The Fatherly Hand

Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. MATTHEW 10:29–30

To make God the Creator, Calvin says, and then leave Him idle, would be cold and barren. Many people believe that God made the world once and then left it to run by itself, like a clockmaker who winds the clock and walks away. Faith, Calvin insists, must go further. It must see God not only as the One who made all things, but as the One who governs and sustains them, down to the least sparrow (Institutes 1.16.1). This is the doctrine of providence, and for Calvin it was not a puzzle for philosophers but one of the chief comforts of the Christian life.

No such thing as chance

Calvin’s teaching is bold. Nothing happens by chance. Not only the great movements of history, but the smallest events — a branch falling, a traveller meeting robbers, a sailor lost at sea — are governed by God’s secret counsel. He rejects the idea that God simply watches over a world that moves by its own laws, and the idea that He directs things in general but leaves the details to fortune. God rules all things, great and small, and He rules them for His purposes.

The lot is cast into the lap; but the whole disposing thereof is of the LORD. PROVERBS 16:33

He is careful to add that this does not make God the author of evil. Wicked people do real wickedness, and they are guilty of it; God uses even their malice for His own good ends, as He used the brothers of Joseph and the crucifiers of Christ, without being stained by their sin.

But as for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive. GENESIS 50:20

Nor does providence make human effort pointless. Calvin is scornful of those who say that if everything is fixed there is no need to take care. God, he says in Institutes 1.17.4, who has set the bounds of our life, has also entrusted us with its care, given us means to preserve it, and warned us of dangers so that we may avoid them. We must use means, plan wisely, take medicine when we are ill. We simply do not trust the means. We trust the God who works through them.

An impregnable fortress

What makes Calvin’s doctrine of providence so warm is the use he makes of it. In Institutes 1.17 he paints a vivid picture of human life without it. Our body, he says, is the receptacle of a thousand diseases. We cannot go on a ship without being a step from death, or mount a horse without risking a fall, or walk down a street without danger from falling tiles. Fire, wild beasts, robbers, the weather — all threaten us. If we believed the world ran by chance, we would be sunk in endless anxiety.

The LORD is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; my God, my strength, in whom I will trust. PSALM 18:2

But once the light of providence has shone on a godly person, he is relieved not only of that extreme anxiety but of every care. He knows that his heavenly Father holds all things in His power, that no creature can move except by His will, and that he is under the Father’s protection. Calvin says that ignorance of providence is the greatest of all miseries, and the knowledge of it the highest blessedness.

He preached the same comfort to his people in his sermon on Enduring Persecution for Christ, in the Ochorus library. Speaking to believers who might face prison or the stake, he told them that God “is not divested of the guardianship which He exercises over their persons,” and that “His providence, as He unfolds it, ought to be regarded by us as an impregnable fortress.” Not a hair, he says, will be plucked from their heads without His leave.

Patience, gratitude and freedom from fear

Calvin draws three practical fruits from this teaching (Institutes 1.17.7–11).

The first is patience in adversity. When trouble comes, the believer does not rage against men or curse his luck. He remembers that it comes from the hand of God, and he looks to the purpose behind it. He can say with Job that the Lord gave and the Lord has taken away.

The LORD gave, and the LORD hath taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD. JOB 1:21

The second is gratitude in prosperity. Every good thing that comes to us, even through the kindness of other people, is to be received as coming from God. We thank the human helper, but we see the divine hand behind him.

The third is freedom from anxiety about the future. The one who knows that God holds tomorrow need not be tormented by it. This is not a stoic indifference. Calvin was no stoic; he felt his griefs keenly and says so. It is a child’s confidence in a Father.

Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. PHILIPPIANS 4:6

The hard places

Calvin’s doctrine of providence raises real difficulties, and it is only fair to name them. If God governs everything, how is He not responsible for evil? Calvin answers by distinguishing God’s secret will from His revealed will, and by insisting that God acts justly even where we cannot see how. He admits that there is a depth here we cannot plumb, and he warns against prying into it.

Many readers will find that answer incomplete, and some will feel that Calvin at times presses God’s control so hard that human freedom and the reality of evil seem to shrink. That tension is real, and it runs through the whole Bible, which teaches both that God rules all things and that human beings are responsible for what they do. Calvin holds both, even if he leans heavily on the first. The wise reader will hold both as well, and will be slow to explain a particular suffering as though he had read God’s secret counsel. Calvin himself says that we must not ask for reasons God has not given.

The secret things belong unto the LORD our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever. DEUTERONOMY 29:29

What no reader should lose is the comfort at the centre. The world is not in the hands of chance, or fate, or the powerful. It is in the hands of a Father.

FOR REFLECTION AND ACTION

1. Name the fear that most often keeps you awake. Bring it deliberately under the truth that your Father holds all things.

2. Recall a hard event in your past. Ask not why it happened, but how God has used it, and give thanks for what you can see.

3. Thank one person this week for a kindness they did you, and then thank God who sent it through them.

4. Examine whether you have been neglecting means — prudence, medicine, planning — out of a false trust, or trusting the means more than God.

5. When you hear of a disaster, resist explaining it. Pray instead for those who suffer, and rest in the God who rules.

A PRAYER

Heavenly Father, not a sparrow falls without You, and the hairs of my head are numbered.

Deliver me from the anxiety of those who believe the world is ruled by chance, and make Your providence my fortress.

In adversity give me patience, in prosperity give me gratitude, and for the future give me a quiet heart.

Where I cannot understand Your ways, teach me to trust Your hand, for it is the hand of my Father. Through Jesus Christ. Amen.