The doctrine of creation does not stand alone. The universe has not been set adrift in time without purpose or divine direction. The Christian affirmation of God requires an affirmation of His continuing sovereign Lordship over the created order. This affirmation sets the Christian worldview apart from alternative worldviews which recognize no continuing divine direction. Deism, a perspective accepted by many in the nineteenth century, affirmed God as the creator of the universe, but denied any continuing divine will expressed in the history or future of the creation. God, it was suggested, had created the world much as a clock, and had wound it up to move by its own direction. Contemporary challenges to the affirmation of divine providence suggest that though God created the world and set the original forces in order, God has either ceased to will, or is unable to make his will effective within the creation.
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All of these are clearly in opposition to biblical theism. The God of the Bible is a God who acts within the history of His creation and who has ultimate control over the affairs of the nations, natural forces, and humanity.
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Like creation, God's providence is a Trinitarian activity. The Lord who exercises providence is none other than the Lord and Father of our Lord and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and that providence is energized by the presence of the Holy Spirit within the world. The root meaning of providence is "foresight," though the biblical meaning is far more rich in significance. God does not exercise mere foresight into the affairs of the cosmos, he ultimately orders and directs world occurrences. The biblical doctrine of providence is demonstrated in the concrete experiences of Israel and her neighbors in the Old Testament and in the life of Jesus and the development of the church in the New Testament. As such, divine providence is a sign of God's steadfast covenant love with his people. The history of the Jews in the Old Testament exists as a powerful witness and sign of God's intervening covenant love – a love ultimately revealed on the cross.
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"In God," Paul declares, "all things hold together." (Colossians 1:17) Nothing in creation itself is self-sufficient. God is responsible for both the origin and the preservation of all creation. Without God's continuing preservation of creation the cosmos would cease to exist. No atom of the universe is self-sufficient – all creation is utterly dependent upon God's gracious sustenance. As Ezra affirmed in the book of Nehemiah, "Thou are the Lord, thou alone, . . . thou preservest all." (Nehemiah 9:6)
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To affirm providence as the divine preserving is to acknowledge that creation has limits. That these limits do not rule the creature is due to God's acting preservation. This is not a passive divine activity. God enters into world occurrence and ordains that it should exist. This is not to suggest that God create the world new each moment, as has been suggested by some theologians. God's creative activity as represented in new beings and new life demonstrates the continuation of his creative will, but the original creative act which set the cosmos in place is a unique once-for-all event. The Christian does not know the means of God's preservation of the world, but the knowledge of his preserving love provides comfort and refutes contemporary naturalism, which supposes that the world exists on its own.
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This aspect of divine providence is often called divine government. The Christian affirms the Lordship of God over all the affairs of humanity, nations, and natural forces. The universe is not set adrift in purposeless trajectory. Human history is not a meaningless record of isolated events and movements. The future is not a matter of mere human responsibility or chance. The biblical worldview presupposes the governing Lordship if God in the cosmos and biblical theism, that understanding of God's own nature demonstrated in the text of Scripture requires an affirmation of God's sovereign rulership over all world occurrences – past history and future hope.
