The Westminster Shorter Catechism asks, in Question 11: What are God’s works of providence? The answer is that,

“God’s works of providence are, his most holy, wise, and powerful preserving and governing all his creatures, and all their actions.”

While Genesis 50:20 is a narrative that teaches the idea of providence, in those famous words of Joseph to his brothers: “As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good,” another place, in Genesis 22, sheds light on the appropriateness of the word itself. There we are given one of the divine names which reveals something important about the character of God. When Abraham obeyed the Lord on Mount Moriah, ready to sacrifice Isaac, there was an interruption from Jehovah Jireh. But what does the word mean?

While the root word in verse 14 is “to see” (ra’ah), there are good reasons why this is not simply speaking of a mental apprehension, not the least of which is the context. It should also be noted that we derive the English word provision (as well as providence) from a construct in the Latin language of the ideas “to see” (videre) and “before” (pro). I have often appealed to the Reformation Study Bible note which instructively shows how the sense of “see” comes to mean “see to it.”1

Difficult Distinctions: Decree, Creation, and Providence

What is the difference between God’s decree, creation, and providence? In eternity, God’s decree is singular and the ultimate cause of all that is. Ordinarily, the Bible exalts the sovereignty of God in causing things, not distinguishing between the decree, creation, and providence. Rather it continues in the “God said” pattern of Genesis 1, as in the words of Psalm 33,

“By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and by the breath of his mouth all their host … For he spoke, and it came to be; he commanded, and it stood firm … The counsel of the Lord stands forever, the plans of his heart to all generations” (vv. 6, 9, 11).

We also speak of God’s decrees as all of His acts that He affects outside of Himself—though even in this, there is a manner of speaking by analogy, and we must be careful not to think of God’s effects in time and space as identical to His will and power that is the ultimate cause. That said, we can say that the difference between the divine decree and providence is that the decree is that act of God’s will creating that which is not, whereas providence refers to His governance of history and preservation of nature, including the whole of the lives of human beings.

But if God completed creation (Gen. 2:1), and yet other passages speak of all people and things “created” by God, do we explain this by God’s providence? Since much of the Bible is a narrative, wherein God condescends to our level, it is fitting that more familiar language is used. Following the initial drama of creation, the vast majority of God’s causal activity is referring to the level of providence. It is proper in these cases to still refer to it as God “making” or “bringing about” because both original creation and providence (not to mention his acts of redemption and restoration of all things) are all manifold extensions of the singular divine decree. God is still the primary cause behind the whole “matrix” of secondary causes. 

Four Things Providence is NOT

The first and second of these are what we call straw men: that is, dismissals of an idea by a misrepresentation. Then we will look at two more mirages of providence by which people think they are embracing the genuine article.

First, providence is not fatalism. Calvinism is often slandered as “fatalism,” or that this makes us “robots” or puppets of God. However, there are two principle differences between fatalism and Calvinism. Where fatalism is both 1. impersonal and 2. finite with respect to the primary cause of all things, the biblical view has the divine decree coming from a personal-infinite God. These differences explode out into all of the others that differentiate biblical Christianity from classical paganism on questions of providence or predestination (which isn’t salvific in pagan thought anyway). 

Second, providence is not occasionalism, that seemingly obscure belief held by Muslims and a handful of Enlightenment rationalists. Occasionalism insists that God is the cause of all things in such a way that there either are no secondary causes, or that they are, for all practical purposes, merely the “occasions” for a divine causality that renders creaturely efficient causes (especially the volitional causes of human beings) moot.

What marks the difference between occasionalism and the biblical view is the concept of dual agency, or in other words, giving proper due to primary and secondary causation.

All of the classical and Reformation era theologians—and Calvin certainly among them—rejected occasionalism and, if they did not work out an explicit doctrine, at least wrote about these concepts in a way that is very different.

Third, providence is not deism. A deist is someone who believes that God made the world but then stepped away from the picture to let it run by its own inherent laws. So they wouldn’t believe in supernaturally revealed religion, miracles, the incarnation of Christ, or really any salvation or personal relationship with God at all. However the deists of the Enlightenment maintained a First Cause or Designer or Moral Lawgiver so as to still have a foundation for their civilization. 

Fourth, providence is not a hybrid of deism and personalism. While Deism fell out of favor after the eighteenth century, it has made a comeback on a more popular level, to which some have attached the label “moralistic therapeutic deism.” It is called this because, in the place where the earliest modernists inserted “Providence” to ground their new secular world, the suburban spiritualist of postmodernity has inserted Jesus to ground a personal relationship with a supernatural life-coach. This is a natural result of a few centuries of Arminian theology, where the claims of God’s sovereignty are disallowed in more and more of life. We speak about a “personal” God, but only, it seems, when we want to rub the bottle for the genie to take our orders. The notion of a God who asserts Himself and makes His own demands in all areas of life is anathema to much of American Evangelicalism. 

A More Personal Providence is a Totalizing Providence

In his book Trusting God, Jerry Bridges discusses two wrong-headed ways that providence is conceived:

“For one, we almost always use the expression ‘the providence of God’ in connection with apparently ‘good’ events … The second problem with our popular use of the expression ‘the providence of God’ is that we either unconsciously or deliberately imply that God intervenes at specific points in our lives but is largely only an interested spectator most of the time.”2

In other words, the popular view of providence is a confused hybrid of deism and the miraculous. Bridges then cites the definition given by J. I. Packer to show the opposite and biblical vision of providence, namely,

“The unceasing activity of the Creator whereby, in overflowing bounty and goodwill, He upholds His creatures in ordered existence, guides and governs all events, circumstances, and free acts of angels and men, and directs everything to its appointed goal, for His own glory.”3

Bridges concludes with the two things most missing from the popular conception—“[God’s] own glory and the good of His people.” The latter (our good) is determined by the former (His glory). Think of Romans 8:28 where Paul says, “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.” This statement is joined to the hip with the divine end of being conformed to the image of His Son (v. 29). Out of context, we all love this verse on our coffee cups, but a test question must be asked: How exactly can God cause all things to work together for good if He does not cause all things at all?

The same can be asked of the Genesis 50:20 text: How exactly can God mean that evil act for good if He did not mean it at all? Someone will object that it is not that He means the act, but only the good that comes out of it by way of response or “working around,” so to speak. But this is not the way the Bible itself talks about that.

“When he summoned a famine on the land and broke all supply of bread, he had sent a man ahead of them, Joseph, who was sold as a slave” (Ps. 105:16-17).

God was both the sender of Joseph and the One who caused the famine that drove them there. Genesis 50:20 only makes sense if God caused even the brothers' evil plot, as He moved the hands of “lawless men” who orchestrated the crucifixion of Jesus (cf. Acts 2:23, 4:27-28).

The irony of a personal providence minus divine sovereignty is that it removes both God’s causal presence and His conception of what is best for us. It makes Him less of a person and us less the recipients of His provision. 

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[1] The Reformation Study Bible: English Standard Version: Sproul, R. C., ed., (Orlando, FL: Reformation Trust, 2015 edition), 48.

[2] Jerry Bridges, Trusting God (Colorado Springs: NavPress, 2008), 12, 13.

[3] J. I. Packer, quoted in Bridges, Trusting God, 13.