God's Providence: A Two-edged Sword (pt. 2) by John H. Gerstner

Negative Providence
What do we mean by negative providence? Suppose we begin with the late comedian Ed Wynn's definition based on a slight alteration of some famous lines:
There is a destiny that shapes our ends rough; Hew them how we may.
This is negative enough, but is it providence? No, this is Greek fatalism rather than Christian providence. Why? Because human behavior is disregarded. "Hew them how we may"--that makes no difference. Compare, for an example of this type of thinking, the great Greek tragedian Sophocles' Oedipus Rex. This king, Oedipus, is destined to kill his father and marry his mother. No matter how innocent of either he may try to be, he unknowingly and inevitably does both. Though he consciously strives to avoid these sins, he does them nonetheless and is held guilty for them. So his mother commits suicide, and he gouges out his eyes and goes into solitary and hopeless exile.
The certainty of the end is present in this tragic definition of negative providence. In the Wynn satire the man "hews"; in Sophocles' tragedy Oedipus does all in his power to avoid fate. Neither actor is a puppet; each one strives, though to no avail. But what is lacking in these two accounts? It is the connection between the end and the means. There is no connection between end and means, between destiny and striving. The end comes to pass regardless of striving; indeed, it comes in spite of striving against it. The destiny shapes ends rough, hew them how we may--that is, though we hew to the moral line in an endeavor to make our destiny smooth, it remains rough. Oedipus is essentially a moral person, generally admired by his family and subjects. But all this means nothing for he is destined to commit the accursed crimes of patricide and incest (and accursed crimes they remain although he intends neither of them).
What a contrast to all of this is the negative providence of Scripture! Compare Acts 2:23: "Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken and by wicked men's hands have crucified and slain." Judas and others indeed delivered Christ up according to the eternal counsel and foreknowledge of God, but they did so by "wicked hands." Their "hands" were not inactive; they were certainly not opposed to this dreadful deed. On the contrary, they willfully chose to do the awful deed, for they were denominated "wicked hands." This illustrates the constant Bible teaching about negative providence, namely that the doers are always voluntary doers, willing actors, guilty men.
Putting the picture together, this is what we find: Negative providence is the divine appointment even of wicked and calamitous events, but not apart from--rather, through--the willing, though wicked, determinations of men.
There are two forms of negative providence. The first is external.
Providence applies to the totality of things. Since we are here concerned only with the human creature, we note that providence applies to the total person. The total human person is a composite one. Thomas Aquinas observed that man, in possessing a spirit, resembles angels; in possessing a body, he resembles animals. Furthermore, in addition to man's having two parts to his personality, body and spirit, he has two periods, time and eternity. Providence relates to both the temporal and the eternal.
So we consider first that form of negative providence which affects the external, bodily, and temporal aspects of the human personality. Christ referred to temporal providence when He spoke of the hairs of our head being numbered. Both our temporal lives and our environment are part of providence, but the tragic as well as the beneficent elements of the external and temporal are part of providence. For example, Christ said that He must go as it was written of Him, that He must be killed at Jerusalem, and that the Shepherd would be smitten, and the like. All of these evil events concerning death are therefore of divine foreordination.
There is a time coming, the Bible says, when God will reveal more fully the displeasure which He now feels. Meanwhile, it appears to the psalmist as if God is slumbering and needs to be aroused. But God is waiting until the "cup of iniquity" is full. Thus He withholds His judgment against the Amorites: "But in the fourth generation they shall come hither again, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full" (Genesis 15:16). But though it might seem that God's judgments are delayed, Moses warned the Israelites, "Be sure your sins will find you out" (Numbers 32:23). He told them in his farewell address, as well as on other occasions, of the curses which were sure to overtake those who turned away from Jehovah.
We have impressive illustrations of this negative providence pertaining to the externals here and now. Consider, for example, the fall of Jerusalem. Christ was crucified and nothing happened--then. Later, in the lifetime of the same generation, the city was besieged, and civil war, famine, butchery, and indescribable suffering took place. Mothers devoured their own children as the wrath of God came upon the city that crucified His Son.
Nor are visitations of wrath only in the form of military woes and desolations. Roger Babson once made an investigation of bankruptcies in the United States during a certain number of years. Some of these business collapses were traceable to a lack of competence, but only a few. The majority were owing to a lack of integrity and honesty.
The eminent historian of the American scene, Charles Beard, said that one of the lessons he learned from his studies was that the mills of the gods grind slowly, but they grind exceedingly fine. Still another scholar said in a class that if he were intimately familiar with the condition of a community, he could predict its downfall within a hundred years. Then he revised that statement, claiming that he could predict the downfall within the space of ten years.
Not only do the scholars recognize the temporal judgments which come on mankind, and the brimstone which is scattered over all the possessions of wicked men, but even the man on the street knows it and even jokes about it sometimes. For example, I used to go bowling with my church people one night a week. Occasionally I would bowl the ball in the corner properly and it would move over to center as it ought and a strike appeared certain. I would start to walk back to the bench. But, alas, all the pins would not fall down--the two farthest apart still stood! My men should have said, "You were robbed, pastor," or, "You should have had a strike, pastor," or even, "Too bad, pastor." Instead they said, "You don't live right, pastor."
The second form of negative providence is internal. "Your sins will find you out," Moses said. However, not all visitation is upon the bodies of sinners; it comes upon their souls also. God may wait to pour out wrath upon the external world until the cup of iniquity is full, but apparently He pours out this invisible cup on the soul as soon as it sins. He may seem to slumber as He delays external punishment, but not so in the administration of internal suffering. A person may sin and retribution upon his body not be forthcoming, but his conscience is immediately afflicted. He may, indeed, get away with it, but he never gets away from it. "The wicked flee when no man pursueth," that is, their consciences are alarmed when there is no outward apprehension. "God is angry with the wicked every day" (Psalm 7:11). That is, though the wicked prosper outwardly as the green bay tree, they are inwardly blighted. The wicked are as the surging of the sea (Isaiah 57:20). That is, however tranquil his situation may appear to be, he has no true peace within. John Calvin says the sinner sometimes has tranquillity because he is too "thick" to understand the judgment of God against him. But he is not tranquil about his tranquillity. That is, he is disturbed about his peace of mind. There is no rest for the wicked even when they are resting because they still vaguely and apprehensively wonder whether they should rest, whether all is well with their soul.