The biblical significance of the story Prof. Siegfried J. Schwantes

[Berean]

The biblical significance of the story
Prof. Siegfried J. Schwantes
INTRODUCTION
Intelligent human beings do not tolerate what does not make sense. The noblest efforts of man push him to seek the meaning of the universe which surrounds him and to define his own role in it. This search for meaning pushes him towards progress. For centuries man has searched and worked, naively assuming that if the riddles of nature were solved, then the riddle of man tormented with his feet planted on the ground of the earth, thoughts darting towards the sky stars would also be resolved. Placing his hopes in the new tools of scientific research, he aspires to one day be able to reduce the problems of the physical universe to a single and elegant equation which explains everything, which encompasses everything.

Simultaneously with the attack on the broad front of physical research, another less spectacular research has been carried out in the field of history. With unusual discernment, G. B. Vico points out in his “Scienza Nuova” that since God created nature, He alone holds the key to its mysteries; but as the story is that of the creation of man, he is well qualified to fathom its secrets. Written at the beginning of the eighteenth century, his book has been forgotten for several generations. But as receptive minds became increasingly aware that it would be history rather than science that would hold the answer to the riddle of human destiny, scholars after scholars have refined the tools of science. scientific historical research and progress has been made over all periods examined. The field of study was divided among the growing number of specialists and, as might be expected, data was collected in abundance. Archaeological discoveries have given rise to cultures and civilizations hitherto unknown. Dead languages ​​have been deciphered. Hieroglyphic and cuneiform inscriptions have revealed the secrets of Egypt and Mesopotamia. The frontiers of knowledge have been pushed in every direction, and scientists have found themselves for the first time with four thousand years of documented history before their eyes. The past has literally come to life.

Nonetheless, this mountain of data has not brought any man closer to what was most important to him, which is the meaning of history. Where is history taking us after all? Some philosophers, reflecting on the broad portrait of man’s past, thought they could discern some pattern, some recognizable tendency. Others with equal emphasis have denied the evidence of any intelligible conception. Historicists have argued with conviction that man, because of his position too committed to the unfolding of history, could not pass judgment on history as a whole. The man, not being a simple spectator but being himself involved in the story as an actor, could not speak objectively about the meaning of the story. Man needed what the positivist historian denied him, a point of reference outside of history that could allow him to assess the past with detachment.

Now, this is exactly what Christian revelation provides us; a vantage point above and beyond history, a balcony seat, from where he can watch the historical drama and recognize in it a significant portion of the divine plan for the world. “By faith we understand,” said the author of the letter to the Hebrews. By faith, a divine point of view is “given” to man from which he can interpret reality.

Without help, reason has proved incapable of detecting the significance of the story. The philosophies of history have repeatedly been dismissed as unsatisfactory. For the Greeks, history was made of endless cycles. Eighteenth-century rationalists, for their part, insisted on the idea of ​​inevitable progress, an idea which gained popularity throughout the following century as science and technology gave the promise of a golden age. imminent. But the idea of ​​inevitable progress lost much of its credibility after the madness of two world wars. The idea that the world was getting better and better was no longer an automatic conclusion. Other philosophers of history like Oswald Spengler imagined human societies as biological organisms subject to the laws of birth, growth, aging and death. Writing shortly after the tragedy of World War I, Spengler was rather pessimistic about Western civilization. She was showing undeniable signs of decline in his eyes. Spengler had a lot to say and was arguably correct in his diagnosis of Western civilization, but

he had almost nothing to say about the purpose of the story and offered little except despair.

Accepting the providential point of view of history does not necessarily allow someone to give a plausible explanation of every major turning point in events as coming from a moral Providence in charge of all things. Such a statement would be greatly presumptuous. Relevant information is not available in most cases. Real witnesses were rarely aware of the religious implications. “The Lord does not consider what a man considers; man looks at what strikes the eyes, but the Lord looks at the heart. (1 Samuel 16.7) His proximity to an event does not always give the observer an advantage over all others who study him.

It is obvious that no historian can enjoy the advantages of both proximity and perspective. History is an explanation not of current events, but of accomplished facts. Eyewitness explanations for an event rarely satisfy those who monitor what is happening from a distance. A sense of perspective is a necessary pre-requisite for the historian for the simple reason that an event is understandable only in the context of what came before and what followed. This means that the more we know about both sides of an event, the easier it is to understand. We are thus led to the almost paradoxical conclusion that, provided he is familiar with the links between the past and the present, the more the historian stays away from the event, the more he will be able to understand it.

But no event is linked to the present by a single series of links, be they political, economic or religious. Any event is likely to have more than one plausible explanation. Such explanations would look like this: “From the artistic point of view …”, “From the point of view of military science …”, and so on, this event can be understood in this way, and this, to the satisfaction of those who are interested in this point of view.

But since, for the Christian, religion is the ultimate concern of man, events should be able to be comprehensible to him from a religious point of view. All other explanations may be valid, but this is the only vital one. To insist that since man is part of the course of history, all events must be explained from a historical point of view, is to ignore the fact that man is not only a temporal creature but that it also belongs to eternity. Man can reflect on history by the power of thought and, by the grace of God, man transcends time and history.

The Christian point of view of history introduces meaning where other points of view see only chaos. It organizes data better than any other. He is not only concerned with the process of the story, but with its purpose. It makes sense. It is the author’s conviction that there is no more satisfactory point of view.

To be continued

[Berean]

IN SEARCH OF SENSE
History is the recording of past events. Obviously not all. History is not concerned with events in the natural world unless they affect or are affected by events in the human world. History is also not concerned with all the events in which man plays a part; it only deals with events which have significance in the overall drama.

This leads us to the next fundamental question: What do we mean by significant event? The importance of an event is necessarily linked to the point of observation, whether it is a family, a clan, a nation or an entire civilization. We could very well call it the criterion of relation.

So, for example, an earthquake could wipe out thousands of lives and yet be of little significance if it had no impact on the future of a civilization. If, on the contrary, the earthquake explains why civilization died out or suffered from a partial eclipse for some time, it immediately becomes significant for the historian. Such was the case with the earthquake which destroyed the royal residence located in Knossos at the end of the period of Minoan II-B. There is no written account of the event, but the material destruction detected by archaeologists helps explain the interval between this period and the Minoan civilization that followed.

A second criterion could be called the criterion of utility. An event is significant for the historian if it clarifies subsequent events which are in turn significant. What does not explain anything is soon thrown away like useless debris. But an event which by its nature communicates meaning to several otherwise unrelated fragments survives in memory because of its unifying value. Not only will it survive in the oral tradition, but it will eventually find its place in the annals of written history.

Despite popular opinion, the main task of a historian is not to take note of past events as accomplished facts. He must first evaluate before he can save. Not all events are worth recording. Even a medieval monastery chronicler did not record every event occurring in the surrounding area or even within the walls of the monastery where he lived. He too, for lack of time or for some other reason, had to record only what was significant. In all likelihood his superior had assigned him to this task because he possessed superior judgment and could therefore distinguish between the trivial and the significant. He would not record every little rumor heard at mealtime but would choose to report the dismissal of an abbot, the intrigues leading to the election of his successor or the plague ravaging the countryside. Even a second-rate columnist would have enough historical sense to forget the thousand and one trivialities that do not contribute to history.

In the epilogue to his Gospel, John mentions that he also did not write down all the events of his Master’s short ministry. He was aware that a pragmatic selection had to be made. He had to discern the main motive in the life of Christ and then choose from the overwhelming abundance of material what related to that motive. He notes: “Jesus did many other things as well; if we wrote them down in detail, I don’t think the world itself could contain the books we would write. “(John 21.25)

Likewise Polybius (205-125 BC), when he retired after a busy life to write the history of the world between the Second and Third Punic Wars, chose as the dominant motif or theme the triumphant expansion of Rome into the Mediterranean, collecting its material in such a way as to support its conviction concerning the destiny of Rome. As far back as historical writings go, Polybius was the first to stress the need for a holistic perspective to make history meaningful. Sketchy stories were no better than uplifting chronicles. Professional historians attest to Polybius’ opinion. But in order to accomplish his goal effectively, he had to remember and forget, assess the multitude of facts and record only those that mattered.

It goes without saying that Polybius’ interpretation of the facts was embellished by his assumptions. No one, not even a nature scholar, discusses a topic without making assumptions, consciously or not. The nature scientist approaches the object of his study with the preconceived opinion that nature is intelligible, that its regularity can be expressed by laws, that the present is the guarantor of the past. But as the extent of the investigation

science is usually limited, no one questions these unprovable assumptions.

There is no such thing as a truly objective historian. No one studies the sources without some preconceived idea. Like everyone else, the historian finds himself deep in the flow of history and can no more escape the prejudices of his generation than he can escape the air he breathes. He observes the past through the glasses of a contemporary philosophical vision. In this sense, history is a continual dialogue between the present and the past. Each new generation must rewrite history to make it intelligible to themselves.

Edward Gibbon’s views in “The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire” may have satisfied his contemporaries surrounded by the same philosophical and theological background. But the questions a historian would ask in the second half of the twentieth century would be very different, and the answers he would get would necessarily be different from Gibbon’s. There are not many more facts known about Rome today than there were in Gibbon’s time. Nor is there a greater level of precision possible today than in its time. A distortion of the facts is still possible among historians to prove a particular point of view. But, let’s face it, this becomes less and less likely as knowledge of basic data becomes accessible to all. Highlights from the past are too well known to be used by an author to tip the evidence in favor of partisan theory. But such distortions do not escape detection for long.

Yet a modern historian using the same data as Gibbon may come to an entirely different conclusion. For example, he could blame the fall of the Roman Empire not on the Christian religion but on the economic deterioration of Roman society. The ultimate conclusion revolves around the interpretation of the facts.

Facts relating to groups of human beings are incomparably more complex than facts relating to agglomerations of molecules. The student of nature has the additional advantage of being able to ignore one aspect of nature and then focus his attention on some minor detail of that abstraction. This is what Galileo did in his study of the laws of bodies in free fall. He restricted his observation to the simplest phenomenon, leaving little or no room for ambiguity so that a single, unequivocal question could receive a single, unequivocal answer.

Modern scientists do the same, which partly explains the tremendous advances in the physical sciences. For example, the physicist isolates radiation of a single wavelength and makes it the subject of his investigation. Or it isolates particles of known mass, gives them a known velocity in a particle accelerator, and monitors the outcome of their collision with other particles of known mass. In each case, the answers can be unambiguous because so are the phenomena.

The historian cannot count on such advantages. Human actions of historical significance affecting thousands or millions of people are never simple. Consider the impossibility of subjecting past actors of the human drama to in-depth analysis and it quickly becomes clear that past events can be interpreted differently by different historians. For example, on the morning of Julius Caesar’s assassination, what did each senator think of Caesar? Didn’t he have friends in the aristocratic room? Was their paralysis due to panic, indifference or sympathy for the conspirators? In their love for the republic, were Cassius and Brutus as idealistic as they claimed or were they defending hidden interests? These questions and a host of others like them can never be answered unequivocally. There is simply not enough specific information on all the issues. The data that have survived are found in Livy, Suetonius, Dio Cassius each of them ever further removed from the real events, all recognizing in the murder of Caesar a major event in Roman history, but each sifting the facts available to through the fabric of its particular presuppositions. The questions each elicited reflected their individual political and philosophical sympathies.

A raw historical event is never as simple as a raw natural event. Worse yet, it may never happen again so that we can take a closer look at it, unlike a natural event. By its very nature, the historical event is unique and impossible to repeat.

This peculiarity justifies the statement q

hile science is concerned with the general aspect, history considers the particular and the unique. Lincoln’s assassination doesn’t shed much light on Caesar’s murder other than perhaps by revealing common motives behind human actions. But since the actors are never the same, the motives, even if they are similar, are never the same either. Moreover, the multiple subtleties of human nature prevent us from concluding that identical circumstances (assuming that this is possible) would lead to identical answers.

All of this brings us back to the point where we have to admit that history is never a mere compilation of facts relating to human actions. At best, it would then be an arid chronicle like the desert. To merit consideration, the story must necessarily involve facts and interpretation. Man is not satisfied with just knowing that something has happened even though he knows how it happened. Usually its main interest is to know why it happened and what are the circumstances that made it likely or inevitable. As Professor M. Oakeshott once remarked: “To ask for a pure story is to ask for pure nonsense. ”

As an interpreter, the task of the historian is at least partially defined for him. According to “the principle of noetic value” [scientific of the mind], only significant events normally survive in the memory of the human race. Consequently, only a small fraction of the events that transpired on the human scene are remembered and recorded. It is the task of the historian to rediscover, if not obvious, why the events that have survived were considered significant.

Likewise, the task of the contemporary historian is in a more difficult sense since he does not benefit from the noetic selection process accompanying the passage of time. Imagine Callisthenes, Aristotle’s nephew, attached to Alexander the Great’s expedition as an official historian. What would he register and what would he reject? One decision was as valid and important as another. It wasn’t everything that happened in camp life that was worth recording, not even what happened daily in Alexander’s life. All was not significant for Callisthenes as a historian. Reflections like these led him to lose his modesty, and it is reported, to remark in the presence of the conqueror that Alexander’s fame did not depend on what Alexander had done but on what Callisthenes had written.

In a sense, Callisthenes made history just as much as Alexander. “History is the product of historians” remains a popular saying among members of the profession. If in their eyes, certain politicians or certain generals or even certain gala events are not worth mentioning in their accounts, the three are likely to fall into the limbo of historical oblivion.

Rather than claiming that historians make history, it is perhaps more accurate to say that history is a look at the past through the eyes of a historian. No historian would omit the name of Alexander from his account. Regardless of contemporary writings, Alexander made enough impact on the world of his time to be remembered otherwise. A dozen towns have been erected in order to perpetuate his memory. After his adventurous career, life in the Middle East was never the same. If it hadn’t been for Callisthenes, someone else would have told her life story. Someone else would have explained why the course of events turned so dramatically in the centuries after Alexander.

Some events are so extraordinary that they simply cannot be ignored. For example, no historian studying the France of the eighth century and subsequent centuries can ignore Charlemagne. Its presence in documents and on monuments rises, as imposing as the Alps of Switzerland. But without Alcuin the prefect of Charlemagne in matters of education who wrote the history of education in medieval France, the history of education would show a gaping hole.

On the other hand, the teachers assigned by Alcuin to different schools are hardly known if at all. We are forced to conclude that their names have almost no historical significance. They lived their little lives but if either had never lived, the story would be pretty much the same.

To be meaningful, the events must raise more than just an anecdote in the life of the nation. They must have a profound influence on future generations. There is nothing that can be called the “democracy of events”, as Karl Popper would have us believe. Aff

To assert that all events have the same significant importance is to deny that the memory of the human race is itself selective. In his provocative book “The Meaning of History,” Eric Kahler emphasizes this point. “I dare say that Rome was more important than Phrygia, Augustine more important than Donatus of Carthage, Luther more important than Karlstadt. Preeminence varies from country to country, from one type of activity or human interest to another. ”

The evaluation of the significance of events is also related to the field of interest that the researcher is studying, as suggested above. For the music historian, the seventeenth-century Italian composer Palestrina is of great interest. Palestrina is a significant link in the evolving chain of musical composition. Its fine counterpoint helps explain the musical achievements of J. S. Bach and his spiritual heirs. But his name can rightly be ignored by a political historian. Because in the political field, his career has played no role worthy of mention.

This consideration brings us to this crucial question: What human activity exerts the greatest influence in history? Art? Politics? The economy? Religion? No answer could obtain unanimity.

Should history be seen as “the history of freedom”, as Benedetto Croce has evaluated it? Or is it the story of social justice or the story of equal economic opportunity for all? The majority of history books lean heavily towards the political aspect of history. Statesmen and generals get the lion’s share in most studies of the past. While intending to describe the progress of civilization, historians assume that the struggle to dominate politics is what best characterizes human life on earth. The learned historian who assumes that wars of expansion best describe a given civilization will choose from his arsenal of proven facts those which seem to him to support his thesis and will interpret them according to his political philosophy. By choosing certain facts, discarding others, and organizing his material so that more recent facts seem to come naturally from older facts, he arrives at a relatively consistent view of the past. Another historian, working with the same assumptions, may present a more consistent point of view by incorporating more meaningful facts or by interpreting the same facts more convincingly.

The facts rarely speak for themselves. A range of well-proven facts does not have to make up history. It is not enough either to say that “facts are sacred and their free interpretation is permitted”. Facts as such are dead objects until a historian organizes them into a meaningful whole. They acquire meaning by being part of an intelligible whole. Touched by the magic wand of meaning, facts come to life.

Events become significant in relation to other events. Out of context, an event has no more meaning than a string without a violin. Wilberforce’s campaign for the abolition of the slave trade in the early nineteenth century makes sense in conjunction with contemporary events, in England and elsewhere, in the context of the recognition of human dignity that followed Awakening of the French Revolution. The Seven Years’ War which tore through Europe in the days of Frederick the Great of Prussia can only be understood as one episode in a larger drama. Taken in the context of European politics which revolved around the concept of the balance of power, its appearance and its outcome become intelligible.

There is an internal logic in the sequence of events which, when revealed by the historian, obtains the assent of like minds. This internal logic is related to the normal expectation that, under given circumstances, individuals or groups will behave according to a familiar pattern. Being what it is, human nature prompts the historian to anticipate one answer rather than another.

This does not mean that there is an inherent inevitability in the sequence of events. If there was no alternative to a given situation, someone could talk about the laws of history, and political events could become as predictable as the events of nature. This belief is still maintained by die-hard determinists. But human reactions to the same set of circumstances vary widely. We can speak at most of probabilities. In most explanations of history, our mind is satisfied if the sequence of events falls within a reasonable spectrum of predicted alternatives. Otherwise we are justified in doubting the explanation in question. In such cases, p

Often read that otherwise, one or more important facts have been ignored: By taking into account the additional information, it becomes possible to reconstruct the sequence of events in such a way as to please our intelligence and be satisfied with the explanation.

The meaning of a part is understood only in the larger context of the whole. For the biologist, the cell acquires its meaning according to the tissue it composes, the tissue according to the organ, and the organ according to the organism. Likewise for the historian, an event acquires meaning in the chain of events or of the epoch, the epoch in the context of a civilization, and civilization in the context of universal history. For man, the search for meaning in history can, depending on the depth of his research, stop at any level where his understanding remains partial. For practical reasons, man’s curiosity is often satisfied when the object of his question is explained by the next level of understanding.

Even though partial understanding may satisfy practical needs, the restless man is forced to continue his search for ultimate meaning. No half-truth will satisfy him. An innate motivation drives him. Just as the meaning of physical nature must be sought beyond nature in metaphysics, the ultimate meaning of history must be sought beyond history. Man needs and demands another point of view.

Those who refuse to go beyond the historical level must thereby conclude that universal history does not make sense. They reach a dead end. But where reason alone sees nothing but an incomprehensible mystery, biblical faith sees God as the Master of history. By faith, history acquires meaning in the larger context of an eternal order, the order of God. Human history with its light and its shadows, its achievements and its defeats, its hopes and frustrations, is seen by biblical man as part of a kind of eternity, of a greater reality. “By faith we understand,” wrote the author of the letter to the Hebrews (11.3). “Behind the pale stranger” faith sees God who, as Lord of all life, communicates meaning both to individual existence and to the dark realm of universal history.

As we have already pointed out, the concept of meaning is inextricably linked with the concept of order, a divine order. This divine order is to be understood not as being static but as a dynamic order, progressing towards a goal chosen by God and in accordance with His plan. Believers believe it is possible to trace this divine plan in the pages of history. It would be useless to speak of such a plan if it were to forever remain impossible to identify through the interplay of the events that make up human history. But we have to admit, the task of tracing such a plan through the maze of history is comparable to the difficulty we have of discerning any significant pattern in the ever-changing canopy of clouds.

A major obstacle is that, as a rule, the available historical accounts have not been written from the point of view of faith. Rather, they reflect the pride and self-sufficiency of man. As a result, the believer faces an almost insurmountable task when he attempts to trace the evidences of a divine plan among the data collected by secular spectators of the human scene. Events of religious significance were ignored in favor of other events which better suited the presuppositions of the writers. What seemed of major political or military importance and this represents the whole of recorded history may have had only a mild influence on the religious drama. It is an obvious truth that every historian has chosen, recorded and highlighted the events that support his view of reality. More often than not, historians worry about what happened on the battlefield and pay little attention to the “great secret motives of the heart” that accompany every major turning point in history. But it is precisely these “secret motives of the heart,” the great moral and spiritual decisions that would inform the development of a divine plan in history. The inaccuracy of a secular exposition of man’s past is not due to malicious intent but to the historian’s inability to delve deeper below the surface. It is as if an observer were to describe the ocean in the spring from the coast of Newfoundland by counting the icebergs floating on the great blue sea while ignoring that nine tenths of the volume of these icebergs lie hidden below the surface and that powerful currents direct these mountains of ice according to a definite course. Despite

In his professional training, the truth remains that the secular historian is more easily impressed by events which shake the political scene, while remaining blind to movements of religious importance because it is only spiritually that they can be discerned. (1 Corinthians 2.14). And since the Christian historian is, despite his best intentions, thus limited in his ability to probe below the surface of events and gain insight into the invisible currents that produce spiritual tensions and hopes, an account- fully convincing history as progressing towards a divine goal may forever remain beyond its reach. Faith alone is able to bridge the gap between objective data and ultimate meaning.

As a man of faith, the Christian historian has no excuse to offer for his belief that history follows a divine course. This statement is only a corollary of an even higher conviction that God exists and He is in control. The chronicler is not bold enough to claim that he can discern the divine purpose in any given event or series of events. But neither is he ready to give up his belief that history seen as a whole is a testament to God’s involvement.

The task of reinterpreting history in a manner consistent with the Christian faith poses a continual challenge to the Christian historian. The fact that the previous attempts no longer satisfy us is no reason to abandon the business as unprofitable. Augustine was not satisfied with the theodicy of Eusebius, so he composed “The City of God”. He undertook a task nobly conceived in Eusebius’ “Evangelical Preparation” and pushed it much further, as dictated by the light of his extraordinary genius. Three generations had passed but new questions demanded explanation. Rome had been sacked by Alaric and the Visigoths in AD 410 and to anxious onlookers it was as if the traditional universe of common sense had collapsed. But no great idea is set up in a vacuum. The preliminary pioneering work of Eusebius and Sextus the African was essential to the masterful work of the Bishop of Hippo. To use the famous saying attributed to Newton, Augustine saw further because he stood on the shoulders of giants. Augustine found no worthy successor in the unhappy centuries that followed. Neither Gregory of Tours, nor Isidore of Seville, nor the Honorable Bede felt the need to compose a new theodicy. They just wrote stories of limited scope. Their main handicap was to allow the tumult caused by the barbarian invasions to change their perspective. They did not even attempt to adapt the events of their time to the divine pattern, even in a crudely conceived plan of their own invention. On the other hand, Augustine, even though he lived during the time of the Visigothic invasion of Italy, was sufficiently distant from the scene of the action, in the safety of his bishopric on the other side of the Mediterranean, to be able to reflect on the broader implications of an empire collapse. In the eyes of the Middle Ages, Augustine satisfied this quest for meaning in history so well that there was nothing more to say.

The Protestant Reformation produced no particularly valid philosophy of history. The Reformers were too busy changing the ecclesiastical hierarchy to engage in historical reflections. The empty evangelical scholasticism that followed, coupled with the religious wars that kept Europe in instability for another century, also proved unsuccessful in this direction. It was only with Bossuet, at the end of the seventeenth century, that the problem of historical meaning resurfaced. Bossuet, the most eloquent of the Catholic prelates of his time and the guardian of the French dauphin, took a frank position in favor of a providential view of history, which was quickly identified as the biblical view.

A generation later, Voltaire and the Enlightenment rationalists disassociated themselves from Bossuet’s point of view. In French rationalist circles and then everywhere, the providential understanding of history was dismissed as naïve and replaced by the idea of ​​inevitable progress. Apparently supported by the fashionable scientific view, it has lasted to the present day in one disguise or another. Two world wars with catastrophic consequences have undermined the optimistic dogma of inevitable progress. The comfortable entrenchments that reason had built had been shown to be unsafe and man was once again wandering in his quest for the meaning of history. The countless books published since 1936 on the interpretation of history have given eloquent testimony

nt of the predicament of man before the existentialist threat of an absence of meaning in history.

This volume has been written with the conviction that the biblical view of history retains its validity and deserves our candid consideration. Most of the supposed “scientific reasons” for rejecting it that seemed plausible a generation or two ago no longer hold. There is also no reason to allow the many nihilistic existentialist views to be free and unchallenged. The two chapters which follow “Luck and Providence” and “Providence and Liberty” will seek to answer the most serious objections directed against the biblical point of view. They should serve as an introduction to a systematic exposition of the biblical significance of the story.

 

To be continued

[Berean]

The biblical significance of the story
Prof. Siegfried J. Schwantes
LUCK AND PROVIDENCE
By His Providence God acts both in nature and in history. This view of Providence was a basic presupposition of the authors of the Bible and was tacitly assumed by Christian thinkers in the Middle Ages and thereafter. However, it was not until the end of the seventeenth century that it found its classic expression in the book “Discours sur histoire Universitaire” by the French bishop Jean-Baptiste Bossuet.

However, the ink had hardly dried on Bossuet’s manuscript when his vision was questioned by Voltaire in his “Essay on morals”. Reflecting the character of the Enlightenment, Voltaire opposed reason to revelation and natural progress to Providence. With a vitriolic quill he described Bossuet as an obscurantist whose knowledge of history was pitifully inadequate and whose religious faith blinded him, preventing him from explaining facts in a naturalistic way. For many, Voltaire’s attack on the providential view of history remained the last word on the subject. Many shared his point of view, despite the fact that the classical physics of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries around which his arguments revolved had been largely replaced by the concepts of quantum physics and its various implications.

Faith in the providential activity of God is part of the internal and external fabric of the Bible. The author of the Hebrews makes this faith explicit by declaring: “He (Christ) is the reflection of his glory and the imprint of his person, and upholds all things by his mighty word” (1.3). The same dynamic word which, from nothingness, called the physical universe into existence sustains it in harmonious cohesion. At no time does Scripture portray the universe as an autonomous machine operating in perpetual independence from its Creator.

It certainly operates with predictable regularity. Scientists gradually discovered the operation of such regularities in ever larger fields and expressed their understanding of these things in what they called the laws of nature.

But the existence of the laws of nature does not exclude the need for a Providence to support them, any more than the civil laws of the land exclude the need for officers to support them. Laws never work alone. They are never the cause of phenomena. They are just the human way of describing regular behavior in nature. As man progresses in his understanding of the physical universe, he expresses the regularities he observes in ever more precise terms. Science is man’s systematic attempt to discover and formulate these laws, and to detect the general principles which govern them.

Scientists work on the assumption that nature is fundamentally simple and that it should be possible to come up with some fundamental equation from which all the laws could be derived in a mathematical way. Einstein’s search for a unified equation that would explain all optical, electrical, and gravitational phenomena was an attempt in this direction. But even if such an attempt were to succeed, the fact remains that laws only express how nature operates, never why. Laws describe phenomena and are never their origin. The need for a First Cause, a Creator and Support of the universe, remains the same. Jesus declared this truth in these terms: “My Father is still working, I too am working. “(John 5:17)

It is wrong to claim that since science advances in its ceaseless march through the universe, God must necessarily retreat. Some assume that as there are more and more areas that are flooded with the light of scientific knowledge, there is less and less room left for divine activity. This popular error presupposes that God acts only in the realm of mystery, darkness and the unknown. If law and order are recognized in the field of astronomy, then some assume God has nothing to do with stars and galaxies. If the laws of biology are discovered, then, according to the same argument, God is in no way involved in the processes of life.

Such falsehood can be understood as a reaction against the naive explanation of natural phenomena frequently employed before the pre-scientific era. When it was thought that the earth was populated by nymphs and gnomes, man was more inclined to wonder at the extraordinary and the bizarre than at the uniformity and order. In popular thought, eclipses and earthquakes were the most obvious manifestations of divine power. When eclipses were finally explained and predicted, th

They ceased to belong to the realm of mystery. This meant for some that since celestial phenomena occurred according to known laws, they did so independently of the will of God.

In fact, the recognition that nature is orderly, that its behavior can be understood and expressed in mathematical form, has produced different reactions in different people. Faced with the rapid progress of astronomy following Copernicus’ discovery (of a heliocentric planetary system of which the earth was only a minor component), the reactions of equally capable thinkers were in stark contrast. For some, the discovery of the law describing the movements of the heavenly bodies and the possibility of predicting them, led them to a deeper admiration of the work of God.

One of these people was the German astronomer Johannes Kepler who, on the basis of astronomical observations collected by Tycho Brahe, discovered the three laws of motion of the planets. Kepler described his famous research as the act of “thinking the thoughts of God after Him”. The very existence of natural laws that could be discovered by human intelligence was to him a conclusive proof that only a divine spirit could have conceived that the starry skies turn with such exact precision. For Kepler, the absence of laws would demonstrate the absence of a Planner.

Another such person was the English mathematician Sir Isaac Newton who was among the best physicists of his time. With his characteristic candor, Newton admitted his debt to previous generations of thinkers. But above all, he saw no conflict between his thinking as a scientist and his belief in God and Providence. In addition to his pioneering work in integral and differential calculus, and in the discovery of the laws of inertia, gravity, refraction and scattering of light, he found time to apply himself to the study the scriptures and even write a commentary on Daniel.

On the other hand, the gradual discovery of the order of the physical universe has led several thinkers to the conclusion that God was an absent Lord who created the universe and then let it function according to secondary laws. This is how the seventeenth-century deists and their philosophical heirs appeared. As a rule, they did not deny the existence of God, but to varying degrees denied the involvement of God in the regular order of nature. That is, they denied Providence, God’s personal concern for what is happening in the universe. Divine intervention in response to prayer was considered to lead to a miracle, and miracles were taboo according to their strictly deterministic concept of nature.

The dilemma thus posed to the Christian believer was obvious. Providence implies the freedom that God has to act through and above the laws of His creation. But in a universe inexorably ruled by natural law, every event was conceived as predetermined, eliminating such activity suddenly. Laplace, author of “La Mécanique Céleste”, went so far as to say that if the masses and velocities of all the particles making up the universe were known, then all future events could be mathematically predicted. According to this point of view, the whole future is already contained and absolutely determined in and by the past. Milic Capek describes it concisely: “In the classical deterministic plane, novelty and becoming were virtually eliminated. The future was considered to be implicitly contained in the present. (The Philosophical Aspect of Contemporary Physics, p. 395) In such an intellectual climate, religious faith was bound to suffer.

Despite the philosophical arguments, those who believed in Providence could not let go of this fundamental Christian concept. With or without the support of the prevailing scientific point of view, these Christian believers knew deep down that God was listening to their prayers. In the secret folds of their conscience, God confronted them. In this area, beyond any examination of science, they knew their own freedom and responsibility. In the sanctuary of their soul they knew what it meant to worship God “in spirit and in truth” and there they caught a glimpse of what Paul meant when he said: “Now the Lord is the Spirit. ; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. “(John 4.23; 2 Corinthians 3.17)

Historically the Christian does not renounce his faith because the metaphysics of his time is unfavorable to him. Knowing how many times the dominant philosophical climate could change according to the intellectual wind which blew, its perceptions go further in the truth than those which come from an unenlightened reason. It can be

allow to wait patiently for the ultimate justification. “He who believes will not hurry. “(Isaiah 28.16)

How this justification can take shape is illustrated in William G. Pollard’s book, Chance and Providence. This book, published in 1958, deals, as its title indicates, with “divine action in a world governed by the laws of science”. Its author was a renowned scholar, director of the “Oak Ridge Institute of Nuclear Studies”. Pollard shows how advances in theoretical physics in recent decades have reduced the concept of rigid determinism to ashes. Discoveries in atomic physics replaced laws expressing strict causality in nature with laws related to probability.

Pollard says: “In the realm of science the typical situation is one in which several alternatives present themselves in every natural process. (Chance and Providence, p. 67) This means that there are several ways in which an atom, for example, can respond when bombarded by another atomic particle. The laws will express degrees of probability favoring one alternative among others. The fixity of the cause-and-effect relation is thus expelled from the domain of atomic phenomena. Just as the statistical tables of insurance companies accurately predict how many people of a certain age group will die in a given year, but cannot say anything about the death of an individual, so natural laws predict the behavior of a large number of atoms under defined experimental conditions but cannot say anything about the individual atom.

The thought remains in some minds that if given more time, science could explain this element of uncertainty which has disturbed the beautiful plan of physics since Heisenberg enunciated the “principle of uncertainty” in 1927. But as Pollard clearly demonstrates, the tendency of scientific research has been to confirm rather than doubt this concept of indeterminacy on the scale of atomic phenomena. Indeterminacy is not introduced by man into the course of an experiment because of faulty equipment, but it is objective in the sense that it is embedded in nature. It is there whether the man observes it or not. All the evidence accumulated over the past 40 years leads to the conclusion that the concept of indeterminacy is not a passing fad among scientists but is here to stay. Whether we like it or not, says Dr Pollard, it seems to be a world in which indeterminacy, alternative and luck are real aspects of the fundamental nature of things and not simply the consequence of our understanding. inadequate and provisional. “(P. 54-55)

Neither is the objection valid that the principle of indeterminacy operates only on the atomic scale and does not apply to large-scale phenomena like that of Newton’s apple falling. The only difference is that statistically, the behavior of a large number of molecules is more predictable than that of a small number. In extreme cases, the different alternatives of a typical case come down to a single possibility. The situation is similar to that of insurance companies which gamble their hope of profit on the life expectancy of a large number of individuals which can be predicted with fairly good precision, while little can be said about it. person holding the policy, unless it is someone who does not have a one in a hundred chance of living beyond 90 or a one in a thousand chance of becoming a centenarian.

Since indeterminacy seems to be inherent in the fundamental nature of things, the old view that the future of the physical universe is absolutely conditioned by the present no longer holds. If this is true of nature, it should be even more true of man who transcends nature by the power of thought. The long-held view of strict determinism in history must likewise be replaced by the concept of the openness of history. At every turn of events, history faces countless alternatives. From the secular point of view, the alternative that will be chosen is purely a question of luck. But from the point of view of faith, the alternative taken may be a question of Providence.

Science can no longer pose a valid objection to this point of view. All she knows is that there are many alternatives at every turn. Why this one is chosen and not that one is beyond the competence of science, so to speak. Since she has nothing more to say, she calls the uncertainty that surrounds every turn of events the name of luck. Let it be clear then that luck explains nothing. Luck is not a new factor introduced in

science through the back door. It simply expresses that in a given conjuncture, despite the fact that several alternatives are possible, science cannot say anything.

But this new realization of the openness of history is exactly what the Christian recognizes as an opportunity for divine Providence. Without wanting to diminish man’s freedom and the physical circumstances that accompany it, God can direct the course of events according to the unimaginable decisions of His holy will. As Dr. Pollard put it: “The Christian sees the chances and accidents of history as the ups and downs of the fabric of Providence which God constantly weaves. »(Op. Cit., P. 71)

The incompatibility of a deterministic point of view with the providential point of view of history was sensed by many students of the Bible, even though they were unable to articulate it in the context of the new discoveries of physics. quantum. B. J. Lenergan, aware of the new scientific climate, writes: “The world process is open. It is the succession of probable realizations of possibilities. It follows that he does not walk along the iron rails laid by the determinists nor, on the other hand, does not happen to be an unintelligible set of simply lucky events. (Insight, p. 125-126) There is an arrangement and a reason to the story, and yet the future must be seen as fluid and open to both human freedom of choice and direction. of God.

Oscar Handlin in “Chance or Destiny: Turning Points in American History” (1955) elaborates on the point that luck has played a mysterious role in American history. In his prologue, he makes this provocative remark: “Reflecting on the degree to which the accident overturned the plans of men of wisdom, Prince Bismarck once commented that there was a special Providence for drunkards, fools. and the United States. And, indeed, from the perspective of the experienced statesman or professional soldier, there was a lot to be said for the argument that America survived and developed through a miraculous sequel. opportunities which, from one turning point to another, have led him on the road to prosperity. The unengaged historian can only speak of a “miraculous succession of chances”, where the believing Christian can recognize the hand of Providence guiding events according to a mysterious purpose impossible to pierce.

Oscar Handlin isn’t the only one who argues that luck is inextricably linked with the web of history. Collingwood in his edifying philosophy of history observes that for Edward Meyer “the correct objective of historical thought is the historical fact in its individuality and that luck and free will are determining causes which cannot be banished from. history without destroying its very essence. (The Idea of ​​History, p. 178) It is difficult for someone to agree with E. Meyer when he calls luck a real “cause”. But for the sake of the discussion, it is significant that prestigious historians frankly admit that things could have turned out differently and that if one alternative came true rather than another, it was really a matter of “luck”.

Events, especially those that affect man, can no longer be seen as mere links in a chain of causes and effects. Trivial things, such as a change in wind direction, the embarrassment of a courtier, the breakage of a piece of metal, or the defection of a soldier, to use the examples cited by O. Handlin, have taken their toll. difference in the turn of a battle or the outcome of a war. Reason sees only the shape of Cleopatra’s nose, the whims of Napoleon or the fortuitous arrival of natural phenomena as “ingredients determining the zigzags of history”. But faith discerns beneath these seeming trivialities the invisible result of the infinitely wise divine purpose.

Are we justified in transferring the knowledge acquired in atomic physics to the field of history? To this question someone might answer: Is there any reason to believe that historical events are more strictly determined than natural events on the atomic scale? To ask the question, is to answer it. The historical events which deserve to be so called are always the product of thought. To understand a historical event, someone has to re-grasp the thought that, as Collingwood said, went through the minds of the actors. Behind the actions were the thoughts, and the actions cannot be more strictly determined than the thoughts that initiated them. According to H. Butterfield, the Cambridge historian, “The texture of history is … also

light as a spider’s web, light as the thought of a person who simply thinks it, and its patterns seem to change as easily as the patterns of the wind on water. (Chsistianity and History, p. 110) The old concept of predetermined and rigid history must be abandoned in favor of a more valid understanding of the openness of history. At every moment of its course, history is confronted with multiple alternatives. We can very well believe that the one chosen depends on a divine Providence which gives free rein to human freedom.

The scientific point of view introduced by quantum physics is more favorable to the Christian belief in a Providence which supervises everything, than the point of view offered by classical physics. In this new light, it is possible both for men and for God to influence the course of events. Christians believed in this but until recently they had difficulty demonstrating Its consistency in the prevailing scientific climate.

Historians tended to be less dogmatic than scientists because they dealt with situations involving alternatives and some latitude, while scientists dealt with more specific phenomena of the physical world. Atomic research, one of the latest comers on the scientific scene, has shown that the phenomena of the physical world can also be subject to alternatives and to a certain latitude.

NG Pollard, who also presents the unique distinction of being both a scientist and a theologian, offers this lucid summary: “The enigma of history lies in the fact that each event is at a given moment and simultaneously the result of the operation of universal natural laws and the object of the exercise of the divine will. As the story unfolds, the world moves forward in accordance with the internal demands of its structure and according to the universal laws to which it is subject. This structure is however constituted in such a way and the laws under which it operates are forged in such a way that the door is open to countless alternatives. Among the chances and the accidents of these alternatives, history weaves its astonishing garment by constantly responding to the powerful will of the Creator and Support of history, and by expressing in its narrative the mysterious work of His hidden purpose. »(Op. Cit., P. 114)

[Berean]

The biblical significance of the story
Prof. Siegfried J. Schwantes

Continuation and end

PROVIDENCE AND FREEDOM

 

When no natural explanation seems adequate to interpret a particular event, an atheist historian can employ his own idea of ​​luck: historical accident. The following quote from a recent volume on ancient civilizations will serve as an example: “We are forced in several ways to conclude that the principate founded by Augustus was a historical accident resulting from the long life of the first prince. (Tom B. Jones, Ancient Civilization, p. 399) Since the classical reasons given for the success of the principate seem unsatisfactory, this secular historian resorts to the least plausible of all explanations, that of historical accident.

Considering the beneficial consequences of Augustus’ reign, the remarkable stability it brought to the political climate, and the fact that under his reign Jesus was born into this world, it seems more reasonable to label this flourishing reign as providential rather than ‘accidental. Even though Scripture unequivocally endorses the providential view of history, it does not give anyone the authority to label some events as providential and others not. It may indeed be closer to the truth to say that Divine Providence is a silent and omnipresent influence shaping the entire course of history rather than a one-off and cataclysmic action. It can obviously be both; but, although we may be convinced of the discrete and continuous operation of Providence leading all history towards its assigned goal, it would seem sheer vanity on a human level to assert that an event is “more.” providential than another.

However, most believers seem drawn to share Elijah’s predilection for the spectacular as the normal mode of operation of Providence, overriding the fact that the God who operates silently in nature is the same God who pursues. kindly His redemptive purpose in history. Even Elijah, the “showman” par excellence, discovered with astonishment on Mount Horeb that the presence of God was not manifested in the devouring fire or the mighty wind or even the dreaded earthquake as he had always tended to. to believe it but in the “very small voice”. And this is exactly what we should expect if human freedom of choice is to be preserved. God gently influences man in many different ways, but the final decision is nevertheless that of man and not that of God. In the final analysis, God does not force human action with a staggering power of persuasion. However, this very gentleness of divine guidance becomes a stumbling block for believers and unbelievers alike. A generation, even a century, is often too short a period of time to judge the direction in which Divine Providence is advancing, almost but not sufficiently justifying the skepticism of natural philosophy. It is only in the broad spectrum of centuries that the majestic expanse of God’s providential purpose becomes evident to human eyes.

Eusebius, church historian of Caesarea (260-340), despite the limited knowledge he had at his disposal, intuited that the broken threads of man’s past could be woven into a meaningful whole if history was seen as a preparation for the gospel. It was only thus, according to his thought, that the incongruities of history with all its misfortunes and unfulfilled hopes could be interpreted as the realization of the divine plan. Drawing his main inspiration from the writings of Paul, Eusebius recognizes in history an intelligible patron. For him, the story is moving towards a goal that God Himself has chosen. This is tantamount to saying that history, as the collection of events which affect men in a society, is under the direction of God. History, as Vico clearly recognized (see R. G. Collingwood, The Idea of ​​History, pp. 63-71), is the creation of man but it is under the direction of God.

This does not mean that history proves God. History reveals God to the eye of faith in the same way that nature reveals God to the eye of faith. There is sufficient evidence of the dominance of Divine Providence to support the faith, although it is never so overwhelming that it forces us to do so. So the story makes sense for the believer while remaining an unsolvable enigma for the unbeliever.

If only the recoverable past is made, says RG Collingwood, of those scraps of voluntary action that have left their mark on the political, economic, aesthetic or religious scene, it would be strange that the historical past, itself the result of thought, shows no intelligible boss. Deliberate actions of the past p

can be understood and retained because they involve a certain logic. The historian is sure that the same logic that operated in Caesar’s mind as he crossed the Rubicon is the logic that operates in his own mind today, otherwise he would be unable to understand Caesar’s actions. Logical thought is therefore the only link which links the historian with the past actors of history. Should we then conclude that some particular fragments of the past are intelligible because they are acts of deliberate thought, while the whole remains unintelligible because it shows no logic? Certainly not! Yet this is the position taken by historians who insist that there is no pattern in history.

But while some deny that history follows a pattern, other students of the human past claim the opposite with equal emphasis. Thus Hegel, reviewing the decisive events from the Reformation to the French Revolution, detected a tendency to emancipation in the common man. It would have been impossible to live in Europe at the beginning of the nineteenth century without hearing the bell of freedom ringing over ever larger territories. The concept of increased freedom touched Hegel as the “principle of explaining the course of history” did with Benecetto Croce two generations later (History as the Story of Liberty, p. 61).

Recognizing a boss does not necessarily imply a deterministic view of history. It is possible to admit that a general Providence guides the main lines of history while reserving a vast area for individual freedom. Just as events at the atomic scale are small chain reactions, depending on greater or lesser probabilities, so on the stage of history, human decisions do not necessarily produce a single unambiguous result but rather an alternative. between several.

These possible alternatives are not the result of chance nor are they contradictory; otherwise all planning would become impossible. The pages of history are replete with examples of carefully prepared plans but stranded on the shoals in what seem to be blind accidents. Alexander’s plans to conquer Arabia were ruined by his early death in Babylon. The same fate fell on the grandiose program of Julius Caesar when he entered the Senate in the Ides of March in 44 BC. AD, against the advice of his friends. Julian the Apostate’s plan to reestablish pagan religion in the Roman Empire, Napoleon’s dream of conquering Russia, and Adolf Hitler’s dream of unifying Europe under a Third Reich were all carefully prepared and yet implemented. parts by the circumstances.

The plans are made because men have a reasonable chance that they will produce the desired results. However, it is never more than a reasonable chance with the same possibility of arriving as that of getting rich on the stock market. Despite the odds to the contrary, men keep making plans because there is some logic in the results. If all plans failed, the man would have stopped planning a long time ago. There would be no story to tell, for only deliberate and purposeful actions can be analyzed by the historian. Nevertheless the fact remains stubbornly: the plans fail. The ever-present possibility of failure is therefore the evidence of the openness of history.

Therefore, as Isaiah Berlin pointed out, there is nothing that can be described as completely inevitable historically. “The evidence of a continuous determinism is not within our grasp and if there is a persistent tendency to believe in it in some theoretical form, it is certainly due more to a scientific or metaphysical ideal or to a desire. languishing to shed moral burdens, to minimize our individual responsibility and shift it to impersonal forces that can be safely accused of causing all our discontent, rather than an increase in our critical thinking skills or an improvement in our scientific techniques. ”(Historical Inevitability, pp. 75-76)

The biblical point of view of history rejects causal determinism because it minimizes personal responsibility which is fundamental to the biblical understanding of man created in the image of God. He also rejects the point of view that the story is totally indeterminate, that is to say that it does not present any recognizable pattern. The point of view he maintains is that history is always within the reach of God. This point of view thus preserves man’s freedom of choice and his responsibility, while maintaining God’s global control over the course of history.

Providence can use different alternatives

to direct future events according to a divine plan. This divine supervision is necessarily discreet so as not to infringe on man’s freedom on the one hand, or to deprive him of the need to walk by faith on the other. Never intrusive, divine Providence is as present as the air around us.

For a historian, introducing luck or accident as a basic principle for explaining events becomes an admission of his ignorance of the real cause. Luck is not a real cause. To appeal to “historical accidents” is to admit ignorance of the real causes. As a principle of explanation, luck is the last argument of ignorance.

A. J. Toynbee refers to the experience that happened to the young Gaius Julius Caesar around 76 BC. AD when he went from Rome to Rhodes. He accidentally fell into the hands of pirates with whom he spent a few dark days. Toynbee then remarks: “If those who captured him had decided to liquidate him, as he liquidated them after purchasing his release, world history would have taken a different turn. Pascal offered the famous “if” about Cleopatra’s nose: Suppose Cleopatra’s nose was longer. In fact, a seventeenth-century historian wrote a whole volume on what the history of the world would have been if Caesar had not been killed (see R. G. Collingwood, Op. Cit., P. 80).

Speculations on the “ifs” of history are sterile except for the element of contingency, the unforeseen of history. Events have taken a whole different tangent at times because of what seems to us mere trifles. If it hadn’t rained on the morning of the Battle of Waterloo, Napoleon’s artillery he relied on so much might have been shifted to give him the advantage and turn defeat into victory. In Chapter 4 of Oscar Handlin’s thought-provoking book on the accidents that shaped American history, he dwells at length on the chance encounter between General AP Hill’s Confederate division raiding Gettysburg for supplies and Union General John Buford’s cavalry division, the vanguard of the Army of the Potomac. Unexpectedly thrown into battle, the two armies began this four-day struggle which “would determine the fate of Confederation and Union.” “(Chance or Destiny Turning Points in American History, p. 92) Regarding the American Revolution, he speaks of” the luck which allowed two separate armies and two separate fleets to converge at the right time on Yorktown and the unexpected storm which prevented the English general Cornwallis from escaping from the besieged city ”(id. p. 26). These two seemingly capricious events conspired to bring about the defeat which determined the outcome of the war.

Luck in history has been defined as the fortuitous appearance of several causes, only one of which could not have produced the result that their combination produced. The likelihood of such causes occurring at the same time is minimal, eliminating the explanation that it was luck or accident that they came together. The Christian substitutes “Providence” for “good fortune or accident” and insists on the fact that Providence uses or produces the alternatives in order to derive from them the result most in accordance with the divine plan.

Rejecting the deterministic view of history, HH Rowley, an outstanding Old Testament scholar, explains the biblical view as follows: “Today’s story arose out of yesterday’s situation, but it is never totally determined by this situation … There is never anything inevitable in the course of progress as if it were the continual unveiling of what was already latent and implicit. (Re-Discovery of the Old Testament, p. 25)

There are, of course, historians who are not in favor of either the determinist view or the providential view of history. When faced with unexpected outcomes, as historians often do, they have no other resource than to appeal, as someone has put it, “to the fortuitous competition of lucky factors.” The providential point of view is not inconsistent with serious analysis, however. While allowing God to have His place in history, he in no way discourages a full analysis of all available data. Neither does he fear that once the event has been fully explained, God will be excluded from the process. On the contrary, God remains the guarantor of the intelligibility of any historical event, because He remains the guarantor of the unfolding of history for all time.

The fact that “history is the story of freedom” is a valid clue to help us trace the work of Providence in history. How could freedom, an aspiration common to mankind,

the emergence of raw material that shows no character of freedom? This aspiration, corollary of human dignity, can only come from God as spirit, for only the spirit is free. Paul said, “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. “(2 Corinthians 3:17)

Man can never realize the full potential of his being, except in an atmosphere of freedom. Even though he has not totally erased it, the image of God in man has been defiled by sin. Freedom without responsibility is license and responsibility without freedom is slavery. Man has lost his freedom in history. God’s objective covering all the pages of history was to reestablish the divine image in man from the beginning and thus to make man again truly human and truly free.

By choosing to sin, that is, to rebel against God, man has placed himself under the domination of his lower nature. Instead of living spiritually of responsibility within a framework of freedom, he fell to the carnal level where his slavery turned into deceptive irresponsibility, itself a form of slavery. By not being responsible to anyone except himself, man deifies the self, makes his own person his god and adds to the sin of rebellion that of idolatry. This idolatry of the ego pushes him to try to make his neighbor his slave, to try to force others to recognize his false divinity. Thus the story becomes that of men taken in slavery, struggling desperately to obtain supremacy or at least to be delivered from this slavery.

This is the historical condition of man as a result of his alienation from God briefly summarized in the biblical description of the universal problem. The plan of redemption must therefore include both deliverance from personal slavery and its corollary, deliverance from political slavery. Jesus of Nazareth said: “If therefore the Son sets you free, you will be truly free. “(John 8:36)

Political slavery degrades and dehumanizes man. But while deliverance from the embrace of sin remains an individual and largely subjective experience, deliverance from political slavery amply covers the pages of history. It affects a lot of peoples. It is open for all to see. Its impact on society cannot be ignored. It is only one step in the overall process of redemption, but it is often the prerequisite for everything that follows. Physical infirmities diminish freedom and often interfere with spiritual regeneration. For this reason, the eradication of such infirmities has occupied much of our Lord’s earthly ministry. Likewise, political incapacities often blind men to their true dignity and make them forget the spiritual call addressed to them to become children of God again and thus regain their lost freedom.

This divine Providence fills men with an impossible thirst for freedom and guides the historical process towards greater political freedom for the greatest number. This insatiable thirst for freedom is the main driving force in the story. The evidences showing this universal aspiration being realized in a gradual way against all probabilities, are the Christian pledges that God is at work, patiently carrying out His plan of grace on the stage of history.

End

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