Providentialism

In Christianity, providentialism is the belief that all events on Earth are controlled by God.^[1][2]

Belief

Providentialism was sometimes viewed by its adherents as differing between national providence and personal providence.^[2] Some English and American Christians came to view personal providentialism as backward and superstitious, while continuing to believe in national providentialism.^[2] National providentialism was described by the British historian Nicholas Guyatt as encompassing three broader beliefs: God judged nations on the virtues of its leaders, there is a special role for certain nations, and finally that God worked out a master plan through the role of various nations.^[2]

Providentialism was frequently featured in discussions of European political and intellectual elites seeking to justify imperialism in the 19th century, on the grounds that the suffering caused by European conquest was justified under the grounds of furthering God's plan and spreading Christianity and civilization to distant nations.^[3][4] In the words of historians, it was an interpretive framework of occurring natural, political and social events at a time when the religious and the secular were not clearly divided.^[5]

Providentialism may be understood as the acceptance of the belief that all that happens in the world is for the greater good, since, "God created the social order and appointed each individual in his place within it."^[6]

See also

• Occasionalism
• Problem of evil
• Theodicy

References

1. "Providentialism - Oxford Dictionaries". Oxford Dictionaries - English. Archived from the original on November 16, 2016. Retrieved 2016-11-16.
2. Guyatt, Nicholas (2007-07-23). Providence and the Invention of the United States, 1607–1876. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9781139466288.
3. Winship, Michael P. (2000). Seers of God: Puritan Providentialism in the Restoration and Early Enlightenment. Johns Hopkins University Press. ISBN 0-8018-6376-7.
4. Alexandra Walsham (Aug 1994). "'The Fatall Vesper': Providentialism and Anti-Popery in Late Jacobean London". Past and Present (144): 36–87. doi:10.1093/past/144.1.36.
5. Hamilton, James Frederick. Democratic Communications: Formations, Projects, Possibilities. Lanham: Lexington Books, 2008, p. 35.
6. Smuts, R. Malcolm. Culture and Power in England, 1585-1685. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1999, p. 28.

Further reading

• Linker, Damon (2010). The Religious Test: Why We Must Question the Beliefs of Our Leaders. W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 978-0393067958.