Providence and Prayer: How Does God Work in the World?

Providence and Prayer: How Does God Work in the World? By Terrance L. Tiessen. Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 2000, 432 pp., $18.99 paper.

Can divine sovereignty and human freedom coexist? Does God limit his control by allowing human freedom? If so, does God comprehensively guide history? If so, how? Is human freedom libertarian or compatibilistic? What is the range of God's knowledge? Can the future acts of free agents be foreknown? If so, does foreknowledge cause these events? If they are foreknown, are they certain? If so, in what sense can they be free? How does God relate to time and how does this shape one's view of foreknowledge? How does prayer fit into all of this? Does it really change things, only change us, or is it a means God uses to accomplish his purposes? With the title similar to Peter Baelz's Prayer and Providence: A Background Study (SCM, 1968), Terrance Tiessen's Providence and Prayer addresses these and other timeless theological questions.

Tiessen is author of Irenaeus and the Salvation of the Unevangelized (ATLA, 1993) and Professor of Theology and Ethics at Providence Theological Seminary in Otterburne, Manitoba. His desire to write Providence and Prayer emerged as he realized the practical and theological inconsistencies of many of his students. Their beliefs concerning prayer and salvation did not fit their confessed view of providence. In a manner reminiscent of J. I. Packer's Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God, Tiessen asserts, "But when these students pray for the unsaved, they frequently assume that God can do things to bring about the salvation of people, which is not possible for God to do if those people have the sort of freedom that these intercessors believe to be the case" (p. 14). Thus, Tiessen wrote Providence and Prayer to examine some of the common models of divine providence, develop the views of each one's representative thinkers, and show how each would understand petitionary prayer.

After a valuable introduction that orients the general reader, Tiessen interacts with ten major models of providence. He organizes them as distinct chapters along a spectrum that correlates to divine and human agency (from the weakest view of God's sovereignty to strongest): semi-Deist, process, openness, Church dominion, redemptive intervention, Molinist, Thomist Barthian, Calvinist, and fatalist. Tiessen then proposes his view: "a middle knowledge Calvinist model." Tiessen begins his discussion of each model by presenting a synopsis of it. This is extremely helpful, because each summary provides most of the central information about each model in less than a page. He then introduces a few leading proponents of each model. This is followed by his wellorganized presentation and sound examination of the particular model's view of providence and related issues. Each chapter concludes with a splendid and practical case study concerning how a person adhering to that model of providence would likely pray (if consistent) in a certain situation. The book also contains an appendix that compares the models of providence as well as a small glossary.

Tiessen's own proposal, "a middle knowledge Calvinist model," comprises about one-- sixth of the book. Like proponents of the Calvinist model, Tiessen affirms God's comprehensive control and a compatibilistic view of human freedom. He questions (but does not clearly reject) divine timelessness because it "may not do justice to God's highly relational personal being" (p. 289). He maintains that God not only determines human history but also responds to it. Tiessen suggests: "This divine responsiveness is facilitated by God's possessing knowledge of how creatures would act in particular circumstances (so called `middle knowledge'). God not only knows the actual future, he has determined that future. But in order to do this, God needed to know how creatures would respond to situations, including their response to his own persuasions or actions. God can know this because creatures are not libertarianly free and he must know this in order to plan how he will act to bring about his purposes" (p. 289).

Tiessen provides nine theses to summarize his view of providence: (1) "God's providential care of his creation includes every detail" (p. 2); (2) "God has established a usual way of upholding his nonsentient creation" (p. 3); (3) "God's eternal purpose is the ground of his comprehensive knowledge of created reality" (p. 4); (4) "In establishing his eternal purpose God 'had' middle knowledge" (p. 5); (5) "God's comprehensive providential care is exercised in such a way that creatures act spontaneously, normally choosing what they do without external restraint" (p. 6); (6) "Were we to decide differently than we do, God's eternal knowledge of the future would be different than it is" (p. 7); (7) "God's relationship to time and, hence, the nature of eternity is mysterious" (p. 8); (8) "Given our creation as morally responsible creatures, God's direction of our lives is through commands and through persuasion" (p. 9); (9) "Although God is completely in control at all times so that the accomplishment of his purposes is never at risk, voluntarily free creatures often act contrary to God's moral precepts. This causes grief and pain for God" (pp. 330-32).