Providence Perceived: Divine Action from a Human Point of View

✍ Scribed by Mark W. Elliott

• Publisher: De Gruyter
• Year: 2015
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 342
• Series: Arbeiten zur Kirchengeschichte, 124
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

This book will offer an account not so much of God’s Providence an sich, but rather of divine providence as experienced by believers and unbelievers. It will not ask questions about whether and how God knows the future, or how suffering can be accounted for (as is the case in the treatments by William Lane Craig, Richard Swinburne, or J. Sanders), but will focus on prayer and decision-making as a faithful and/or desperate response to the perception of God as having some controlling influence. The following gives an idea of the ground to be covered: The patristic foundations of the Christian view of Providence; The medieval synthesis of ‘objective’ and ‘subjective’ views; Reformational and Early Modern: the shift towards piety; Modern Enlightenment: Providence and Ethics; Barth and the Sceptics; The sense of Providence in the Modern Novel and World.

✦ Table of Contents

Contents
Introduction
Chapter One: Providence in the early Christian Church’s Theology
Ecumenical Beginnings after the Apostolic Era
The Western development
Political History
Chapter Two: The Medieval Account of Providence
Boethius first
Medieval Historiography
Byzantium and Eastern Christianity
The Western High Middle Ages
Chapter Three: Later Medieval Developments
Alternatives to the High Medieval Consensus
More radical traditions
Chapter Four: Reformation Providence
The impact of Luther
Calvin and the Swiss-Dutch tradition
The Heidelberg Catechism and Bullinger
And the Lutherans?
Catholic voices
Chapter Five: The Doctrine’s Fortunes in the Early Modern Era
Protestant and Catholic perceptions
Philosophical Moves
Theological responses in the Early Enlightenment
Chapter Six: The Enlightenment’s ongoing Challenge to the Doctrine of Providence
Later Enlightenment voices
Hegel and Beyond
Chapter Seven: Providence in twentieth-century theological discussion
The major contribution of Barth: renewing the tradition
Reactions to Barth on Providence
Providence in post-confessional German theology from 1960 onwards
English-speaking discussion
Recent Catholic contribution to the Doctrine
The place of the historical in God’s purposes
Chapter Eight: Coming up to date: works in the last five years
Conclusion
Bibliography
Index of Scripture References
Index of Key Figures