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The concept of providence expresses the idea that divine knowledge, will, and goodness are at work in the design and governance of the world. Adherents of the Abrahamic traditions, (i.e., Judaism, Christianity, and Islam), characteristically affirm not only that God creates and sustains the world but also that God guides its history toward the fulfillment of divine purposes. The idea of providence, therefore, is closely related to ideas of creation, redemption, and eschatological consummation, as these topics are developed within particular religious traditions.

A distinction has often been made between general and particular (or special) providence. General providence refers to God's governance of the universe through the design of creation and the conservation, or sustenance, of all finite things. In establishing the fundamental structures of the created world, God sets the parameters of its history, building in various possibilities and ruling out others. In the modern era, this has often been interpreted in terms of God's role as the creator of the structures of natural law that the sciences seek to disclose. By establishing these causal laws and setting the conditions under which they operate, God directs the developing history of the universe. A theological interpretation of nature, quite without any commitment to the design argument in natural theology, can understand the so-called fine-tuning of the universe as an expression of God's general providence, which orders the world in such a way that life can emerge in the course of cosmic evolution.

Particular providence refers to God's actions within the world's history to advance the divine purposes in specific ways. Each of the monotheistic traditions, for example, includes some form of the story in which God calls Abraham and his descendants into a special covenant relationship that unfolds in an historical drama continuing to this day. The faithful in these traditions typically construe both their individual lives and the history of their communities to be caught up in this ongoing relationship to the providence of God, though it may be difficult to discern God's plan in the apparently chaotic course of history. On some modern interpretations, such as that given by the German theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768–1834), particular providence is understood entirely as the outworking of God's general providence in specific instances. God's purposes for human history are built into the design of creation, and God does not so much act within the stream of historical events as enact history as a whole. This avoids a battery of modern objections to certain sorts of special divine actions (e.g., miraculous intervention). There are theological costs to this interpretation, however, and a number of contemporary theologians have sought ways to conceive of God acting responsively to shape the course of events without intervening in or disrupting the natural order.

Traditional theological accounts of providence agree in affirming the perfection of God's knowledge, power, and goodness in governing the world, but they differ in their accounts of what these attributes entail about God's relation to the course of events. Some doctrines of providence assert that God specifically wills and controls everything that happens; God's sovereign and unconditioned intention for the world embraces all the details of cosmic and human history. Reformation theologian John Calvin (1509–1564), for example, contended that God does not just foreknow but rather foreordains all things, including the destiny of the saved and the damned. This appears to constitute a universal divine determinism, and it triggers the objections, first, that it truncates or eliminates human freedom and, second, that it makes God the cause of human sin, thus compounding the problem of evil. Defenders of positions of this type have usually argued that divine governance of human action, unlike determination by finite causes within the world, does not negate human freedom. Some Thomists argue that because God acts in the utterly unique mode of creator, giving being to creatures and not merely acting as a cause of changes in already existing things, God can bring about a finite event as a contingent occurrence or as a free human choice. God wills the human agent's act, but this divine willing does not displace the human agent's freedom, rather it posits the agent and the free act in existence.

Other theologians contend that while all finite things are created and sustained by God and all events are accommodated within God's plan for creation, some events are contrary to God's purposes. On this account, God allows a limited freedom to some creatures, who may act against God's will, but whose misuse of their powers nonetheless falls within the range of possibilities provided for in God's creative purposes. There are various accounts of how this creaturely freedom to act against God's will is nonetheless embraced within God's will, so that God's good purposes remain sovereign in fixing the destiny of creation. In the sixteenth century, Luis de Molina (1535–1600) and his followers developed the view that God's omniscience includes knowledge of what every possible free creature would choose to do under every conceivable circumstance. On this account, God is able to take the free actions of creatures into account in the plan of creation, building in responses that assure the final achievement of the good that God intends. Even if divine omniscience does not include this peculiar type of foreknowledge, some modern thinkers have suggested that God, like a master chess player, is always in a position to incorporate the finite agent's actions into the process of realizing God's purposes. If God's providential governance of history involves this type of responsive action, however, then theologians must grapple with questions about how God's special acts engage and affect the ongoing course of events in the world.

See also DETERMINISM; DIVINE ACTION; OMNISCIENCE; SPECIAL DIVINE ACTION; SPECIAL PROVIDENCE

THOMAS F. TRACY