Walking Through Westminster, WCF 5.1-3

Westminster Confession of Faith 5.1-3

I. God the great Creator of all things does uphold, direct, dispose, and govern all creatures, actions, and things, from the greatest even to the least, by His most wise and holy providence, according to His infallible foreknowledge, and the free and immutable counsel of His own will, to the praise of the glory of His wisdom, power, justice, goodness, and mercy.

II. Although, in relation to the foreknowledge and decree of God, the first Cause, all things come to pass immutably, and infallibly; yet, by the same providence, He orders them to fall out, according to the nature of second causes, either necessarily, freely, or contingently.

III. God, in His ordinary providence, makes use of means, yet is free to work without, above, and against them, at His pleasure.

Summary

God is in control of all things. He is the sovereign Creator of the world and all things in the world, and He sovereignly governs all His creatures and all their actions. Nothing, whether the greatest or smallest, is outside of His control. Often, as an unbeliever, I mocked athletes for praying before games or events, and I mocked them for giving credit to God after the game. What would God care about your silly football game? Does God control the football? Does God propel your legs to move? I mocked because I was stupid, and did not understand the distinction between controlling all things through primary causes and secondary causes. God is in control of all things, including the outcome of a high school football game. While we might not understand why God would care about the outcome, it's not for us to doubt or question. God brings all things to pass according to His holiness and wisdom, for the praise of His own glory, and it is enough for us to receive and believe it.

He is the first Cause of all things and, in His own mind, all things which He ordains come to pass without variation or failure. Yet, as He has ordered all things to fall out in space and time, He makes use of secondary causes. So, while He controls the outcome of a high school football game, that doesn't negate the reality of secondary causes; in this case, the skill of individual players, the weather, the coaching decisions, etc. God uses these means to bring about His desired ends. 

To reference another example: some have tried to give a naturalistic explanation for something like the parting of the Red Sea during the Exodus. They might try to argue that what actually happened was a great windstorm suddenly coming and, in a freak occurrence, splitting the Sea enough for the Israelites to walk through. The Israelites, seeing this happen, ignorantly interpret it as divine intervention, leading to our story in Exodus 14. What these people typically don't consider is that the Bible already says that the Sea's parting was the result of a natural occurrence! "Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea; and the LORD caused the sea to go back by a strong east wind all that night, and made the sea into dry land, and the waters were divided." The Bible records that the parting of the Red Sea was the result of a strong wind, but it further records that God was using the strong wind to part the Sea. The primary cause of the Red Sea parting was God, and the secondary cause that He used was the strong east wind. The Bible sees no conflict between what we call "natural occurrence" and God's supernatural use of such seemingly natural things. 

+ Blessings in Christ +