In Chapter Seven on “Natural Selection and Divine Providence,” van den Brink faces head-on the challenge that Darwinian evolution poses for a Reformed account of providence. For the sake of the argument, he accepts the neo-Darwinian synthesis of natural selection and genetic mutation. Focusing on the alleged randomness of the latter, he explores its compatibility…

William Abraham’s book is a pleasure to read, not just for its insight, clarity, and wit, but also for its bold invitation to “reconceive,” and even “reinvent” contemporary theology (p. 22). Describing himself as “a retrievalist and a renewalist” (p. 32), he’s also something of a cheerleader, urging theologians to “keep their nerve” (pp. 62,…

Every time I wash my hands these days, I recite either our Lord’s Prayer or the Apostle’s Creed. This ensures that I make it past twenty seconds, of course, but it also reminds me of what is most important. As I do so, I keep thinking about the striking contrasts between the transience and fragility…

In his Miracles: God’s Presence and Power in Creation, Luke Timothy Johnson argues that at the heart of the Christian faith is the claim that God has revealed himself and acted to accomplish his purposes through signs, wonders, and miracles. The mighty acts of God—from Creation to Exodus to Christ’s resurrection to the outpouring of…

Let me start with saying that I am immensely grateful to the contributors to this Book Symposium for the time they have devoted to reading my book Disability, Providence, and Ethics: Bridging Gaps, Transforming Lives and for the comments they made. My own inclination of how to respond brought back a remark I once heard…

I have profited greatly from Hans Reinders’s previous works on disability, in particular his The Future of the Disabled in Liberal Society and Receiving the Gift of Friendship, both of which I have reviewed elsewhere. In the former, Reinders suggests that the key to securing the future of persons with (mental) disabilities in “liberal” society…

I was reading Dr. Reinders’s book this past September while Hurricane Dorian was wreaking havoc on the nearby islands of Abaco and Grand Bahama so close to the Florida coast. In his chapter on “Cosmic Fairness,” I was struck by the idea that the “Why?” question “gets smothered in silence” (p. 50), though sometimes it…

The problem of evil and the mystery of divine providence are deep existential issues. Even among those who do not believe in God, the tendency of the human spirit is to look for reasons for “why bad things happen to good people,” to quote the title of a best-seller on the subject. In most people’s…

What, if anything, has divine providence to do with disability? This is the opening question of Reinders’s book. For me, there is no ‘if anything’ about it. This is one of the most pressing questions that could possibly be asked. The question of what divine providence has to do with suffering was instrumental in my…

Providence can be difficult to understand in the context of disability; and understanding the contours of this issue and the “conception of the universe, a particular way of looking at the world and our temporal existence in it” (p. 3) that lies behind all answers, is what Hans Reinders’s book Disability, Providence and Ethics: Bridging…

I wish to thank my fellow symposiasts for their careful and generous reading of my book. Their criticisms have enabled me to think further about its central themes, historical perspectives, and argumentative moves. In what follows, I offer some further musings which I hope are neither too defensive nor inconsistent with the published material. At…

The providence of God is an exquisite and awe-inspiring doctrine, relating, as it does, to God’s relationship to the world he has created. It is also a doctrine with vital pastoral significance. Early on, Fergusson defines providence as follows: “Within Christian theology, providence is the sequel to creation. After creating the world, God preserves and…