Providence vs. Miracles: same difference?

[ThomasTrebilco]

@John_Harshman

The first option is referred to here as the cosmic billiard shot. But in that case God’s miracle is only at the beginning of time. If that’s what providence is, there is no intervention in the present day. (And free will becomes problematic, incidentally.) The second option is, of course, a series of miracles.

Well, Providence mainly is referring to Gods control over the timeline of all events. A sense of order in the regular occurrence of things.

This is really just to say he has ordered the world in a way that has a set end. Part of that ordering could involve setting up things to naturally occur that function like miracles, but I see no reason why this would have to preclude direct intervention. I agree with @Jordan in that miracles occur as signposts, or for directly theological reasons.

Perhaps we wouldn’t always be able to distinguish between the two. I don’t particularly see the issue there because there are at least some cases that we can be fairly confident aren’t solely on account of how he set up the deck at the start of the game, such as a resurrection after 3 days.

Direct interventions could be cases where energy is added to the system, while divine action that occurs by way of providence would just require that the world continue on its regular path of cause and effect, like with Jordan’s story above.

@John_Harshman

Instead of merely leaving room, why not explain what you mean instead of alluding to a book in which it’s supposedly explained? What is the difference in activity among the three persons? Which are relevant here, and how?

I haven’t fleshed out any views on this. I am happy to quote from the book as an illustration, if you like?

@Jordan

The bit about sheer coincidence is that I don’t believe that I can know for sure if God did something “extra” (an interventional force or whatever) or if it really was a true coincidence. As @Mercer said, the best I can do is say there is mystery here where I (we) just don’t know the mechanisms.

Could the knowledge be based in a confidence of his attributes? For example, we know God as all-knowing. This would have meant he set the world up in a way full well knowing that your pay check would be deposited right on time at that point in history. The world could have been different, but the one we find ourselves in - and as Christians we believe God ordained - is the one that happened.

@T_aquaticus

What strikes me as interesting is that only the positive outcomes are said to be miraculous. A long string of co-instants and rare events that lead to someone’s death or misfortune are never described as miraculous. Why is that? To my eyes, humans are the ones adding meaning to a series of events. In fact, false associations seems to be one of the strongest biases that humans have

Would you consider Sodom and Gomorrah and what happened with Lot’s wife a miracle?

There’s an account of God causing the earth to ‘swallow’ a group of people, as well as Ananias and Sophia being struck dead for a particular lie.