Theological determinism, or the “doctrine of divine providence”,67 comprises the notion that every event or substance in the universe is guided entirely by God or the law of God. Divine providence is defined as the means by and through which God governs all things in the universe; that is, the sovereignty, superintendence, or agency of God over events in the universe and throughout human history. The doctrine of divine providence states that God is in complete control of all things. Further, according to divine providence, God governs the affairs of humanity and works through the natural order, and thus the laws of nature are evidence of God at work in the universe. The laws of nature have no inherent power and do not function independently; God established the laws to govern the physical world. Generally, those who ascribed to theological determinism have aligned themselves with the Calvinist tradition of Christian theology.
The American theological determinist Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758 CE) argued
67 The word “providence” is derived from the Latin providere, that is “foresight, prudence”, from pro (“ahead”) and videre “to see”. The original meaning of providere meant “to take precautionary measures”.
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that any attempt to fit free will into a system of determinism68 was a “spurious” notion. Although human beings perceive to be choosing freely and may engage in elaborate deliberations about choices to make, Edwards argued, the ultimate decision is fixed because God already knows what the decision will be in the future. Thus, human choice is merely another aspect of existence controlled by God that is foreseen and therefore foreordained.
The Reformed tradition, codified for example in the Westminster Confession of Faith, emphasizes the depravity and dependence of humanity contrary to the complete sovereignty of God. In Reformed orthodoxy divine providence69 is defined as the merciful predetermination of God toward the elect; not only salvation, but all things in the universe are ordered and determined by God. Theologians who ascribe to divine providence, primarily in the Reformed tradition, believe that human beings are not free to choose or act apart from the will of God. Every human choice, it is argued, is implicitly in full unity with the will of God. Therefore, God controls human choices and actions yet does not violate human responsibility as free moral agents nor negate the reality of human decision-making. The Westminster Confession of Faith (3.1) explains the doctrine of divine providence thus:
God from all eternity did by the most wise and holy counsel of [God’s] own will, freely and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass; yet so as thereby neither is God the author of sin; nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures, nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established.
Those who ascribe to the doctrine of divine providence claim that the primary
68 This is the theological notion that God is the ultimate cause of whatever occurs and that God has foreknowledge of whatever occurs but that human beings are still in some way able to choose freely.
69 It should be noted that such notions were prevalent in reformed orthodoxy (17-19th century). Whether Calvin himself would adhere to such determinism is debatable. According ot the doctrine of divine providence, nothing happens outside God’s will, but it does not necessarily imply that God determines everything.
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means by which God accomplishes God’s will is through secondary causes; thus, God works indirectly through secondary causes to accomplish a final, divine cause. Further, the Westminster Confession of Faith states:
Although, in relation to the foreknowledge and decree of God, the first Cause, all things come to pass immutably, and infallibly; yet, by the same providence, He orders them to fall out, according to the nature of second causes, either necessarily, freely, or contingently (Westminster Confession of Faith, 5.2).
Nevertheless, theologians who ascribe to divine providence make room for God to act apart from secondary causes and argue that God has the ability to supersede the natural order of events to accomplish the divine will: a “miracle” or a “supernatural event”. In this manner, theological determinists attempt to understand the world from a top-down rather than a bottom-up perspective. That is, theological determinists attempt to understand how the action of God could be reconciled with an understanding of causation, whereas physical determinists attempt to understand how physical events cause one another.
4.3.1.1 Calvinism
Adherents of Calvinism, the movement ascribed to the French theologian John Calvin (1509-1564 CE), have historically affirmed the notions of the sovereignty of God. The doctrines of Calvinism are classically summarized in the acronym TULIP70: total depravity, unconditional election, limited atonement, irresistible grace, and perseverance of the saints. Calvinism emphasizes the depravity of humanity and the complete sovereignty71 of God (Thuesen 2009:5). Generally, Calvinists affirms the notion that God’s plan for the world and every human soul is guided by the divine will, or “providence”. According to Calvin, the idea that humanity has a free will and is able to make choices independently of that which
70 Again, it should be noted that such dogmaticism is characterized primarily in the right-wing of Calvinist movements.
71 The term “sovereignty” for theological determinists, typically refers to God’s omnipotence or all-powerfulness.
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God has already determined was based on a limited understanding of the perfection of God and the delusion that the will of God can be circumvented. Typically, in Calvinist theology “providence” is also related to predestination, the idea that individual salvation is predetermined by God on behalf of the individual (Thuesen 2009:15). The relationship between providence and piety is developed by later Calvinists such as the English Puritans. Calvinism has been expressed in modern times within Reformed churches.
4.3.1.2 Theological Occassionalism
Philosophers have questioned how divine causal activity can be reconciled with the naturalistic determinism of creatures. The theory of occassionalism emerged from philosophical questions concerning the nature of causation that correlate with questions about the relations of divine and natural causality. Ocassionalism is described as an affirmation of “the positive thesis that God is the only genuine cause” and “the negative thesis that no creaturely cause is a genuine cause but at most an occasional cause” (Lee 2008:1). Nicolas Malebranche (1638-1715 CE), one of the most influential occassionalists in Western thought, “developed Occasionalism to its uttermost limit, approaching so near to Pantheism that he himself remarked that the difference between himself and Spinoza was that he taught that the universe was in God and that Spinoza said that God was in the universe” (Moore 1911:1). Moreover, concerning the theory of occassionalism, More (1911:1) asserted that:
If man [sic!] is composed of two absolutely distinct substances that have nothing in common, then the conclusion of the Occasionalists is logically necessary and there is no interaction between body and mind. What appears to be such must be due to the efficient causality of some external being. For Cartesianism led, on the one hand, to a Monistic Spiritualism and, on the other, to Materialism. In either case the very foundations of Occasionalism were undermined. In its attempt to solve the second difficulty, Occasionalism did not meet with any particular success. From its doctrine of the relation between body and soul it argued to what must be the relation between God and the creature in general. The superstructure could not stand without the foundation.
The theory of occasionalism is an attempt to address questions of causation, both
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physical and divine, by proposing that God is the “one and only true cause”. God first causes one and then causes the other. Malebranche asserted that “there is only one true cause because there is only one true God … the nature or power of each thing is nothing but the will of God … all natural causes are not true causes but only occasional causes” (according to Pyle 2003:98).