De Moor X:3: The Existence of Providence, Part 2

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All Atheists deny divine Providence; see STAPFER, Theologicæ polemicæ, tome 2, chapter VI, § 16:  likewise the Deists; see in the same place, chapter VII, § 1-4, who are refuted, § 27-51, and whose Objections against Providence are answered, § 52-133:  and also the Epicureans; see in the same place, chapter VIII, § 1, 2, 8, 9.  That Providence is everywhere denied by Chubb[1] in his works, LELAND shows, Beschouwing van de Schriften der Deisten, part 1, letter 12, pages 359, 360, letter 13, page 447.  If there be a Providence, Bolingbroke[2] contends, that it is conversant with entire Peoples, but not with individual Persons, or their words and deeds; see LELAND, part 2, section 1, letter 5, page 176; whose error LELAND refutes and resolves objections in favor of the same, letter 7, pages 229-269.

Objection α:  Things would be less perfect, and so less illustrative of the glory of God, than if they were created so perfect that they could subsist of themselves:  indeed, the industry of those artisans is wont especially to be commended, who build machines, with which once constructed, it is not necessary thereafter to apply the hand for their preservation.  Clocks are all the more perfect, the longer they are able to move without the application of a human hand.

Response:  1.  It is a comparison of dissimilar things:  for, a.  the dependence of no machine upon its maker is as great as that of the creature upon the Creator.  b.  No artisan without labor and toil influences or is able to influence the thing fashioned by his art:  hence a proof of his industry exists, that he fabricates works that subsist and endure of themselves for the longest possible time, without the hand and attention of their maker.

2.  But, that God created things fashioned by Himself, that they might not need His sustaining hand, to God, a.  would be ignominious, would make the creature like unto its Creator, and would rob God of the glory of His Independence and Primacy.  For, it belongs to supereminent Perfection, that even the most perfect things have an omni-modal dependence upon the influx of Him as the efficient cause (provided that this takes place without the labor and toil of Him upon whom they depend), and so the most perfect cause is not able willingly to deprive itself of this prerogative without the denial of His Independence:  although, b.  by no magnitude of work is that cause ever distracted or wearied.  Compare STAPFER, Theologicæ polemicæ, tome 2, chapter VII, § 52-56; REIMARUS, over de voornaamste Waarheden van den natuurlichen Godtsdienst, Part 8, § 1, pages 554-556.

Objection β:  Thus the blessed Rest of God is taken away.  That this is the Objection of the Epicureans, is evident from the things said above.  But our AUTHOR rightly Responds, 1.  Since God does all things by one act of His Will, His Blessedness is not able to be interrupted.  And so God’s Rest is no more interrupted by Providence than by Creation, Revelation 4:11.  2.  Since all vexatious labor and weariness is hence far removed, the provident care of the Universe is not able to be a nuisance to God, Isaiah 40:28.  Contrariwise, God cares for all things without care, moves all things while He Himself is immoveable, works all things without labor, concurs in all without fatigue, dispenses all without weariness.  He sees all with one glance, commands all with one nod, perfects all with a single word of power, Psalm 33:9:  compare STAPFER, Theologicæ polemicæ, tome 2, chapter VII, § 80-83.

Objection γ:  In this life the Lot of the Good and of the Evil is Unjust, since it is not good to the good, nor ill to the evil.  This was troubling Asaph, Psalm 73:2-14; and Jeremiah, Jeremiah 12:1, 2.  Solomon observed the same, Ecclesiastes 8:14.  The same scruple is set forth at length out of the Philosophers and Poets of the Gentiles by PFANNER, Systemate theologiæ Gentilis purioris, chapter VIII, § 7-9, pages 222-231.  That this apparently uneven distribution of the human Lot furnished occasion for the error of Epicurus, LACTANTIUS, among others, observes, divinibus Institutionibus, book III, chapter XVII:  Epicurus was seeing, that the good were continually vexed with adversities, poverty, toils, exiles, the loss of those held dear:  the evil, on the other hand, were happy, increasing in power, were held in honor:  he was seeing, that innocence was less safe, that crimes were committed with impunity:  he was seeing, that death was ravaging without discrimination of manners, without order and distinction of age:  …that in wars the better were defeated and perished.  But it was especially troubling, that men especially religious were afflicted with more grievous ills:  but to those that either were altogether neglecting the gods, or were not worshipping piously, the less inconveniences came, or none:  that also the very temples were set on fire with lightning, etc.  Hence the Pyrrhonians[3] also declare it to be impious to affirm that there is a Deity exercising providence over men.  At the same time, the very Gentiles also set forth many reasons in order to show, that the prosperity of the Wicked did no injury to divine Justice or Providence, which reasons PFANNER collected and reviewed in the same place, § 11, pages 232-237; while in § 12, pages 232-237, he similarly exhibits the reasons, which the writings of the Gentiles supply, whereby a response might be given to the Question, Why are good men so frequently vexed with calamities?  These he principally draws from the book of SENECA, Quare bonis viris mala accident, cum sit Providentia? in which, according to LACTANTIUS, divinibus Institutionibus, book V, chapter XXII, Seneca uttered many things not in complete worldly ignorance, but wisely and almost as if from heaven.

In order to resolve that difficulty, made famous in the disputations of the ancients, namely, Why evils happen to the good, and good things to the evil? refuge is not to be taken with Hobbes,[4] de Cive, chapter XV, § 5, 6, and Leviathan, chapter XXXI, page 168, in the sole Right of the superior Power of God, so that the Cause, why evils happen to the good, and good things to the evil, is solely that the Right of governing and punishing belongs to God by irresistible Power:  see COCQUIUS,[5] Hobbesianismi Anatome, locus X, chapter XIX, § 4, pages 281-284; VAN DE WYNPERSSE,[6] de Libertinismo, page 34.  But our AUTHOR, to remove this serious scruple against divine Providence, wants to be observed:

1.  That the place and time of μισθαποδοσίας/recompense does not properly obtain in this life, but in the following age; hence he warns that attention has to be paid to the end of the pious and impious, Psalm 37:35-40; 73:17-20.  AUGUSTINE, in book I de Civitate Dei, chapter VIII, writes:  If all sin were now buffeted with manifest punishment, it would be supposed that nothing was reserved for the final judgment.  On the other hand, if Deity did not now openly punish any sin, it would be believed that there is no divine Providence.  Now, this is properly the stadium in which we run our race; afterwards shall be distributed the βραβεῖον/prize.

2.  That not all are Good or Evil, who in external appearance seem to be such in the eyes of men.  Those that appear to be the best are able to be the worst hypocrites:  on the other hand, the sincerely good are able often to wrestle with the sinful infirmity of the flesh.

3.  That not all things are ultimately Good or Bad, which carnal men, not considering the end, judge to be such.

              a.  By Goods of the more common sort bestowed upon evil men God also manifests His Providence; who thus shows Himself to be consummately Good, by doing good even to the evil and ungrateful, Luke 6:35; and by the bonds of love[7] them εἰς μετάνοιάν ἄγει, He leads to repentance, Romans 2:4.  He shows His Freedom, Wisdom, and Longsuffering in delaying the punishment of the impious to an opportune time, for the δοκιμασίαν/trial of the pious also:  but, if the wicked abuse the divine Longsuffering and Grace to lasciviousness and hardening in sin, after this life the Deity offsets the slowness of vengeance by the grievousness of the punishment, and thus the greater goods bestowed upon them at last result in the aggravation of punishment.

              b.  On the other hand, if God withdraws certain external Goods from the pious, He does this so that they might not be an impediment to them in the way of salvation, Matthew 13:22; 19:23, 24.  The evils that the Deity brings to the pious are salutary for them; and in the directing of the same unto the good of the pious, and in the strengthening of the pious to bear them and to attain the end intended in them, God reveals His good Providence in an illustrious way, Romans 8:28; Hebrews 12:5-11.  The pious acknowledge this, Psalm 119:67, 71, and hence they even glory in afflictions, Romans 5:3-5.  Compare the extraordinary observation of PLATO himself, book X de Republica, page 760, Frankfurt edition:  τῷ δὲ θεοφιλεῖ οὐχ ὁμολογήσομεν, ὅσα γε ἀπὸ θεῶν γίγνεται, πάντα γίγνεσθαι ὡς οἷόν τε ἄριστα, εἰ μή τι ἀναγκαῖον αὐτῷ κακὸν ἐκ προτέρας ἁμαρτίας ὑπῆρχεν.  Οὕτως ἄρα ὑποληπτέον περὶ τοῦ δικαίου ἀνδρός, ἐάν τ’ ἐν πενίᾳ γίγνεται, ἐάν τ’ ἐν νόσοις, ἤ τινι ἄλλῳ τῶν δοκούντων κακῶν, ὡς τούτῳ ταῦτα εἰς ἀγαθόν τι τελευτήσει ζῶντι ἢ καὶ ἀποθανόντι.  Οὐ γὰρ δὴ ὑπόγε θεῶν ποτε ἀμελεῖται ὃς ἂν προθυμεῖσθαι ἐθέλῃ δίκαιος γίγνεσθαι, And shall we not agree that for the god-beloved, all things that come from the gods happen in the best possible way, unless some necessary evil was due to him from a former sin?  This, then, must be supposed about the righteous man:  that whether he falls into poverty, or into diseases or any other of the things reputed to be evils, these things will finally turn out for some good for him, either while he is living or even after death.  For by the gods, in any event, that man is never neglected who is willing and eager to become just.  To which things are consonant those things set forth out of SENECA’S de Providentia by GERRIT WILHELM VAN OOSTEN DE BRUYN, in his Dissertatione de Philosophia Gentile Doctrinæ moralis, pages 79, 80.

4.  To these things one may add, that it is not universally true, that in this life the Good fare ill, and the Evil fare well; since often in the exemplary punishments of the impious God by His provident benevolence preserves the pious from the common destruction; as it was seen in the case of Noah, preserved with his own from the common flood, and in the case of Lot, snatched from the burning of Sodom, 2 Peter 2:5-9.

A fitting conclusion is given to these considerations by the elegant verses of CLAUDIAN,[8] which are found at the beginning of book I in Ruffinum:

Reflection often brought doubt to my mind,

Whether the gods care for the earth, or in it is no

Ruler, and mortal affairs drift on uncertain chance.

For, when I sought the covenants of the ordered world,

And the prescribed bounds of the sea, and the courses of the year,

And the alternations of light and darkness:  then I thought all things

Are established by the counsel of God, etc.

But, when the affairs of men wrapped in such darkness

I saw, and the wicked happy and long flourishing,

And the pious vexed:  then collapsed my shaken

Religion, etc.

At last the punishment of Rufinus has cleared this confusion,

And absolved the gods:  to the heights of power no longer

Do I complain that the unjust have risen:  they are raised on high,

That their fall might be the more grievous, etc.

Compare STAPFER, Theologicæ polemicæ, tome 2, chapter VII, § 75-79; REIMARUS, over de voornaamste Waarheden van den natuurlichen Godtsdienst, Part 9, § 13-20, pages 639-663.  WALCH also, Miscellaneis Sacris, book II, Exercitation I, pages 229 and following, after he had demonstrated that the Providence of God truly exists, especially in § 9-26 shows, that the Calamities of the Pious detract nothing from this truth, but these very things exhibit the weightiest argument for the Providence of God.

The objection against the Providence of God drawn from this, that the license for crimes is so great, GROTIUS resolves, de Veritate Christianæ Religionis, book I, § 19.  To the objection against Providence, that the World is full of confusion and disorder, both in the physical Kingdom and in the moral, consult SPANHEIM’S Atheum convictum, sermon IV, pages 327-378; likewise STAPFER, Theologicæ polemicæ, tome 2, chapter VII, § 68-73.  That from the various dispensations of good and ills by divine Providence God is able to be accused of no indecent προσωποληψία, respect of persons, SPANHEIM shows at length, de Personarum Acceptione in Divinis, Disputation I, Disputation II, § 1, 5, 6, Disputation III, opera, tome 3, columns 1273-1279, 1281-1289.  Many that have for ages denied Providence are enumerated by BUDDEUS, de Atheismo et Superstitione, chapter III, § 1, pages 143-148, at the same time making mention of their principal objections, drawn, 1.  from the many things found in this world that are without any usefulness; whence it would follow, that such exist by accidental chance, but not that they proceed from an all-wise Being, taking care of all things.  2.  From the nearly infinite physical evils and miseries oppressing man from his birth to his death, which are not able to be reconciled with the goodness of a Deity.  3.  From moral evils, the permitting of which is altogether inconsistent with divine goodness.  4.  From the prosperity of the impious, while the pious have to contend with many calamities.  To each of which BUDDEUS then responds, and also LULOFS, ad Buddeum de Atheismo et Superstitione, chapter VII, § 1, to the first, pages 392, 400 (297, 298), to the second, pages 392, 393, 401-404 (299-303), to the third, pages 394, 404, 405 (304-307), to the fourth, pages 395, 396, 405, 406 (308).

[1] Thomas Chubb (1679-1747) was an English Deist.

[2] Henry St. John, First Viscount of Bolingbroke (1678-1751), was an English government official and political philosopher.  In spite of his Deism, he was a proponent of conformity and a supporter of the Church of England.

[3] Pyrrhonism is a school of skeptical philosophy.  Its origins are usually traced back to Pyrrho of Elis (c. 360-c. 270 BC).

[4] Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) was an English philosopher, remembered for his work in political philosophy and social contract theory.  He was also interested in theology, but heterodox in his beliefs, denying incorporeal substance (reducing all things to matter and motion), and the divine inspiration of the Biblical prophets.

[5] Gisbertus Cocquius (1630-1708) of Utrecht was a Reformed thinker and doctor of philosophy; he opposed Hobbes.

[6] Dionysius van de Wynpersse (1724-1808) was a Dutch Reformed Theologian and Philosopher, Professor of Logic, Physics, and Metaphysics at Groningen (1752-1769).

[7] See Hosea 11:4.

[8] Claudian (late fourth-early fifth century AD) was a Roman poet from Alexandria.