4 - Creation, Providence, and Theologically Problematic Pastoral Consolation

Summary

“Conventional” accounts of God’s sovereignty in providence infer from God’s utterly restricted relating in creating that God’s power in providence too is unrestricted, thus underwriting pastorally problematic consolation of the anguished. However, “traditional” accounts of providence partially block that inference. They do not completely block it, however, because their account of the providential God is rooted in a generically theistic account of God rather than in a Trinitarian account. This project proposes the latter by explaining God’s sovereignty in terms of God’s intrinic “glory” rather than in terms of God’s “power.”