| DOCTRINES AND DOGMAS |
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| 3 MAJOR THEMES AND
MOTIFS |
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Providence is the quality in divinity on
which man bases his belief in a benevolent divine intervention in human affairs
and the affairs of the world he inhabits. The forms that this belief takes
differ, depending on the context of the religion and the culture in which they
function. (see also sacred
and profane) |
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In one view the concept of Providence,
divine care of man and the universe, can be called the religious answer to man's
need to know that he matters, that he is cared for, or even that he is
threatened, for in this view all religions are centred on man, and man is
individually and collectively in constant need of reassurance that he is not an
unimportant item in an indifferent world; if he cannot be comforted, to be
threatened is better than to be alone in an empty void of nothingness. According
to J. van Baal, a Dutch anthropologist, |
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Man experiences his universe as a
universe full of intentions, a universe which holds a claim on him, addressing
him with something undefined, urging him to act or to be in some way or another.
The experience is strongest in moments of crisis, when events turn up with such
an overwhelming force that it is as if they address their victim, delivering a
message to him. |
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In answer to such a universe, religions
must offer a coherent view of God or gods, world, and mankind and must give man
and his physical or psychical well-being, or both, a prominent place within this
world view. Thus, in all religions Divine Providence or its equivalent is an
element of some importance. |
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Basically, there are two possible forms
of belief in Providence. In the first, man believes in more or less divine
beings that are responsible for the world generally and for the welfare of man
specifically. Although omnipotence as an attribute of gods is rare, it is true
that, as a rule, gods and other divine beings have considerable power not only
over man but also over nature. The gods take care of the world and of mankind,
and their intentions toward mankind are normally positive. The capricious and
arbitrary gods of paganism
exist for the most part only in the imagination of those Christian theologians
who attempt to denigrate the pagan religions. Gods and men are generally
connected into one community by reciprocal duties and privileges. The belief in
evil spirits does not contradict this belief in Providence but, on the contrary,
strengthens it, just as in Christianity the belief in the devil might serve to
strengthen the belief in God. |
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In the second form, man believes in a
cosmic order in which the welfare of man has its appointed place. This cosmic
order is usually conceived as a divine order that is well intentioned toward man
and is working for man's well-being as long as he is willing to insert himself
into this order, to follow it willingly, and not to upset it by perversion or
rebellion; the firmness of the order, however, may become inexorable and thus
lead to fatalism, the belief in an impersonal destiny against which man is
powerless. In that case a clash between the concepts of Providence and fatalism
is inevitable. In most religions, however, both views are combined in some way.
(see also cosmology
, fate) |
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The English word Providence is derived
from the Latin term providentia, which
primarily means foresight or foreknowledge but also forethought and Providence
in the religious sense; thus, Cicero used the phrase the "Providence of the
gods" (deorum providentia). The
Stoic philosophers thoroughly discussed the significance of the term Providence,
and some of them wrote treatises on the subject. A hymn to Zeus written about
300 BC by Cleanthes, a Greek
poet and philosopher, is a glorification of the god as a benevolent and
foreseeing ruler of the world and of mankind. According to Cleanthes, God has
planned the world in accordance with this Providence: (see also Stoicism) |
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For thee this whole vast cosmos,
wheeling round |
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The earth, obeys, and where thou
leadest |
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It follows, ruled willingly by thee. |
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The author asserts that "naught
upon Earth is wrought in thy despite, O God" and that in Zeus all things
are harmonized. Seneca, a
Roman Stoic philosopher, formulates the belief in Providence in one of his
dialogues as follows: man should believe "that Providence rules the world
and that God cares for us." The Stoic school disagreed with those who
believed that the world was ruled by blind fate; they did not deny that a
controlling power exists, but, as everything happens according to a benevolent
divine plan, they preferred to call this power Providence. According to the
Stoic emperor Marcus Aurelius,
God wills everything that happens to man, and for that reason nothing that
occurs can be considered evil. Stoic ideas about Providence influenced
Christianity. |
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In later Latin after the emperor
Augustus, the word Providence was used as a designation of the deity. Seneca,
for example, wrote that it is proper to apply the term Providence to God.
Finally, Providence was personified as a proper goddess in her own right by Macrobius,
a Neoplatonic Roman author, who wrote in defense of paganism about 400. |
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Epicurus,
a 4th-3rd-century-BC Greek philosopher, contested the Stoic belief in Divine
Providence, but the objections of his followers could not change the spiritual
climate of the Greco-Roman world. More eloquent, perhaps, than the dissertations
of the learned Stoic philosophers were the many stories found in a work by Aelian,
an early 3rd-century-AD Roman rhetorician, about strange events and miraculous
occurrences ascribed to Providence. Aelian, however, was more interested in
sensational stories than in historic accuracy. |
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The several meanings of the Latin word providentia
exactly mirror those of its Greek equivalent, pronoia.
Herodotus, the historian
of the 5th century BC, was the first Greek author to use the word in a religious
sense when he mentioned Divine Providence as the source of the wisdom that keeps
nature in balance and prevents one kind of creature from prevailing over all
others. Writers such as the historian Xenophon and the biographer Plutarch used
the word for the watchful care of the gods over mankind and the world. |
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The belief in the existence of a blind
and inexorable fate can lead
to a conflict with the belief in a benevolent Providence. In the Greco-Roman
world, where fatalistic belief was strong and where it found a popular
expression in astrology, the belief that the whole world, but particularly man,
is governed by the stars was contested by Judaism and Christianity. The Talmud,
the authoritative collection of Jewish tradition, teaches that Israel is subject
to no star but only to God. An example of this conflict is also found in the
novel The
Golden Assby Apuleius, a
2nd-century-AD philosopher and rhetorician deeply interested in Hellenistic
mystery cults, which taught a faith that liberated man from the power of the
stars. In the novel the hero is converted to the goddess Isis;
then, the priest of the goddess addresses him: |
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"Lucius, my friend," he said,
"you have endured and performed many labours and withstood the buffetings
of all the winds of ill luck. Now at last you have put into the harbour of peace
and stand before the altar of loving-kindness. Neither your noble blood and rank
nor your education sufficed to keep you from falling a slave to pleasure;
youthful follies ran away with you. Your luckless curiosity earned you a
sinister punishment. But blind Fortune, after tossing you maliciously about from
peril to peril has somehow, without thinking what she was doing, landed you here
in religious felicity. Let her begone now and fume furiously wherever she
pleases, let her find some other plaything for her cruel hands. She has no power
to hurt those who devote their lives to the honour and service of our Goddess's
majesty." |
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The Christian use of the term
Providence, besides being profoundly influenced by Greek and Roman thought, is
based on the Old Testament
story of the patriarch Abraham's sacrifice of his son Isaac, which is found in
the book of Genesis. Abraham
tells Isaac, "God will provide himself with a young beast for a sacrifice,
my son." The Hebrew language lacks a proper word to express the notion of
Providence, but the concept is well known in the Old Testament. (see also Christianity) |
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In the New
Testament the word pronoia and related words are used rarely, but in no case are they
used in the later Christian sense of Providence. This is of interest because the
idea of Providence as such is far from foreign to the religious thinking of the
New Testament. In the Gospel
According to Matthew, for example, Jesus says: |
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Are not two sparrows sold for a penny?
And not one of them will fall to the ground without your Father's will. But even
the hairs of your head are numbered. Fear not, therefore; you are of more value
than many sparrows. |
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Providence as used in Christianity is
thus a dogmatic term rather than a biblical term; it indicates that God not only
created the world but also governs it and cares for its welfare. A well-known
German reference work, Religion in
Geschichte und Gegenwart ("Religion in History and the Present"),
gives a more elaborate and more theological definition of Providence: |
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God keeps the world in existence by his
care, he rules and leads the world and mankind deliberately according to his
purpose, and he does this in his omnipotence as God the Creator, in his goodness
and love as revealed by his son Jesus Christ, and to further the salvation of
mankind through the Holy Spirit. (see also Trinity) |
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The concept of Providence is rooted in
the belief in the existence of a benevolent, wise, and powerful deity or a
number of beings that are benevolent and that are either fully divine or, at
least, appreciably wiser and more powerful than man (e.g., ancestors in many religions). Benevolence is the primary
requirement. In northern Malawi,
death in later life is usually ascribed to the will of the ancestors, but a
miscarriage or the death of a very young child is not considered to be their
work because such an act would be in contradiction with their benevolent and
helpful attitude toward their offspring. The three attributes, however, are all
essential for the concept of Providence: the divine being or beings must be well
intentioned toward man, must have the necessary wisdom to know what is good for
mankind, and must have the power to act on this intention and insight.
Benevolence does not exclude the possibility of punishment in cases of
transgression. There is probably no god in existence who only rewards and helps
and never punishes his believers. (see also ancestor worship) |
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Providence, however, need not operate in
a direct way; it may operate through many intermediary beings--e.g.,
the ancestors and various kinds of spirits in several nonliterate religions
or the angels in Christian and Muslim belief--or the concept may be implicit in
and expressed by a fixed world order, a cosmic order that makes human life
possible biologically, socially, and spiritually and that guarantees its
existence in the future. Thus, Providence may become a more or less impersonal
principle of cosmic order as instituted and maintained by a divine being, but,
if the starting point of a benevolent and just divine being is completely lost
sight of or if it is consciously denied, then Providence becomes fate. |
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Although the introduction of
intermediary beings brings no essential change in the idea of Providence as the
divine watchful care for the benefit of mankind, the notion of a cosmic order
changes the picture profoundly. Even if the cosmic order is conceived as a
benevolent order in which man is able to feel safe and whose very existence
reassures him, such an order is different from the personal relationship between
man and his god or gods. The concept of an unchangeable world order requires a
different reaction. A personal god may, perhaps, be moved by prayer and
sacrifice to give or to prevent events; when the order of the world is fixed,
however, the course of events cannot be changed by these or any other means.
There is probably no religion that acknowledges an all-embracing world order
without any exceptions at all. Generally, human beings have such an important
function in the order of the world that they also have a certain opportunity to
manipulate this order, at least to a certain extent, for instance, by sacrifice
or other ritual acts. One opening is presented by the fact that the cosmic order
is valid for everything of a more general character, but as a rule the divine
will or the free will of man or chance operates on the level of the common
occurrences and daily life of the individual. Though in theory the order may
govern everything, a large field is left open for different concepts to
function. In some cases even uncertainty and chance have their proper place
within a determined order. In Yoruba religion (Nigeria), for example, the god Eshu
represents the principle of chance and uncertainty and of all that cannot be
foreseen. He is one of the gods of the pantheon and has his own sanctuaries and
priests. (see also cosmology , chaos
and order) |
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Another possibility for combining the
idea of a personal divine will with a fixed course of events is the concept of predestination
best known from Islam and some forms of Calvinism (derived from the
thought of John Calvin, a 16th-century French Protestant Reformer) and also
important in the theology of Augustine of Hippo, a 4th-5th-century Church
Father. Although predestination essentially is concerned with salvation--the
question of whether a certain individual will be saved or damned--it is a
concept that easily lends itself to a more general application. In a few
religions the idea that the individual chooses his own destiny before birth is
encountered; e.g., the Batak
of Sumatra and some West African tribes. In this conception free will and
predestination merge. |
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In all religions that acknowledge the
existence of a more or less impersonal cosmic order, man is expected to work
with the cosmos, to insert himself into the cosmic order. Man's behaviour in all
fields is governed by a set of rules that are all based on the same principle:
to act and to be in harmony with the order of the world, which is natural and
divine at the same time. |
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The cosmic order is given with the
creation of the world, but it is possible to question the relation of the
Creator to the world after creation. On one hand, there is the belief that God
will not abandon the world he has created; on the other, the belief that God
created the world and the cosmic order in such a manner that to a great extent
the course of the world is fixed from the first beginning and he is no longer
involved in it. The latter was, in fact, the thesis of the 17th- and
18th-century Deists in Europe (see RELIGIOUS
AND SPIRITUAL BELIEF: e="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Deism ).
The fact of creation helps man to believe in Providence because it would be
inconsistent for the creator god or gods not to care for the further existence
of the created world. Only persistent disobedience and open rebellion can then
furnish a reason for the Creator to abandon or destroy the world. This situation
is expressed in the myths of a great flood or some other form of destruction
sent as a punishment. There is, however, never a total destruction of the world
in these myths, although this final solution may be threatened for the eschatological
(ultimate end) future. It may also be promised, if the eschatological events are
construed as the definitive institution of a world order that is perfect for all
eternity and will never deteriorate. (see also Deism) |
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The cosmic order is often clearly
contrasted with the disorder of chaos. The cosmic order is a total order; it
comprises not only all natural things but also social and ethical rules. This
does not mean that cultures and religions centred on a cosmic order have no
clear idea of distinctive ethical principles but that ethics is considered as
one function of the total cosmic order and as such can never be quite
independent. The rules of ethics depend on and are derived from the more general
rules that govern the cosmos in its totality; they are no more than special
manifestations of these general rules. An example of this attitude can be found
in the Greek hymns in praise of the goddess Isis.
She is honoured as the queen of heavens; she divided the earth from the heaven,
showed the stars their paths, and ordered the course of the sun and the moon.
But the same hymn says that she ordained that children should love their
parents, that she taught men to honour the images of the gods, and that she made
justice stronger than gold and silver. She established penalties for the people
practicing injustice and taught that men should have mercy with suppliants. She
is also praised because she invented writing, devised marriage contracts,
invented navigation, and watches over all men who sail on the sea. (see also Greek
religion) |
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The cosmic order can appear in a
personalized form, as, for example, the Egyptian goddess Maat; but this
personification of the cosmic order is not general: the Iranian Asha, the Indian
rta, and the Chinese Tao are all to a
high degree impersonal. Maat represents truth and order; her domain includes not
only the order of the nature, but also the social and ethical orders. She plays
an important role in the judgment of the dead: the heart of the deceased is
weighed against the truth of Maat. She is often called the daughter of Re.
In this case, Re is the creator god who not only created the world but also
founded the cosmic order as represented by Maat. Her importance is also apparent
in the conception of the Maat sacrifice.
In Egypt sacrifice is not so much a gift of men to the gods as a sacral
technique that enables man to contribute to the maintenance and, if necessary,
the restoration of harmony and order in the world. Not only must man live
according to Maat but also the gods must live by her truth and order; according
to Egyptian texts, the goddess Maat is the food by which the gods live. (see
also Egyptian
religion, Ma'at) |
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The idea of a determined cosmic order
that is natural as well as ethical is an important concept in the Persian
religion of Zoroastrianism
(also called Mazdaism and, in India, Parsiism) founded during the late 7th and
early 6th centuries BC by Zoroaster (Zarathustra). This idea is called Asha
and is the counterpart of Drug, which represents evil and deceit and the
disorder connected with these. Asha is connected with the sacred element fire.
The Indian concept of rtaforms the Indian counterpart of Asha. The gods, especially the Adityas,
protect the world against chaos and ignorance and maintain the world order,
which, however, exists independently from the gods. Although the power of rta
operates according to its own principles and laws, man is able, provided he
knows the right methods, to manipulate this power to some extent for his own
benefit. The proper means for this manipulation is found especially in older
Hindu sacrifice. The gods are generally benevolent and friendly toward men who
follow rta, and they punish their own
enemies and those of the world order, which in India, too, embraces the social
ethical rules. |
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The concept of Tao
is of great importance in Chinese
religion, especially in Taoism,
founded by Lao-tzu according
to tradition in the 6th century BC. Lao-tzu is the author of the Tao-te
Ching("Classic
of the Way and Its Power") in which he expounds this concept in a manner
that is more mystical than philosophical. Tao, literally translated
"road," is a difficult and complex concept. It certainly represents
the cosmic order, but in Taoism it is even more than that. It is also the
concept that gives existence meaning; it is the primeval power that forms the
foundation of all that is; and, in some cases, it is even used to designate some
kind of high god. Taoism is a mystic religion, and the Tao-te
Ching is a mystic treatise in which the essence of the Tao is expounded in
many parables and metaphors because it cannot be expressed rationally. (see also
mysticism) |
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Many related concepts exist. The Greek Moira,
for instance, is comparable to Asha and rta;
it lacks, however, the mystic overtones of Tao. The Moira in classical Greek
religion is not yet fate as this idea was found in Greco-Roman times. The
concept of cosmic order may function either in a religious or in a philosophic
context; e.g., the pre-established
harmony (harmonia praestabilita) in
the philosophy of Gottfried Wilhelm
Leibniz, a German Rationalist, is the cosmic order that holds together
and unifies the innumerable individual units, called monads
by Leibniz. (see also preestablished
harmony) |
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Although cosmic order is necessarily a
general idea comprising the whole of the world and all that exists in it, the
concept of Providence may be more particular: the benevolent aspect of
Providence may be confined to a special group of people or at least be specially
related to that group; or a number of patron gods or saints may watch over some
specific activity or smaller group. This accounts for the idea of a chosen
people watched over and led by a just and loving God. The ancient people of
Israel is, perhaps, the best known example; the concept, however, is widespread.
Patron gods and patron saints who are particularly charged with caring for some
small group, craft, or activity or who operate in special circumstances, such as
during illness or war, occur in most religions and are popular in many. |
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Although Providence in most religions
operates primarily for the welfare and the salvation of the community as a
whole, it may also be experienced as personal guidance. This latter phenomenon
is common in some diverse cultures--e.g., that
of the Plains Indians of North America and in some forms of Protestantism in
which generally each person is expected to have a private experience of divine
guidance. In other cultures and religions, personal guidance is often a
prerogative of some person or persons singled out for some reason by God or the
gods. |
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It is clear that the concept of
Providence by its central position in many religions is connected with numerous
other aspects of religion. In monotheistic
religions Providence is a quality of the one divinity; in polytheistic
religions it may be either a quality of one or more gods or it may be conceived
as an impersonal world order on which the gods, too, more or less depend. In the
latter case, Providence may lose its aspect of benevolence and become inexorable
fate or fickle chance. Most religions show a certain ambivalence; for fate and
Providence do not always form a clear-cut contradiction. |
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Still another form of ambivalence occurs
between fate or divine will
and the will of man when the latter is conceived as free, or at least free to a
certain degree. In some religions the benevolent aspect of Providence appears as
grace, and a discussion may
arise about the relationship between free
will and grace. Perhaps the most difficult problem connected with the
notion of Providence is the existence of evil; men have perennially coped with
the question of how to reconcile the idea of a provident God or gods with the
evident existence of evil in the world. (T.P.v.B.) |
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