The Providence of God

Providence (Mark W. Elliott)

Welcome to The Table podcast, where we discuss issues of God and culture. Brought to you by Dallas Theological Seminary.

Kymberli Cook:

Welcome to The Table podcast, where we discuss issues of God and culture. My name is Kymberli Cook and I am the senior administrator here at the Hendricks Center. Today we're going to be talking about providence, which is how God is active in our world, and how that theological concept impacts how we understand God Himself, and how we respond to those actions. So we're joined today… Very excited about this… We're joined by Mark Elliott, who is the professor of divinity and biblical criticism at the University of Glasgow. So we are blessed by technology to be able to meet together. It's about nine o'clock or 10 o'clock my time, but four or five o'clock his time. Four his time. So, once again, a blessing that we have this kind of technology. So Mark, thank you so much for being here.

Mark Elliott:

You're welcome. Thank you for the invite. That's very kind.

Kymberli Cook:

Absolutely. So just to introduce you a bit to our listeners, would you mind just telling us about yourself and how you ended up in biblical studies and scholarship in particular?

Mark Elliott:

Well, like so many academics teaching theology… And I don't want to say all of them or most of them, but probably many of us… We are failed pastors (laughs). I felt a calling, what I thought was a calling to ministry in my… Probably early 20s, while I was a law student. And I thought, "Well, that's me, got that sorted," because I didn't really want to go off to be a lawyer, I guess, at that point. And so I thought, "Great. I guess God is calling me to something really useful, fantastic. What a vocation." It didn't quite work out that way and I ended up in my mid 20s, late 20s doing a PhD to kind of buy myself some time, you know?

Kymberli Cook:

Mm-hmm.

Mark Elliott:

I did the kind of what equivalent of an MDiv, but I didn't go into pastoral ministry. I did a PhD instead, and came out the other side of that. Was still open to pastoral ministry, but I think maybe that boat had sailed by that point and ever since I've been in academic work. Very much, hopefully, seeing that from time to time anyway, as useful in some ways for the church. I like to think that on a good day anyway.

Kymberli Cook:

I've had many of my professors say that. Sometimes you question it, but it is long-term helpful for the church. So how did you become interested in the topic of providence specifically?

Mark Elliott:

Right, well, maybe what I just said in some sense is autobiographical, although I didn't consciously think that, but I think sometimes unconsciously we're pushed towards things. We find interest in something and then we only realize later that maybe that was because I had an underlying interest in that topic. I think it was to do with reading in the tradition a little bit. I read a work by John Chrysostom on divine providence, which he wrote in 405, 406, when he just lost his job. He'd been driven out of Constantinople. He had fallen out with the wrong people. He'd been too critical, perhaps, in his preaching at times. And he was put into exile and he wrote this book while he was an exile and then he was called back. But by the time he was summoned back, he was getting on a bit and he died in the mountains, we believe. Which is a bit of a sad end, but before that there's a book which starts off complaining about his lot and saying, "It's all terrible this has happened to me, and I'm trying to make sense of it.”And I think Chrysostom's work was a kind of a… Well, inspiration is possibly too strong, but it certainly stirred my interest in that field.

Kymberli Cook:

Fascinating. And so, are there any other works that really stood out to you as well on providence? Especially from the early church and…?

Mark Elliott:

I think that was probably the main one in the early church, and there weren't so many people writing on that topic or even on the topic of creation. It isn't really until you get into the Middle Ages that maybe people start to take the topic of creation more seriously, and therefore providence. So Thomas Aquinas would be an example of somebody who because he's interested in the goodness of God's creation over against those who would say that the world is a terrible place and that God, if He had the chance to do it again, would do it very differently. Thomas says that's not the case, that creation is good and it's so good that God wanted to perfect it, and we can have a share in that by sharing His Son, who came down to earth for us. So in some sense for Thomas, that sending of Christ is providential, because for Thomas it isn't just about the salvation of… Say, shall we say, the elect, although Thomas does say that. But it has wider implications for the world. Not least through the establishing of the church, and what that means for world history and the progress of creation.

If you think of Ephesians, and I think the idea of is it Christ or the church who is filling the universe? And sometimes it's hard to know. But it is Christ who is the fullness, but within that, the church has a special place. So Thomas, I think, uses his ecclesiology to kind of mediate between his soteriology and his cosmology, and I found that that interesting as well, with the help of some good scholarship on that subject.

So I think that would be a kind of another stopping point. Obviously for me, being Scottish and being Protestant, Calvin is someone one would never want to go too far from, so that was important for me as well in my tradition.

Kymberli Cook:

Fascinating. Okay, so we have been already talking about providence, and for those people who are listening, we should probably just give a semi-quick definition of providence. So, providence specifically is a theological concept. It's not a word we particularly find in the Bible, though it is definitely in ancient literature. So, would you like to speak to that a little bit? What is this concept of providence that we talk about? Where do we get it, especially for people who might be a little bit reticent not to hold on to something that the word itself isn't in the Bible?

Mark Elliott:

Yeah, that's right. That's a very good point and I'm glad you mentioned that the word isn't there. There's not really a Hebrew word for providence, but there are a number of Hebrew terms and expressions which give you very much that sense that particularly could apply to God, that God is doing something of that sort. So when Abraham says to Isaac as they're going up the mountain, and Abraham thinks he's going to sacrifice Isaac in response to the Lord's command, and Isaac doesn't really know, but he senses something is going on. He says, "Where is the ram to be offered up, if we're going up to do the sacrifice?" And Abraham… And as somebody rather sardonically says, "The Lord will provide." And that, the yirah word, is something which has to do with making provision or making good and making available.

Now this doesn't appear again and again, but you have that and you also have a term like paqad, which is in some sense to do with God coming to visit. Or it could be like a king inspecting his army or his troops. Or checking up a little bit. Or seeing to something. That's the same idea in the Greek translation where you get the idea of the bishop, the overseer, that God is coming in to have a look and to check up on things.

So I think in the Hebrew Bible… And also maybe, thoroughly to say, there's a strong interest in everyday life. Not just in the things of salvation history, not just in the history of Israel, although of course that is so central, that is perhaps the central theme in the Hebrew Bible. But there is also a strong kind of fugue, which has to do with human life, which you get in the book of Ruth, for example. Where in Book of Ruth it just says, "And she happened to be in the field that day," that kind of thing. And this mikra verb is what's going on there. Well, it's a sort of opporchancity kind of thing. It's not just chance.

And so there is an awareness, particularly if you look with eyes to read the Bible as literature there. There is a strong sense that behind the scenes there is a divine intelligence and a personal intelligence shaping things. And I think that's fairly strong in the Hebrew Bible. So, to boil it down to perhaps two full definitions, God making things available or providing in that sense, being like a parent would provide, given that He has a creation to look after, so this presupposes creation is God's. And secondly, that in doing that, He doesn't just do it in a kind of automatic, responsive way, where, "Oh, there's a need. I must try to do something about that," but because He is God, He foresees, He oversees. He sees from a distance, He sees the way that things are unraveling, and He responds to challenges, but He also initiates. So there's a planning sight to providence, and it's foreseeing as well as providing.

Kymberli Cook:

So, you mentioned a little bit as you were speaking about Thomas Aquinas and it came up a little bit in what you were just saying now. It seems to me that there is… Richard Mouw has called, in some older works and I think he has an article fairly recently, about the need for a theology of commonness. And the idea that there are things that all of us hold in common and there is theology in the midst of the world that everyone experiences, whether or not they're even aware of it. And he would love some scholars to really dig in and discuss that. To me it seems like providence might be a part of that conversation. Do you have any thoughts about the relationship between the two?

Mark Elliott:

Yes, I think sometimes people say that common grace and providence are one and the same thing. And I wouldn't want to contradict that or again say that, but I suppose providence sounds a little bit more dynamic. It sounds like God is the one who is making the running a bit. Common grace sometimes seems a little bit to me like God has thrown some things in there, some things that we will then, if we wish to use them, we can use them, and therefore that is God kind of providing over and above what He's providing in creation. Giving us something of grace to everyone.

And I think those things are there and it's useful to reflect on that, but I would still see those as kind of a slightly smaller subset of the set, which is providence. So for example, when Philip Melanchthon, the reformer, says, "How do we know that God provides for us or God cares for His creation at all? Or cares for the human race?" That he says… This is quite apart from getting on to the questions of the church… "But, how do we know God cares about the human race?" Well, He gives us family as an institution. He gives us government. Or maybe not good government, but some kind of government anyways…

Kymberli Cook:

An attempt.

Mark Elliott:

Exactly. Because we are the ones that are doing it, so it's not going to be as good as it could be. But these actual institutions are seen positively as part of God's providing. You could call that common grace. I think that… To look at it slightly more dynamically… God is still in those things, and still cares about them enough so that if a magistrate or a politician or whoever's got decisions to make, gets down on his or her knees and prays. That can make all the difference to how that institution operates, or particularly if people come together and seek the face of God, that can make a complete difference. But even if they don't, even if they don't avail themselves of the common grace, or don't kind of turn that common grace into something more of a special grace, God can still work, and God still does work.

And I think that's what providence provides. Common grace sometimes seems a little bit to me like saying, "Well, from keeping things from going too bad for the time being, God gives us this thing to make common grace, to make our existence slightly more bearable." I think there's a bit more purpose and a bit more of God in it than that.

Kymberli Cook:

Almost like, regardless of whether or not… Particularly in relation to humans, but even creation is a bit different. But with humans, whether or not they choose to follow Him and recognize Him as Lord, He still loves them and He still provides for them. It's a measure of Him providing for His enemies and caring for and loving His enemies.

Mark Elliott:

Yeah, His enemies, those who are indifferent, who could also be His enemies, depending on one's definition. Just for those whom He has made, He cares for. Whatever else He feels about it, He does have that sense of quasi-parental care.

And I think this is the distinction we could go on, and maybe it's something you want to talk about later, but one could just mention at this point, the distinction between a providence which happens regardless of people being conscious of it and a special providence, which tends to happen when people are aware. Not of when providence happens, but that there is a thing happening in their life somehow, and they can sense it, even if they couldn't quite say what exactly it was. And maybe with hindsight, you can say, "Well, God did this," and it's not always obvious at the time, but that's where a guidance comes in for special problems.

But before we get to that, I think, just to speak about general providence, that isn't just about the sun going down and coming up the next morning, although that's an incredibly important part of general providence. But a general providence that leads into history as well, because you don't have creation without history. You don't have history without creation.

Kymberli Cook:

So providence… Just to summarize this part of our conversation for those who are listening… Providence is essentially God's work now to provide for His creation, and depending on how deterministic you want to get, either foreseeing or moving things toward His divine will. And so that's kind of what we're talking about when we talk about providence and we see that that concept, again not the specific word, though it is an old word that appears in ancient literature, we see that concept in the Old Testament and in the New Testament. And like you were even talking about, with Chrysostom and Aquinas, you see it in the Christian tradition.

So speaking of the Christian tradition, there have traditionally been kind of spheres or dimensions of providence, that providence has gotten split into, though it's definitely all kind of one act. Those dimensions are His sustenance, His concurrence, which is a big word we'll need to unpack, as well as His governant. So what are your thoughts? First off, would you just mind introducing those concepts to our listeners? And then give us just your thoughts on that and how you see them playing out in the theological consideration of providence.

Mark Elliott:

Okay, to take His sustaining providence first of all, it certainly seems that when God says to Noah, "That I put the ark in the sky as a sign of a covenant that I will," to paraphrase, "Preserve and sustain the world from now on as it is, at least not to send a flood again." That is seen as a kind of a great covenantal moment for all of humanity, before we get to special covenants made with Abraham and others. So this is something which does tell us that part of God's action is to keep things partly from falling apart, from entropy or from the effects of sin completely destroying everything. But also doing a little bit more than that, I think, by keeping things going in an orderly way and preserving that which is good about creation and making sure it doesn't lack. It doesn't lack for anything in terms of God keeping the show going. And I think one could say that with great thankfulness and appreciation, but as you say that's only one of three.

The second one in the tradition, and this is a tradition that you do find in the Middle Ages, but it's certainly something which comes into its own in the Lutheran as well as in the reformed ways of looking at providence in the early modern period and we inherit that now. Concurrence is an interesting one because… Actually, we use the Latin concursus. It's sometimes a little bit unclear just who is doing the concurring. Concurring is like running together. And who is going out first and who's… Like two jogging partners or two running partners, who's the one that's going out first and who's the one that's following? And sometimes the way it flips, I think, particularly in the Lutheran tradition, not that I have anything against the Lutheran tradition here, but I think it happens in the Lutheran tradition, particularly the early modern period, it's what humans are initiating and it's God kind of coming alongside and saying, "I'll back you up on this, guys. You do your bit and I will come alongside you and concur with you."

I don't think that's how originally it was in the tradition, but I think that certainly became that way. That concurrence began to have that teamwork kind of sense, rather than God having sovereignty, rather than God taking the initiative. And I think that's what amaze… Problems, I think, with the term concurrence, because it is quite slippery.

And then thirdly, the governance one, which sometimes has this idea of direction or if God is perhaps on a ship, or understood in that kind of term of like a Helmsman on a ship, who needs to steer the rudder so that if the ship is drifting in one direction, He brings it back in another direction. He stops it going too far that way and can bring things back in the course that He wishes. So a corrective, directive kind of aspect to His providence.

Again, I slightly worry about that, that that can seem that God is the one who's always playing black in the chess game, you know?

Kymberli Cook:

Deterministic.

Mark Elliott:

In some ways, I'm suggesting that was not appreciated, and in fact, too often it was just, "Well, God is doing everything, and there's no place for human cooperation or human response." But I think that's something which can go too far the other way, where we think that God's business is a bit like that of a parent whose job it is to just tidy up all the time, which obviously is part of a parent's job.

Kymberli Cook:

Yeah.

Mark Elliott:

Maybe that's more part of the sustaining. I don't know, but I think there needs to be something there for God to be the God who takes initiative, and the God who drives things forward with His own agenda. And the kind of governing thing, the idea of steering back to where He wants it to go. It's a true facet, but I think it misses something as well.

Kymberli Cook:

So it seems like those… Well, first it should be said that those three are, again, a part of one act, so that's why they overlap and that kind of thing. And so to try to separate them out, I think… There's a scholar who argues that you shouldn't separate them out too strongly or you start to get into some sketchy heterodox territory.

But particularly governance, that kind of gets you into the question of what is the relationship between providence and history? Like you were talking about, is it part of it that God is kind of guiding and directing? And so, what does that mean for how Christians understand history? Is providence really only related to salvation history? Is that what we're talking about? Is it related to all history? Just walk us through the relationship between those two.

Mark Elliott:

Right. I think it may be wiser to take a fairly minimalist view of what God exactly is doing in history.

Kymberli Cook:

Always dangerous.

Mark Elliott:

Looking back 500, 1,000 years, we still perhaps don't really know how much we can say, "Well, this was God's doing." There are certainly things that we can have a bit more confidence than others, and certainly right now it's very hard. Almost impossible to be sure and we have to be very careful.

I think we could say a little bit more with confidence about church history than we can say it about world history. But let's remember that church history is part of world history, and that if we can be aware that God is guiding His church into certain initiatives, whether those are initiatives of mission, or holiness of life, or community, or seeking for justice, a prophetic vision. Whatever that is, whatever the contribution, the outward contribution of the church, or even an inward contribution, because as someone like Stan Hauerwas would remind us that a Christian voice is only as strong as the embodied witness that it has as communities. And therefore, so even in our inward church history, if that church history is something where one can sense the hand of the Lord, then one can be sure that that is not having no effect on world history.

Now, is God also doing things quite independently of the church, other than just the reacting thing of what we saw in governance, that sort of governing, kind of bringing things back into line? Is He actually doing positive things? And of course, one would maybe want to say, "Well, yes." Obviously in tandem with the church, but nevertheless outside the church, God is working through the intelligence, the skill, the skill of doctors, or the skill of scientists, whatever. Or even of people who make music, or write plays, God in some sense can be seen to be working through those. And that is part of God's history.

Where it becomes a little more difficult… Because that's the history of culture, and the history of science, and those kind of fairly positive things. It's more difficult when one gets into what a lot of history is. The history of war, aggression, how to deal with famine, or how to take advantage of the weakness of others, perhaps. And I think that requires a little bit more thought, and perhaps tact, as well.

Kymberli Cook:

Yeah. Which, perhaps, takes us directly into a conversation about a relationship between providence and free will, because you're getting into, essentially, the problem of evil. And, well, world history, what happens in this world and that God is supposed to be caring for and sustaining and providing for and then these horrific things happen. We recognize them, because of our confession, because of the brokenness the world, in the midst of its sinful and fallen state. But how do people think about the relationship between providence and free will? And I'm sure that there's a spectrum here.

Mark Elliott:

Right. God is certainly getting on with things. We look at God of the Bible, God has certain things that He wants to do and He goes about doing them. And there's a large witness to that in the Scriptures. But there's also that sense that God also leaves quite a bit of space to human beings to respond to how He has set things up in terms of human life, what are our responsibilities, but what also are our opportunities, and what are our loves, and what are our desires and aims, and all that kind of thing God allows us to kind of get on with in some ways. And even if you think about early on in the Bible with Genesis, you've got the story of Joseph and his brothers, which is a very obvious kind of providential story there pretty early in the Canon, so may be suggest to me that this providence is a biblical doctrine which is foregrounded rather than somewhere obscure, halfway through the Bible. We need to look for it. So it's there and what it says is that you intended this for evil, but God intended it for good.

Now that's one way of looking at it, that the brothers of Joseph intended things were evil because human hearts tend that way, and that's what quite often the Bible tells us. That's at least half of the story. But I think also to look at it in slightly other terms, and one brings in here, given that Joseph is associated to a certain extent… Although this in some sense disputed, but one can see it, one can make a case for it… As a wise man, as a wise person who kind of knows how to respond. Not so much because he gets prophetic visions, which he does, but also then how he works skillfully with that revelation in a rather kind of human intelligent way, given the natural gifts that he has. Not without reference to God, but nevertheless, in a wise guy kind of way, in a way that the person who wrote Proverbs say it was King Solomon or whoever and Solomon's court wrote the Proverbs, would approvals of, and that then the human heart is sometimes invited to plan and to make plans and to look for opportunities in life.

But God, of course, will sometimes take over. He will dispose. I think particularly of people who are in the covenant, particularly people who are close to God and to His family, that God will be especially committed to interacting with them, but He does give a lot of freedom in the first place for people just to follow the natural gifts and the natural desires and natural interests that we have. I don't know if that helps at all.

Kymberli Cook:

Absolutely. No, it does. Walking through it. So for those who are, like we were talking about a little bit earlier, who will never come to faith, what is the relationship between providence and the unbeliever in relate… Not relation. I'm using the word relationship too much. But what is the dynamic between providence and unbelievers and providence and believers? I think you got into it a little bit earlier with the idea of special providence. So let's start by talking about providence of unbelievers and then we can move into special providence.

Mark Elliott:

Yeah, that general providence that's there for all believers, I think as I said, it's not just about all the good gifts, of the sun and the rain and food on the table coming our way. And I say our, like everybody. It isn't just about that. It is about God then, shall we say, making things available where there is lack.

You get this a bit in Job 38 to 41, where you get this sense of… It's not that even in natural creation that the wild animals are just able to look after themselves, but as essentially which God provides things for them when in fact things are not going very well, when the desert is drying up and the camel is looking for water and things for her young. God makes available.

Now, I think that one was… Well, we wouldn't want to try to go into too much detail there, but certainly there's a sense that God's provision for human beings, even more so, is real, and yet, without overwhelming human free will. And so there will be times when people unfortunately suffer at the hands of others or the way things are set up in a particular society. One would hope, perhaps, if they don't cry out to God, that at least the church, the people of God, would be able to come alongside them and be for them and mediate for them and draw them to Christ and to the possibility of receiving from God's blessings of all sorts, really.

So I don't think that the unredeemed or the unbelieving world is necessarily so far away from the properties of God in that way. But of course, if you walk down the street and ask people, you would very quickly think that, well, yes it is. Nobody seems terribly interested, let alone for or against. But it's one of these things where we need to stop looking up against or at myself really, to stop looking at my own somewhat depressive look on the world and actually use the imagination of faith that sees the possibilities there. That God would want, by His continued love, that love does express itself in the offer of salvation and relationship and for anyone.

So, very much God is still interested in the world, even if the world isn't interested in Him. And that for those of us who have turned to God, we have that role, I think, of… As we believe in guidance, as we believe in the power of the gospel and the power of the Holy Spirit, and God's forgiving grace, to be communities of love. That obviously starts with your love for each other within the communities. If you can't actually get that right, then it's going to be hard to impress anybody else or to even help anybody else.

Kymberli Cook:

Oh, yeah.

Mark Elliott:

Is that something we can believe in? We're not obviously justified by our performance and that sometimes allows us to… We need more and more to rest in God as we do this. But I think that is part of His providence to the world, is to come through the church.

I think one of the problems that we have, I think, sometimes when people look at from the outside of the church, they say, "These believers who go to church on a Sunday morning, if you actually kind of push them, get them into a corner and shine a torch in their face and a light in their face, their belief in providence could actually be a negative thing, because they believe that somebody is looking out for them. And actually when things don't go so well, we believe in God, but whatever it is doesn't work for you, things do fall apart a bit, then you've got someone to blame."

And that someone that you were hoping that was going to help isn't helping you and you resent that. Whereas if you are kind of an atheist who doesn't think there's anybody else on your side, it's just you and maybe just some your friends of yours and your loved ones in the world and you can't multiply them either, then you're more likely to be self-sufficient, and self-determining, and you don't have that same sense of disappointment and resentment. One answer to that is to say, "Well, yes," to take that criticism on board, and to say that sometimes Christians don't always behave as mature people. That we have a sense that God is some kind of… I don't want to use the term sugar daddy, but a daddy who provides candy cane and all sorts of things that we want, whenever we want them.

Kymberli Cook:

What can come across as naive. Yeah.

Mark Elliott:

Yeah. Exactly, exactly. And just how to still hold on to the idea that God is loving, but that His love is something which has a sense more of a… I don't think it's necessarily a soul-making thing that God's whole purpose is to… Well, I have sympathy with the idea that God's whole purpose is to make us better people morally, so I want to say yes to that to some extent. But even if that's not the case, even if we end up the same kind of sinner, doing the same kind of terrible things 40 years on from when we first believed, God is still faithful. And it's His power and His faithfulness that actually matters rather than our unfaithfulness. But I do think that very fact should invite us and inspire us to want to turn to Him and then turn outwards to our communities.

Kymberli Cook:

So I will give you $20 later for that segue into my next question, which is… So in light of everything you were just saying and that that makes us want to turn to Him, going a little bit toward the implications of providence… And those who are listening may or may not be interested in the depths of the intricacies of theological concept of providence. But they might be very interested in, "Okay, so what does this mean for my 'walk with God'? My 'walk with God' and how I treat other people?" So what does this concept of God's providence… What does this reveal about His character that maybe we don't see in some other kinds of doctrines? What do we see about Him and what does He show of Himself through this?

Mark Elliott:

I think it does bring back to our attention the active Fatherhood of God, which sometimes we forget or play down. So there is that. And I do believe that the Fatherhood of God is something which is for all people. It's just that only those who have life in the Son realize that, that God is the Father of all of us. So I think that's an important distinction to make. I think God is the Father of at least all rational creatures, human beings. It reminds us of that, His Fatherhood and all that that means. But it also, I think, reminds us that as a Father, He's a Father not so much of… Well, to some extent, He's a Father of us as kind of small children, because there's a sense in which we always remain small children and we need to depend on Him as small children. But we could take that too far and think that our faith… It's just a question of dependence. It is and always has to be, there has to be dependence in the Christian walk on God, of course. As God our Father, as Jesus teaches us to pray, et cetera.

But I think also to think of ourselves, to some extent, as being adult children, and being those whom God wants to sometimes sort of kick out the nest a little bit or… There are things that going to hurt you out there. If you don't know that already, you'll find out soon just by being alive, and then possibly by trying to do the right thing or possibly try to be faithful, and whatever, that's going to cause you more trouble than you could imagine.

And so, I think that's somewhere where someone like Dietrich Bonhoeffer, I think, reminds us that the sense that the believer is at certain times, in certain situations, and it's maybe in certain periods, should think of herself as someone who God has sort of sent away to college or something, for us to kind of find out ourselves what life is like a little bit without God always being there all the time for everything that we need or we think we need. You might…

Kymberli Cook:

And that, in and of itself, is providential care. That's still care, is what you're saying.

Mark Elliott:

That's a good parent in the same way as somebody who puts you on an operating table and opens you up with a knife, is doing you good. Usually.

Kymberli Cook:

So how do we respond and how does this impact how we treat and view other people, I guess. Do we see ourselves as agents of God's providence? Do we see ourselves as just reflecting it and just trying to be like Him? Is this the kind of thing that we try to emulate or… This is probably a false dichotomy… But is it something we try to emulate, or is it something that we essentially just worship and recognize that in what God does as only God can do?

Mark Elliott:

Right. Well, I think for Christians, I think we can certainly see that our response can be something we do hand in hand with Jesus. And Jesus is certainly an agent of providence even in His own life and ministry.

Kymberli Cook:

Mm-hmm.

Mark Elliott:

Having said that, apart from Jesus, I think… So let's think of someone like Joseph, where we can think of Him as apart from Jesus. That's an interesting question… Apart from Jesus, where the very best people of God are instruments of God's grace, but we're not. We're channels, we are chosen His hands for God to do what He really wants to do, because He can see the big picture and we can't. We're like instruments. We're not really agents, planning things with God. But in Christ perhaps we are. There's a sense in which we do have a little bit of privileging, in that sense, but only because of Him, that we can have some sense of agency. But I wouldn't want to say that we're totally agents. But I wouldn't want to say we're totally instruments either. Somewhere in between there's a kind of a tension between us, us just instruments and maybe something a little bit more elevated, as agents or something.

Kymberli Cook:

To support what you're saying, goes back to the nuances that you were trying to add in the sphere of concurrence that we talked about earlier. It's that very tension that you don't want to go too far either way, but there does seem to be something there.

Mark Elliott:

Yes. Yes, that's right. That's right. I think just to say that… It's not that God will not bless what we do. We shouldn't be so anxious of saying, "Oh, what I'm doing, is this okay with God?" But we should be checking in, and not just saying our thing. We should just expect God automatically to bless it. Looking for His ideas and His big plans and purposes, and how we fit into those.

Kymberli Cook:

I think, particularly in light of what you're saying, I think the big faith and work movement that we've seen also is a very practical way to see our place in that, especially as believers like you. But even, again everybody, that what we do actually matters and in a very real way might be part of how God is providing for His creation and sustaining it and maybe even working alongside it somehow. And so, even our very own… If we help make cereal, we are feeding. We are providing food for people. Agriculture, medicine, we're restraining sin, we're healing. All of those things are dimensions of this, not solely, but they're dimensions of it. And so, I think that's another practical way to see the application. I don't know what your thoughts are on that.

Mark Elliott:

That sounds like what Luther says about vocation. That although we may have been put in, being we're born to certain kind of class groupings, these things have got nothing to do with what we would want to or choose. But given that God gives us a chance to do what we do in a way that has a certain upward mobility about it, but that's not the fun about it. The fun about it is becoming part of like our second nature to us, that we just almost enjoy or find something of life in doing our best for others, and to some extent for ourself. It all kind of ties together. And I think that kind of idea of vocation, as going along with God's providence is very important. And it's just helping people to find what their vocation is or that's part of what we're supposed to do for each other, I think.

But I think so much in this time, when we've had this time of being kind of… Or even just the way the modern world is going… Kind of more virtual and digital and isolated perhaps, so much more important to try to counter that, and to see … You just mentioned doing things. It's much better for me to go and run for five miles rather than sit and read books about it or talk about it or pontificate about it on Twitter or whatever. It's much better just to do these things, almost like automatically, if we can. Having these habits, having these kind of second nature, that doesn't reflect on it and it doesn't say, "Oh yeah. I really done that today. That's a big deal." Just doing it out of love and joy, I think.

Kymberli Cook:

Fascinating. Well, we got about time for one more question. Even more of a practical question is, if somebody is listening and they think, "Man, that's kind of cool. I really like what I'm hearing about," is there a book or two that you would suggest as a fairly basic introduction to providence? I know you have one. I don't know if that’s…

Mark Elliott:

Yeah, I've got it here.

Kymberli Cook:

… Entry level. There it is.

Mark Elliott:

That's entry level to the extent that it does go through the Bible quite a lot.

Kymberli Cook:

That's true. It gives a biblical foundation in a very solid way.

Mark Elliott:

Going through the Bible, and if anybody likes or knows their Bible, then they can go with it that way. The start of it says why we don't believe in providence anymore, why we find it hard to, sort of trying to deal with that. And the end has a little bit more of a kind of philosophical, kind of feel to it.

Mark Elliott:

Having said that, I'm not here to plug my own book. And if I'm asked this in an academic context, I always immediately say that my friend in Edinburgh, David Ferguson, you should all read his book rather than mine. But again, that's probably even more academic than mine is.

And so, this is a terrible thing. This just shows just who I am as an academic, that I can't think, right off the top of my head, of a popular book-

Kymberli Cook:

You're fine.

Mark Elliott:

There was somebody that I was involved in his writing a PhD on, which was to look at about 40 to 50 different Christian books that had been published in 20 years on providence and guidance. I had the kind of guidance aspect. What is God's will for my life and that kind of thing. And it was a really interesting study that he did. It was a Dutchman who did it. I don't know if that's been published yet. And it was in some sense, tried to take the best things from all these popular books. But what was really interesting was the variety of thinking that many of these Christian leaders and pastors had on these issues, sometimes reflecting on whether they lived in California, or lived in New York. It could be as simple as that and he'd have different views on it.

So in some sense, it's actually quite a hard thing to teach at a practical level, because one’s response… the wisdom that one has for one's life is something which one has for one's own life. It's nice to be reminded that one can make sense of such a doctrine of God's providence, but nobody's ever saying in a book on providence, "This is how it's working for you at the moment." In other words, you're saying there is such a thing and we believe there is such a thing. But we can't tell you what it is right now. We certainly can't tell you what it is right now for you, your family, and your church. So, I'm a slightly wary, I suppose a little bit, about people tending to sort of lay down practical rules and tips and laws on these questions.

Kymberli Cook:

If I'm hearing you right, then by nature of what it is in the concept, it is inherently abstract. At least for us while we are in the midst of it, because you can only see things, maybe, looking back.

Mark Elliott:

Well, I think there's something to that. I don't know, abstract sounds bad. But certainly mysterious, which requires us then to look all the more closely at the things which aren't quite so mysterious in our faith. So the love of God and Jesus, who God is towards us when we pray to Him, when we worship Him. What He's calling us to do in terms of the ethical life. Those kind of things are more… I'm not saying we don't contemplate, because there's a place for contemplation or a place for mystery in the Christian faith too, of course. But maybe it's not so much about knowledge there, but about trust.

Kymberli Cook:

Well, fascinating. Well, our time is up. Thank you so much, Mark, for joining us today. It's been a lovely conversation.

Mark Elliott:

Great talking to you. I've enjoyed it very much. Thank you.

Kymberli Cook:

Good. And thank you, who are listening to this podcast. If you enjoyed today's discussion, please subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts, and be sure to join us next time when we discuss issues of God and culture.

Speaker 1:

Thanks for listening to The Table podcast. For more podcasts like this one, visit dts.edu/thetable.

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