Tag Archives: Providence

Understanding Divine Providence: Montaigne and the Fear of Death

The life and Essays of Michel de Montaigne, the sixteenth-century French Catholic philosopher, reveals how accepting the will of God helps a person face the overwhelming fear of mortality–in other words, to embrace death.  Montaigne was neither saint, priest, nor … Continue reading

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Modernity and Martyrdom: Dying for Providence

One of the great challenges to a person who believes that God’s will is always present is that Providence orders a world of growing irreligiosity, violence, terrorism, and atheistic ideologies. The divine plan is clearly beyond the human ability to … Continue reading

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Joseph Ratzinger and Providence

Joseph Ratzinger, Pope Benedict XVI, was a theologian, academic, writer, and historian of Christianity who believed in Providence, that God’s will is present throughout time and place. Providence is the theme of the Psalms, indeed the entirety of the Bible; … Continue reading

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God’s Shadow over History

Jean-Pierre Caussade in Abandonment to Divine Providence writes truthfully that God is behind all historical events. If so, then it is God’s will that the United States is in 2025 exactly where He wills it to be. And further, that … Continue reading

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God is with Us in Each and Every Moment: The Teaching of Jean-Pierre de Caussade (1675-1751)

Jean-Pierre de Caussade, an eighteenth-century French Jesuittheologian, provided a seminal study of God’s will in Abandonment to Divine Providence. Caussade writes that to sense God in each present moment that connects the past and future moments sets the mind to … Continue reading

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God’s Providence: What did Early American Religious Thinkers Believe about the Role of God in Human Affairs?

The eighteenth century in America was a time of awakening from the slumber of the past. Light was shed on the darkness of superstition, irrationality, autocracy, aristocratic privilege, and dogma. The individual, weighed down by the chains of time, institutions, … Continue reading

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The City of God

According to Psalm 87 . . . His foundations are in the holy mountains . . . “Lord God of the High Places,” Abraham called the Lord. God dwells on high, which is a metaphor for any place that stands … Continue reading

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All Things are Possible

Recent conflict and protests in America, about statues and monuments recalling troubling events in the past, seem to be dividing a country that clearly needs uniting. Those who focus on division rather than unity seem to think that all things … Continue reading

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Independence: Disorder in a Democracy

In today’s day, we are confronted with disorder, almost chaos and anarchy at times. How do we bring order out of a disorderly situation? The concluding years of the American Revolution in the 1780s provides us with an example. The … Continue reading

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Animals and Time

Do animals have an experience of time similar to humans? I believe so. I propose that each life, whether human or animal, experiences time and the passage of time, hence history, individually, uniquely. It is difficult for a human to … Continue reading

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