The providence of God

By Benjamin Wirt Farley

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• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0801035406
• ISBN13: 9780801035401
• Release Date: January 1988
• Publisher: Baker Book House
• Length: 257 Pages
• Weight: 1.35 lbs.

Customer Reviews

All God's Perfections Demand It

'First, our knowledge of God ultimately depends on what God chooses to disclose of Himself.' p 232 Farley concedes in his first chapter that prevalently Reformed doctrines have been well attested in the 20th century by other theologians, such as Emil Brunner and Karl Barth. Brunner paid particular attention to election, saying the subject had forced itself upon the church, because 'election constitutes the centre of the Old and the New Testament'. Whilst Barth adopted a similar position, he did not hesitate to use the term 'decree', stating that 'providence belongs to the execution of this decree', which finds its particular scriptural expression in the Reformed doctrine of predestination. In lieu of their contributions, Benjamin Farley insists that both the 'Old and NT alike ascribe the preservation of human life to the personal activity of God.' p 35 Farley closes the chapter by looking at the close association historically between creation and providence. The impressive reality gains appreciative reflection in chapter 2, with Farley paying attention to the Reformed biblical foundation. Agreeing with Louis Berkhof, the Reformed scholar Braunius indicated that the functions of God's providence on earth are three: (1) He preserves all things (2) He moves all things (3) He guides all things to the end to which they were appointed from eternity. A certain proud ambivalence arose within specifically Socinianism and Remonstrantism toward the nature and the essence of God, with denials issuing from an ill-conceived belief that all that was needed was to know the will of God. Still other distinctions cropped up with the respect to the will of God, especially the distinction between the 'antecedent' and the 'consequent will' of God, which the Arminians followed. The Reformed, by contrast, whilst endorsing the role that human freedom plays, proceeded to bolster their belief in divine providence by stating their own distinctive two wills in God, as Scripture consistently teaches. 'The will of God's good pleasure' was held as the essential, or decretive will of God. Arminianism failed to do justice to God's entire being and called into question His perfections, especially the aseity of God, and, as a consequence, has botched the holy and wise counsel of Scripture. 'Preservation is a divine work, the express purpose of which is the uniting of all things in Christ Jesus.' p 32 In God's governance (gubernatio) as the third aspect of divine providence, Farley justifiably proves that nothing can stay His hand. Farley spends the next 90 pages on the history pertaining to the doctrine, divided into three chapters: 'The Greek and Roman Philosophical Heritage'; 'Late Classical and Patristic Formulations'; and 'Scholastic, Medieval and Renaissance Views'. The heliocentric advances of Copernicus receive undersized mention (pp. 175-176). The latter chapters view the post-Reformation era up to modernism. In chapter 6 Farley dawns on the Reformation, and our specia