Welcome to Defenders, the teaching class of Dr. William Lane Craig.

Today, the Doctrine of Creation, Part 10.

For more information and resources from Dr. Craig, go to reasonablefaith.org.

Today we turn to a new topic under the Doctrine of Creation, which is the doctrine of divine providence.

Divine providence concerns God's governance or supervision of the world, all that happens.

The biblical worldview has a very strong conception of divine sovereignty over the world and human affairs.

But at the same time, it also presupposes human freedom and responsibility.

Let's look then first at the biblical data concerning divine providence. With regard to divine sovereignty,

the biblical passages affirming God's sovereignty are too numerous to read here during this time,

but the New Testament scholar Donald Carson has summarized them under four main headings in his book,

Divine Sovereignty and Human Responsibility.

And I'll share with you Carson's four summary points.

Number one would be that God is the creator, the ruler, and the possessor of all things.

So the first would be that stream of passages in the Bible teaching that God is the creator, ruler, and possessor of all things.

Number two is that God is the ultimate personal cause of all that happens.

The second point then is the passages in the scripture that affirm that God is the ultimate

personal cause of everything that happens.

Number three is that God elects his people. God has chosen a certain people for himself and has called them to himself.

So number three is that God elects his people. And finally, number four, is that God is

the unacknowledged source of good fortune or success. Nothing really happens by luck alone.

Rather behind good fortune or success, God is the unacknowledged source of those benefits.

So those four points would summarize the passages in Scripture, teaching a very strong view of divine

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