providential activity to personal faith. Now, recall what the large catechism said about God's creative work in the beginning. God's work in the beginning is to make all things. God's creative work, you might say, defines who God is. Again, from the large catechism, if you were to ask a young child, my dear, what kind of God could you have? What do you know about Him? (Do you Judge) He or she could say first: My God is the Father who made heaven and earth. Aside from this one alone, I regard nothing as God, for there is no one else who can create heaven and earth. Now, in the same way we can understand providence as a basic defining work of God. In other words, providence also provides a basic answer to the question who is God. That's what much of the small catechism's explanation is about, teaching us who God is by what He does for us, by giving us life, by giving us all things that we need for life, by preserving, sustaining, and watching over us and doing so because He is good and merciful. The same applies to the large catechism's discussion of God in the first commandment, which is you shall have no other God. The large catechism begins by saying what does to have a God mean or what is God? Answer: A God is the term for that to which we are to look for all good and in which we are to find refuge in all need. Therefore, to have a God is nothing else than to trust and believe in that one with your whole heart. Giving all that is good and providing refuge from all that harms or in times of need, that sums up what providence is all about. And so providential activity sums us just what a God is and who our God is. Providence then is not just something we know and believe about God. To understand God as provident is something that we believe in. Let me say that again. This is it. Providence, then, is not simply something we believe about God, God's providence is something that we believe in, just as --