We are all tempted to be practical deists. The deists were the poster children for god-of-the-gaps theology. That is, because they wanted the universe to make sense, but didn’t want to have to answer to the living God, they posited a creator god (for how else could we have gotten here?) who, after creating the universe, took a walk, never to return. God explains the universe, but is not active in it. If He’s watching at all, it is from a distance, and with a deep indifference.
A practical deist isn’t someone affirming deism but who also is handy with tools, but rather is someone who would never affirm such a doctrine but lives as if that doctrine were true, a deist in practice if not confession. And that’s where we come in. We who are Reformed confess with our fathers this- What are God’s works of providence? God’s works of providence are, his most holy, wise, and powerful preserving and governing all his creatures and all their actions (Westminster Shorter Catechism 11). But we act as though all His creatures and all their actions are somehow outside His control. We too often treat answered prayer as a vaguely embarrassing pseudo-charismatic event. God, we seem to believe, may be Lord of space and time, but is an absentee Lord.
The proof is in the worry. Don’t get me wrong- the doctrine of God’s providence doesn’t mean that unpleasant, or horrific events will not come to pass. Worry, however, isn’t the understandable fear that something terrible might happen but foolish fear that things outside His sovereign plan might happen. Worry is the implicit denial of the promise of God in Romans 8:28, that all things, that is, all things, work together for good for those who love the Lord, who are called according to His purpose.
The solution is to cease living by sight. All that we see is real enough. The actions of wicked men, at the abortion mill, in the middle east, the ravages of disease, these are all real as well, and have genuine causal power. They bring things to pass. But each of them is but a secondary cause, a tool in the hand of the One who governs all the creatures and all their actions. He is sovereign over men and over disease, and always brings His sovereign will to pass, even when such violates His revealed will. Indeed such is how we have been saved. He brought to pass the greatest evil ever, and by it redeemed our souls.
But even here we can still be stuck in our deism. If we who confess to His sovereignty merely see Him as the one who wrote the full story of history, who numbered our days before there were days, who planned the descent of every hair falling from my head did not write the story and sit back to watch it play out. The glorious, though invisible truth is that He wrote Himself into the story. He who created space and time, who is above space and time also enters into space and time. The king’s heart is in His hand. And so is mine. Great and small, the good Lord is at work in them all. He is here and He is not inactive.
Be of good cheer. For though He is risen, though He is seated at the right hand of the Father, though He is exalted, having received all authority in heaven and on earth, lo He is with us always. What we cannot see is more real than what we can.