The Wisdom of God in Creation and Providence
The Wisdom of God in Creation and Providence¹
God has arranged for each of His creatures what gives it comfort and what suits it. The polar bear, for example, because it lives in cold regions, God has arranged for it fur to keep it warm, whereas the horse does not need that. The camel—God created for it a padded hoof on its feet with which it walks on sand. The monkey—God created for it flexibility in all its vertebrae that enables it, for example, to climb trees. Likewise, God created wings for birds, fins for fish, and for weak animals He arranged a means of escape.
Once, I passed by a grape arbor and saw the wondrous providence of God: in winter, the vine sheds its leaves, allowing the sun’s rays to enter so that whoever sits beneath the arbor may be warmed during the cold season. In summer, the vine’s leaves return and fill the arbor so that whoever sits beneath it may find shade during the heat. It is astonishing wisdom in providence—and likewise with deciduous trees. Alongside the benefit of all this in arranging the life of the tree itself, there is also a wondrous divine providence in the functions of the human organs: God has arranged everything for him—the wondrous lens in the eye, the wondrous pump in the heart, the wondrous centers in the brain, the wondrous sensitivity in the rest of the senses such as touch, smell, and taste; the wondrous joints of the limbs, and the wondrous flexibility found in the vertebrae.
So too is the wondrous work performed by all his systems: it suffices that a person eats, for example, a piece of candy. Then the teeth and the tongue do their work: the tongue chews it, and the teeth and molars crush it and prepare it for swallowing. Then a group of secretions takes it over—some for fatty substances, some for sugary substances, and some for starchy substances—so that it may be digested and then assimilated. And it is transformed into tissues and blood in the human body of the same kind!
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And just as God arranged the nature of the heavenly bodies and their work, so He also arranged the life even of insects. Take, for example, God’s providence for the bee: how He granted it that wondrous arrangement in collecting nectar from flowers and transforming the nectar into honey, as though it were a scientist in chemistry. And He granted it the extraction of royal jelly, as though it were a skilled pharmacist preparing the strongest remedy. Likewise, He granted it a wondrous arrangement in making the cells, as though it were a brilliant engineer! And He granted it a wondrous arrangement in administrative work and in the relationship among the workers and between them and the queen. So much so that the Prince of Poets, Ahmad Shawqi, said about this:
A governed kingdom
Bearing among its workers and craftsmen
A mountain of workers …
…
… With a woman enthroned,
The burden of control,
They appoint over themselves their Caesar.
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Thus God also granted wondrous providence to birds in their long journeys and the leadership of those journeys. And He granted the animal creation an organized providence in reproduction. He likewise granted plants a system and providence by which the tree sows a seed that makes fruit, whose seed is within it according to its kind. Thus God arranged the life of man collectively and individually. For every person, God arranges a specific work such that this arrangement ends in the divine purpose—if that person has surrendered himself to the work of God and His providence.
Before us is a wondrous example: the life of Joseph the Righteous, and how God arranged it step by step until it ended in the honorable position God desired for him. How often a person becomes troubled in his spiritual life and says to the Lord: When will I arrive? When will I realize and attain? But God, in His wondrous wisdom, arranges the time He sees as the best time to order the life of that person.
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God does not arrange all by one method; rather, He arranges each one in what suits him and at the time that suits him. The arrangements and times differ, but the common factor in all is the divine wisdom and goodness that characterize God’s providence. We see this, for example, in the life of Moses the Prophet from his childhood, in the life of Joseph the Righteous, in the life of David the Prophet, and in the lives of others. All of these—their lives were melodies on God’s lyre. The life of each of them was a particular string with a specific tone, upon which the divine providence played to become a wondrous symphony that humanity enjoys.
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We also see the wisdom of God—blessed be His name—in that He arranged solutions to many problems that would never have occurred to the mind, as when He split the Red Sea and sent down manna and quail from heaven—an event that occurred in history for the first time. He also arranged in the lives of some dreams and visions whose interpretations were a kind of prophecy about what would happen later. Those visions were announcements from God about the manner of His providence. Yet many times humans resorted to human solutions and they failed, then divine solutions intervened as a decisive remedy for difficulties. In this field there are very many stories that we do not think these pages can now contain.
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Nevertheless, God’s providence for the life of man does not mean the cancellation of this person’s freedom in arranging his life. Rather, the one who enjoys the divine providence is he who surrenders his life and his will to God; the Lord directs it according to His will. Thus the human will submits to the divine will, and the two proceed on one line and one goal. This is called the life of surrender—that is, the surrender of man to the divine will. It is built upon complete trust in the wisdom of God in His providence, faith in the goodness of the divine work, faith that the timing God sets is the best timing, and contentment with what God does—indeed, contentment rises to the level of thanksgiving for all that God wills.
In all of this, no doubt or grumbling enters the heart of man concerning God’s providence, whatever the external circumstances. Rather, he says to Him at all times: Lord, let Your will be done.
How astonishing this is—that God undertakes our lives and arranges them. More than this, He arranges our lives before we are born, for He has in the life of each of us a divine plan by which He directs the course of our lives as He wills. And each of us says to the Lord God: I, Lord, am thankful to You for all that You do with me, and I submit to Your divine will in my life—wherever You lead me, I go; and however You shape me, I become.
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How astonishing is the divine providence with the world that was living in paganism and the worship of idols. Then God, by His wisdom, power, and good providence, was able to lead this world to faith in Him and to abandon paganism entirely. Blessed is He in all His divine providence.
¹ An article by His Holiness Pope Shenouda III, published in Al-Ahram newspaper on 31-8-2008.
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