“Whether,
therefore, Fate works by the aid of the divine spirits that serve Providence, or whether it works
by the aid of the soul, or of all nature, or
the motions of the stars in heaven, or the powers of angels, or the manifold
skill of other spirits,
whether the course of Fate is bound together by any or all of these, one thing is certain, namely that Providence
is the one unchangeable direct power that gives form to all things which are to
come to pass, while Fate is the changing bond,
the temporal order of those things which are arranged to come to pass by the
direct disposition of God.”
—from
Book 4, Prose 6
Because
Providence is what gives meaning and order to all things, Fate will unfold
through the medium of all things. Every creature, in its own particular way, participates
in a unified whole, and everything that happens does indeed always happen for a
reason. I may not know all the inner workings of precisely how or why events
come to pass as they do, but I can know that they are exactly as they were
meant to be.
Sometimes,
perhaps even very often, I will look at the ways of the world, and I will be
quite confused, discouraged, disappointed, or angry at the state of affairs.
Surely, this can’t be right? Was there a mistake or an oversight? Is it
possible that God has overlooked this suffering? It is quite a big deal for me,
but maybe it isn’t significant enough for Him to worry about?
That
path of thinking will only lead me to my own ruin. It neglects the fact that
where there is action, there is purpose, and where there is purpose, there is Intelligence.
It ignores the necessity that all things must reduce to Absolute Being. It
confuses my own finite imperfection with the rule of Infinite Perfection. Nothing
is too small for that which has no limits and is bound by no distinctions.
It all
works together, all the parts following their own natures while being joined to
one Nature. This hardly negates the dignity of created things, but rather gives
weight to their individual roles, in all their glorious diversity. Providence works
its way in them and with them, not over them or against them.
A dear friend
once told me that he didn’t think he could manage the faith in Providence I
seemed to have. I was taken aback by this, because he clearly thought more of
me than I could of myself, but also because my convictions, when I do manage to
live up to them, are not only matters of faith.
Some people
have told me, for all my life, that everything will work out right, to let go
and to let God, to accept what I cannot, and should not, try to change. I was grateful
for the advice, but I could not get beyond the sense that this was just an act
of blind surrender. What reasons, beyond wishful thinking, might you have to
support this?
It takes
a certain humble openness to reason itself to uncover the reasons, to get over
my own negativity. I don’t just believe in Providence; I know
there is Providence, active in everything I do, in everything that comes to me.
I know this by the effects I observe around me, and then thinking backwards to
the cause. My trust is not unfounded. It is all of a One.
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