By DONALD DeMARCO
The motto of Colorado is Nil Nisi Numine, which is translated as “Nothing without Providence.” One might think that such a motto is more suitable for Rhode Island, for, without its state capital, it is, in terms of land mass, virtually nothing.
Nonetheless, the city of Providence, R.I., is not without a connection with divine Providence. Roger Williams, a religious exile from the Massachusetts Bay Colony, named the area in honor of “God’s merciful Providence.” He believed God had led him to discover such a fine haven for him and his followers to settle.
Today, the city of Providence is home to eight hospitals and seven institutions of higher learning. Roger Williams may have had a point.
In the secular world, however, the word “providence” is more often associated with insurance companies and health plans than with God. One is being provident, it is said, by preparing for the future. In a well-known Aesop fable, the author illustrates that “it is best to prepare for the days of necessity” by comparing the grasshopper, who lives for the moment, to the provident ant, who prepares for tomorrow.
In this regard, being provident is a virtue. Similarly, philosophers of antiquity viewed providence as simply an act of prudence.
The question naturally arises, “Do we need God to prepare for the future”? After all, are we not in good hands with Allstate?
St. Thomas Aquinas’ discussion of Providence is especially helpful and instructive. He understands God’s Providence in a twofold manner.
First, God manifests his Providence in creation. In this way, God’s demonstrates His Providence with regards to the “substance” of things (Summa Theologiae I, 22, 1).
But God would have abandoned His creatures if He left them to their mere existence. Therefore, He shows His providential care for His human creatures by endowing them with an inclination toward their end. Their end is also twofold, including the particular end which is their natural good, and their supernatural end which is to be with God.
The word “providence” means to see things before they happen (Pro + videre). Therefore, Aquinas states:
“It is necessary that the type of the order of things towards their end should pre-exist in the divine mind: and the type of things ordered towards an end is, properly speaking, providence.”
As a providential God, He gives us both our life and our direction. He sees what is good for us long before they come into being so that we can see them ourselves. His Providence does not preclude our freedom, for it is up to us to choose freely what is good for us.
It must also be stated that, for Aquinas, God’s Providence can be found in the particulars of a person’s life. “For instance,” as he writes, “the meeting of two servants, although to them it appears a chance circumstance, has been fully foreseen by their master, who has purposely sent them to meet at the one place, in such a way that the one knows not about the other” (S.T. I, 22, 2).
In other words, we can sense the actions of divine Providence in the particular events and incidents of our daily lives. We are travelers. God gives us our life, our destination, and the provisions we need to reach our destination.
The debate between providence and chance is one that is as old as philosophy. The more we know, however, especially what science teaches us, the more the notion that we are guided by a Divine Agent becomes irrefutable. Consider the development of human life from the initial zygote stage.
Although it is no larger than a grain of sugar, the single-cell zygote contains a complete genetic code, all the DNA and all the genes that a complete human being will ever need. This tiny zygote initiates a development that progresses to form the 30-trillion-cell adult. At the same time, it exerts biochemical and hormonal influences on the mother as it begins to control and direct the process of pregnancy, a power amplification, considering its minuscule size in relation to that of the mother, that is utterly astonishing.
Moreover, it impresses itself, through its DNA, on all the generations of its descendants just as all the generations of its ancestors have impressed their own genotype on it.
Accordingly, world-class geneticist Jerome Lejeune states in his book, The Concentration Can, “As no other information will enter later into the zygote, the fertilized egg, one is forced to admit that all the necessary and sufficient information to define that particular creature is found together at fertilization.”
How could it be possible for a single cell to develop on its own to a perfectly integrated human organism of 30 trillion cells by chance? Moreover, the infant human produces 200 neurons in his brain per minute. This prodigious rate actually slows down a bit in the adult brain and settles in to form a brain of roughly 100 billion neurons.
A large hotel, given all its wiring, plumbing, heating ducts, and everything else that goes into it, is not nearly as complex as the cellular complexity of but one of its guests. Furthermore, a similarly organized complexity exists for all plants and animals.
Aquinas is fully in agreement with the Book of Wisdom and cites the following passage with approval: “She reaches from end to end mightily, and orders all things sweetly” (Wisdom 8:1).
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(Dr. Donald DeMarco is a senior fellow of Human Life International. He is professor emeritus at St. Jerome’s University in Waterloo, Ontario, an adjunct professor at Holy Apostles College in Cromwell, Conn., and a regular columnist for St. Austin Review. His latest works, How to Remain Sane in a World That Is Going Mad; Poetry That Enters the Mind and Warms the Heart; and How to Flourish in a Fallen World are available through Amazon.com. Some of his recent writings may be found at Human Life International’s Truth and Charity Forum.
(He is the 2015 Catholic Civil Rights League recipient of the prestigious Exner Award.)
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