Self-Abandonment to Divine Providence

German sociologist Hartmut Rosa has recently written The Uncontrollability of the World, in which he critiques our cultural attempt to eliminate risk, and reduce everything to a predictable set of results. While some areas of life need control, like me being in hospital(!), the ultimate attempt to control experience is, of course, impossible, and leads inevitably to a profound sense of depression and disappointment. 

I am having my own personal experience of uncontrollability, as I submit to the medical processes of investigations. But I find myself surrounded by the love of God, as I surrender to his tender care. Because, of course, from the perspective of faith, nothing is really uncontrolled: it is all under his control and sovereignty.

I have been helped in this realisation, through the years, by the spiritual writings of the eighteenth-century French Jesuit priest, Jean Pierre de Caussade. His classic tome, Self-abandonment to Divine Providence, was written, like his Spiritual Letters, for a convent of nuns, for whom he was their spiritual director. For their personal peace and progress in prayer, he advocated a divestment of egoistic self-will, and submission to the flow of Divine will inherent for their station in life.

This became particularly important to me, during my first pastorate in an inner city church. Although there was much evidence of God’s blessing in the ministry, it was hard, and I became self-condemning, blaming myself for the relative lack of visible results, in changed personal lives and community transformation.

I had been influenced by a ‘successful’ church, which seemed to be one of the few really cutting it in urban mission. But, coming from a consciously Arminian theology, they also gave the impression that if we just worked and prayed enough then revival would happen. With the resultant, if unintended, Pelagian emphasis on self-effort, I became burned-out, and never really recovered. I did, however, find solace in De Caussade’s writings, learning to surrender to the flow of Divine Providence.

Of course, it is not necessarily a fault of Arminianism; classical Wesleyan theology also possesses a strong sense of God’s sovereignty, being especially open to the operation of pre-venient grace in the heart of the not-yet believer, as the Spirit moves in the individual’s heart, preparing him or her to receive the new birth. In the case of the church, by which I had been influenced, however, they later adopted what is called “Open Theism”.

This is a more extreme theology than classical Arminianism, and amounts to a postmodern revamped version of the medieval heresy of Faustus Socinus (Socinianism); which averred that God could not foresee the future decisions of free agents, human or demonic, simply because these had not yet occurred, and so were not available to be known. Derived more from philosophical speculation, than biblical exposition, this effectively removes God from genuine oversight of the universe. And it is a scary conclusion. What kind of world-historical-process would it be, where its outcome depended on my own weak and inadequate level of faith, rather than God’s supremacy?

While I am no Calvinist, and not an avid follower of John Piper (with his frequent harshness in debate), however, I do find his rejoinder, to this sub-Christian conception of God’s glory, convincing; and pastorally, not to mention personally, comforting. He asks, whether we would prefer to have a world where God is not in control, for example facing serious illnesss; or one where, despite the undoubted theological or philosophical problems of theodicy, amidst the mystery of faith, we can still trust in his ultimate control and triumphant love for us? For my own situation, it is certainly more comforting to trust, even through the dark shadows and clouds, in his caring supervision; than to fear some eventuality may escape his prevision and provision.

In his reliance on Divine Providence, De Caussade ironically held similar views to Calvin, inhabiting a half-way house between Geneva and Port Royal. Within Tridentine Catholicism, however, this invited the potential threat of a rival spiritual authority independent of the papacy, which consequently squashed the subjectivist deviations of Jansenism, redirecting its spirituality along ‘safer’ lines. This suppression therefore encouraged De Caussade’s formulation of providence, as an articulation of an authoritarian, counter-reformation, absolute submission to ecclesiastical power; through combining political with spiritual quietism. Historically, his approach formed one strand in the religious ideological sub-ensemble, which contributed to the stultifying ossification of French society and church, leading eventually to the violent explosion of the revolution.

Within the constraints of the Catholic Church, and the confines of the Convent, however, De Caussade was able to carve out a space for spiritual spontaneity, encouraging the sisters to follow their own subjective promptings, when these did not conflict with formal requirements. This encouraged a search for discernment regarding the movements of the Spirit within the individual heart. In turn, for us, this enables a feeling of directionality: mobility and movement. The one, born of the Spirit, is after all, the one who blows with the wind, in unpredictable, unexpected, initiatives.

In missiology, this too possesses agency. Jesus tells the disciple to find a Person of Peace (POP), in the communities, to which he would send them. These people would not necessarily need to be disciples, but people of good will, who might act as gate-keepers, to enable missionaries to gain access to the neighbourhood, and with whom they might cooperate in realising Kingdom priorities: Jesus tells them first to bless and bring healing, declare shalom, and only then announce the presence of the Kingdom.

I think I may have found a POP, here in the hospital. I got talking with the Senior Nurse on duty, a Muslim woman, of Somalian origin, who is concerned about the young people in her community: their mental health and getting into trouble with the police. When she discovered that I am a pastor, she asked if I have any advice about fund-raising and community-organising. So I am referring to her to the Family Centre our church set up in West London, and an inter-faith charity, which one of our church members established.

The Kingdom includes both personal conversion and community transformation, for the common good. In For the Life of the World: Theology That Makes a Difference, Miroslav Volf and Matthew Croasmun, write that mission must be for the purpose of a holistic human flourishing. In a cross-culture context, like London, this demands that we work together with others from diverse faith communities, to bless the city. I love this multi-cultural city, the sounds of so many accents, dialects and languages, mingling on the streets, and on the buses. If we don’t, how can we do mission, reaching out in love to the myriad people groups we meet each day?

Who knows what this contact will lead to? At the least, it is a connection, which may enable her to do something good for her community. At best, it may communicate something which introduces her to the fullness of Jesus’ love for her personally. Self-empowerment, self-worth, and self-assertion, are sometimes looked down on, by evangelical Christians, as humanistic distractions from finding our true identity in Christ; and that can be so. Nevertheless, sometimes they are the first steps towards actually finding the beginnings of our Divine destiny.

Too often, we tell people to die to self, when society has already been a long time killing any sense of self. For oppressed groups, women and people of colour for example, therefore, the first expression of the Spirit may be step up, into their position, as people made in God’s image. This may hopefully be true for the nurse I met on the ward here at UCLH. What will come of these conversations? I don’t know. Tom Wright has written another great book, Broken Signposts: How Christianity Makes Sense of the World. Here he supposes that there are a collection of common human concerns, including social justice, which actually point to the truth of Christ. Maybe all we can do is to erect such signposts, both verbally and actively, along lines of human flourishing, which in our pluriform urbanity might indicate the direction towards Christ?

What we cannot do is control the Divine flows. We need to let go, and allow his life to spread where it wants. Maria Kaika wrote City of Flows: Modernity, Nature, and the City, in which she examined the dependence of the contemporary city on water supplies. She intends this literally, because our technological agglomerations often ignore our embeddedness in nature. The hidden rivers of London, paved over by concrete and steel, still flow fast beneath our feet; and sometimes overflow in fresh streams and rivulets: flooding shops and basement flats, during unexpected downpours.

Her ‘city of flows’ imagery also operates metaphorically, therefore, in relation to the flows of spiritual life: living water, fountains, rivers of life. And this life flows where it will, following the circuits of the world. Doctrinally, it fits with the Procession on the Holy Spirit, a term that connotes fluidity and dynamism, from, as Yves Congar wrote, the “font” of the Father; and which therefore helps us to respond with suppleness to the openings of Divine initiative around us. It is, after all God’s Mission, the Missio Dei, not ours; and around which we need to orient ourselves.

Thus we learn to flow ourselves along the eddies, currents, and circulations, abandoning ourselves to the frequently surprising outcomes of the universal Divine flow. As the contemporary worship song expresses it, “Even when I don’t see it, he’s working. Even when I don’t feel it, he’s working.” Even now, as I rest in hospital, apparently powerless, he is working. Amen.