De Moor X:1: Providence as Continued Creation

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PROVIDENCE is, as it were, a continued Creation.  That is, here in Creation and Providence is the same Efficiency on the part of God, that is, the Efficacious Decree of the Will of God; the same also is the principal Effect that it produces, namely, the Creature’s Essence and Existence with its Faculties and Operations (which are added in Providence).  Yet each Act differs with respect to Mode, in which the Object of the Action comes to be considered; which, when by Creation it receives its being, in Providence it is contemplated as already Existing, and by the same it obtains the continuance of its Existence, its continued Being, and is variously governed in its being and acting.  And so not incorrectly is Providence called the Corollary of Creation or Continued Creation, as it were:  but less properly and truly would it be called repeated Creation or continuous Reproduction, as it were, as WITTICH[1] speaks, Theologia pacifica, § LXIX.  For, 1.  at this point Scripture teaches us to distinguish each Act from the other, when it affirms that God rested from the work of Creation after the first hexameron was completed, but that He continuously works with respect to Providence, Genesis 2:2, 3; John 5:17:  but, if in Providence a repeated Creation obtains anew in each moment, how would God be said to have rested and ceased from the work of Creation?  2.  Creation is τῶν μὴ ὄντων, of things that are not; Providence concerns τὰ ὄντα, things that are:  Creation is of things creatable, Providence of things created.  He preserves by Providence, what was given by Creation.  3.  Nothing is reproduced except what has ceased to be, as nothing is created, except what was not previously:  conversely, nothing is upheld and governed by Providence, except what is.  Now, since Creatures, which God continually preserves by His Providence, either in their own individuality, or in their kinds, which are preserved by the succession of individuals, ought never to be said to perish; you would not so aptly say that they are reproduced by repeated Creation by that very Act of God, whereby they are continually kept from destruction, and thus from the necessity of their Reproduction:  see MARESIUS,[2] Systemate Theologico, common place IV, § 29, note a, page 157.  4.  Furthermore, if with the Cartesians you believe Mind to be mere Cogitation, and then in addition you say that the Providence of God concerning our Actions is not to be conceived of after the manner of Concursus or Predetermination, but by continuous Creation or Reproduction of our mind, as BURMAN[3] speaks, Synopsi Theologiæ, book I, chapter XLIV, § 38-40; in what manner is transferred unto man the blame of the viciousness of those Actions, with God being free from blame Himself, since in Creation man is completely passive, with the effect to be ascribed to God alone, without any Cooperation of the creature to be produced being added to the initiative of God?  But so much the less does Cartesianism admit here a formal distinction between Creation and Providence, because according to that maxim of Descartes, even if God in the beginning had given no other form than Chaos, provided that after the constituted laws of nature He lent His Concursus to act, as He is wont, by this alone all things purely natural, of which sort we now see, could have been brought to pass with time:  see VAN MASTRICHT, Gangræna Novitatum Cartesianarum, posterior Section, chapter XXXI, § 2-8, pages 485-490.  In favor of continuous Creation or Reproduction of our mind, BURMAN, in his Epistola ad Limburgium, § 13, after Burmannorum Pietatem, page 96, expressed himself more agreeably, that Preservation is nothing but Creation continued.

[1] Christoph Wittich (1625-1687) was a Dutch Theologian and Cartesian.  He served as Professor of Theology at Duisburg (1653-1654), Nijmegen (1655-1671), and Leiden (1671-1687).

[2] Maresius, or Samuel Desmarets (1599-1673), was a French Huguenot minister and polemist.  He held various ministerial posts, and served as Professor of Theology at Sedan (1625-1636), and at Groningen (1643-1673).

[3] Frans Burman (1628-1679) was a Dutch Reformed theologian and a Cartesian.  He served as Professor of Theology (1662-1671) and Professor of Church History (1671-1679) at Utrecht.