Chapter 1: What is the doctrine of divine providence?
We have focused so intently on the proximate activity that's directly in our purview that for the most part we have ignored or denied the overarching causal power behind all of life, so that modern man has no concept of providence.
The technological advances we have seen in recent years and are seeing right before our eyes, those things that make our lives so much easier, they tend to make us think that we're in control. But every now and then, something happens, something unforeseen, and we realize we're not in control. Today on Renewing Your Mind, we begin several days in R.C. Sproul's series on the providence of God.
Chapter 2: How do modern advancements influence our perception of control?
As our listeners in the United States approach the annual Thanksgiving holiday, it's important to remember the God of providence, for it is He who is in control, and it is to Him that we must ultimately give thanks. To help you study Providence further, we're also offering two series and two books by Dr. Sproul on this topic.
And you can learn more and how you can request this resource bundle at renewingyourmind.org. Well, here's Dr. Sproul to begin our study.
At lunchtime today I spent some time looking at one of the news programs and they flashed an advertisement on the screen advertising a series of books from Time Life Company.
Chapter 3: What historical context surrounds the concept of providence?
And one of the books had to do with glimpses of problems of life in the past. And the advertisement went on to say, read this particular book that tells us what it was like to be sick a hundred years ago. That caught my attention because we as 20th century people are so bound to our own time frame.
And do you ever think about how people lived their daily lives in previous ages, in previous generations? My mind thinks about that quite frequently because I have a habit of reading books that were written by people who lived
Chapter 4: How does providence relate to the daily lives of people?
In many cases long before the 20th century, I particularly like to read the authors of the 16th century, the 17th century, and the 18th century. And what I notice in their writings, in their personal correspondence with their friends, is an acute sense of the presence of God in their lives, a sense of an overarching
We even have a city in the United States by that name, Providence, Rhode Island, that was named, of course, in the 18th century, perhaps even earlier, by that generation of people who had this sense that all of life was under the direction and the government of of Almighty God.
If you would go to Washington to the National Archives and read the samples of personal correspondence that can be found even from the pen of Benjamin Franklin and John Adams and people of that sort, you will see that word providence sprinkled liberally throughout their language.
Chapter 5: What questions arise regarding God's involvement in our lives?
People talked about a benevolent providence or an angry providence, but there was again this sense that God was directly involved in the daily lives of people. Now one of my favorite anecdotes to describe the situation in our own day is one that Jim Boyce likes to use. He tells the story of the mountain climber.
who experienced a crisis about 15,000 feet up the side of a mountain when he fell over the edge and was about to plummet thousands of feet to his death, when as he started his fall, he reached out and grabbed the branch of a tiny scraggly tree that was growing out from the face of the cliff.
Chapter 6: How does the idea of a closed mechanistic universe affect belief?
And as he grabbed a hold of this thing and the roots started to come loose and he saw a certain death, he screamed to the heavens, he said, is there anybody up there who can help me. Whereupon he heard this rich baritone voice answering his query from the sky saying, yes, I am up here and I will help you. All you have to do is let go of the branch and trust me.
The man looked up to heaven, looked back down into the canyon,
Chapter 7: What is the significance of causality in understanding providence?
He raised his voice again and said, is there anyone else up there who can help me? I like that because I think it typifies the cultural mentality of our own day because there are a couple of questions in that little illustration that I think are important. The first question is, is there anybody up there? Eighteenth-century people assumed that there was somebody up there.
There wasn't that much of a question about the fact that there was an overarching, almighty Creator who governed the affairs of this universe.
Chapter 8: How should we respond to God's authority over our lives?
But we are living in a period of unprecedented skepticism about the very existence of God. I know the polls say that between 95 and 98 percent of people in the United States believe in some kind of God or some kind of higher power, and also I think we can't escape the logic of assuming that there has to be some kind of foundational element cause for this world as we experience.
But usually when you pin people down and begin to talk to them about their idea of this higher power, or supreme being, it is a concept of something that is more of an it than a he, almost like cosmic dust or some kind of energy. And that's why the question is not only the question is, but the question is, is there anybody, is there a personal being in charge of the universe?
Now there are two other parts to that little anecdote that I think are significant. Remember the question the mountain climber raises when he's about to fall to his death. He says, is there anybody up there who what? Who can help me? See, that's the question of modern man. Is there anybody outside the sphere of our daily lives who
In the supernatural realm, not only is there anybody there, but if there is someone there, can that one who is there be of any help to us? So the next question is, can he help? That's not where the question ends. The next question is close to this one. There may be somebody up there who can help, but is that any guarantee that he, what, will help?
And so the question of providence that we're going to look at is not only is there anybody there, but is the anyone who is there, is he able to do anything with this world in which we live? And if he is able, is he willing? to do anything about the daily circumstances of our lives.
Now, when we look at the development of ideas that shape culture and again turn our attention to the 20th century, there is one particular view of the world in which we live that has exercised enormous influence on everyone's thinking in this room. The concept is called the idea of a closed mechanistic universe.
I know those of you who are students of science are quite aware of the theories that are more modern than this that speak of an expanding universe and of a universe that is open to almost any kind of future possibility and so on.
But I'm talking about a view of this world that has persisted now for a couple of hundred years and has tremendous influence in shaping how people understand the way life is lived out.
And I would say that in the secular world, still the dominant idea is that we live in a universe that is closed to any kind of intrusion from outside of it, and that the universe runs by purely mechanical forces and causes. In a word, ladies and gentlemen, the issue for modern man is the issue ultimately of causality.
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