What is providence in Orthodox Christianity?
The Greek word for providence is pronoia, literally forethought. In Christian use it means that God does not create the world and then leave it, but sustains it and cares for it at every moment. St John of Damascus, in his summary of the faith, treats providence as the care God takes for everything that exists, and he sets it within the doctrine of creation: the Maker remains the Provider. The teaching has deep roots in Scripture, where the Psalms say that the eyes of all look to the Lord and He gives them food in due season (Psalm 144:15 listen in the Audio Bible).
The Gospels give the teaching its most personal form. Jesus says that not one sparrow falls to the ground apart from the Father, and that the hairs of a disciple's head are all numbered (Matthew 10:29-31 listen in the Audio Bible). In the Sermon on the Mount He tells His listeners not to be anxious about food or clothing, since the Father who feeds the birds knows what they need (Matthew 6:25-34 listen in the Audio Bible). The point is not that disciples never suffer need, but that no one lives outside the Father's notice.
Orthodoxy adds a second claim to the first: providence is not mechanical. God's care is personal, the care of a Father for children whom He has made free. That is why providence and prayer belong together. We ask for daily bread because the Father cares, and the act of asking is itself part of how He cares for us. For a practical introduction to praying this way, see how to pray as an Orthodox Christian.
Is providence the same as fate or predestination?
No, and the difference is central. Fate, as the ancient world understood it, is an impersonal necessity to which both gods and humans are subject. The Fathers rejected this view and the astrology that went with it; St Basil the Great's homilies on the six days of creation argue against the claim that the stars determine human lives. Christian providence is the opposite of impersonal necessity: it is the care of a Person who invites a response.
Orthodox theology also holds that God's foreknowledge does not cause human choices. In the Damascene's account, God foresees what we will freely do without Himself making us do it, and then arranges His care accordingly. The traditional image is of a physician who knows how a patient will behave and treats him with that in mind. Human freedom is real. The proverb says that a man's heart plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps (Proverbs 16:9 listen in the Audio Bible), and the tradition reads both halves seriously: we do plan, and God's care works through and beyond what we plan.
This is also why Orthodoxy has never taught that everything that happens is God's will in the same sense. God permits evil, but He does not will it, and the Fathers distinguish what God wills from what He allows. The Church sets the death of an innocent, the work of a tyrant and the betrayal of a friend in a different category from the beauty of a sunrise. Providence does not remove evil from the world, but it promises that evil will not have the last word.
What does Romans 8:28 actually promise?
"We know that all things work together for good to those who love God" is one of the most quoted sentences in the New Testament (Romans 8:28 listen in the Audio Bible). It is easily misread as a promise that everything will turn out pleasantly. The context says otherwise: Paul has just spoken of groaning creation, of suffering and of weakness, and he goes on to ask whether tribulation, distress or persecution can separate us from the love of Christ. The promise is not that evil things are good, but that nothing is outside God's reach and nothing can finally separate the believer from Him.
The Old Testament offers an illustration in Joseph, sold by his brothers and later made steward over Egypt. When he meets them again he says that they meant evil against him, but God meant it for good (Genesis 50:20 listen in the Audio Bible). Joseph does not say that his brothers' crime was acceptable; he says that God brought good out of it. Orthodox writers have long used this to explain providence: God does not cancel human wrongdoing but is not defeated by it.
The most direct patristic treatment is St John Chrysostom's On the Providence of God, written in exile for his distressed flock and, it is believed, for his friend St Olympias. It urges patience in unjust suffering and cites Job, Joseph, David and Stephen as people who trusted God when events looked like disaster.
Is there such a thing as coincidence?
Orthodox Christians usually answer that nothing is outside God's knowledge, but that this does not make every event a message. Coincidence, in the ordinary sense, means two events with no causal link that happen together; the tradition does not say that such things do not occur. It says that God's care can use them, as it uses everything, and that from God's side nothing is accident. From our side, however, we usually cannot see the pattern, and the Church warns us against pretending that we can.
Believers often tell stories of a chance meeting that changed their life, a delay that turned out to protect them, or a verse that arrived at the right moment. The Church does not discourage gratitude for such experiences. What it discourages is turning them into a system of signs. The Gospels give two reasons for caution. In Luke 13:1-5 listen in the Audio Bible, Jesus is asked about people killed when a tower fell, and He refuses to read their deaths as a measure of their guilt. In John 9:1-3 listen in the Audio Bible, He says that a man's blindness is not the result of anyone's sin. Events do not come with a printed explanation.
A useful rule is that we interpret events more safely in retrospect, and with thanks, than in prospect, as orders. A person who says "I see now that God was caring for me then" is speaking in the language of the Psalms. A person who says "God is telling me to leave my family because of what happened today" is in a different and more dangerous position. The latter is the kind of confident reading that the Fathers call a risk of delusion (see spiritual deception), and that a priest is asked to help test.
How does providence relate to suffering?
This is the hardest question, and the Church does not pretend to answer it completely. It does insist on a few things. Suffering is not a code for sin. Christ Himself suffered, and He told His disciples that those who follow Him will have tribulation. God is not the author of evil, but He is with the sufferer, and the Cross shows that He enters the darkness rather than staying away from it.
The Fathers also hold that God can turn suffering into healing. This is not a reason to seek it or to explain it away to others. A person at a funeral needs company before explanation. Orthodox pastors are generally wary of telling a mourner that this is part of God's plan, because the sentence can sound like an accusation against God or against the mourner. Presence is more faithful to providence than theory. For the Church's care of the dying and the grieving, see near-death experiences, an Orthodox view and heaven and hell in Orthodox thought.
The comfort of providence is that suffering is not outside God's care and the last word belongs to the resurrection. The Psalms are full of complaint: the tradition permits crying out, and forbids despair.
How should a believer read his own life?
With humility and gratitude, and with help. The first habit is thanksgiving, which the Church's liturgy trains: in the Divine Liturgy the priest invites the people to give thanks to the Lord, and the people answer that it is meet and right (see the Divine Liturgy for how services are held). The second is prayer before decisions, asking God for light and then acting with the best judgment available. The third is counsel. The Church encourages a person facing a major choice to speak with a priest or spiritual father (see spiritual fathers and elders).
The fourth habit is the willingness to hold interpretations lightly. A believer can say, "This may have been God's mercy", while remaining open to the possibility that he is wrong. This is the opposite of the confident reading of signs, and it is closer to what the Fathers mean by humility (see humility in Orthodox Christianity). It also protects against the opposite mistake of cynicism, in which every event is meaningless.
Finally, listen to Scripture, the safest place to hear what God is saying. The Audio Bible makes the Psalms and Gospels easy to hear, and the church calendar marks the readings of each day. The Church does not claim to explain every event, but it gives a way of living in which trust is possible.
