Christianity Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion, which states that Jesus in Christianity, Jesus is the Son of God (Christianity), Son of God and Resurrection of Jesus, rose from the dead after his Crucifixion of Jesus, crucifixion, whose ...

, providentialism is the belief that all events on Earth are controlled by

God In monotheistic belief systems, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator, and principal object of faith. In polytheistic belief systems, a god is "a spirit or being believed to have created, or for controlling some part of the un ...

Belief

Providentialism was sometimes viewed by its adherents as differing between national providence and personal providence. Some English and American Christians came to view personal providentialism as backward and superstitious, while continuing to believe in national providentialism. National providentialism was described by the British historian Nicholas Guyatt as encompassing three broader beliefs: God judged nations on the virtues of its leaders, there is a special role for certain nations, and finally that God worked out a master plan through the role of various nations. Providentialism was frequently featured in discussions of European political and intellectual elites seeking to justify

imperialism Imperialism is the maintaining and extending of Power (international relations), power over foreign nations, particularly through expansionism, employing both hard power (military and economic power) and soft power (diplomatic power and cultura ...

in the 19th century, on the grounds that the suffering caused by European conquest was justified under the grounds of furthering God's plan and spreading

and

civilization A civilization (also spelled civilisation in British English) is any complex society characterized by the development of state (polity), the state, social stratification, urban area, urbanization, and symbolic systems of communication beyon ...

to distant nations. In the words of historians, it was an ''interpretive framework'' of occurring natural, political and social events at a time when the religious and the secular were not clearly divided. Providentialism may be understood as the acceptance of the belief that all that happens in the world is for the greater good, since, "God created the social order and appointed each individual in his place within it."Smuts, R. Malcolm. Culture and Power in England, 1585-1685. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1999, p. 28.

Belief

See also

References

Further reading