ABSTRACT
Much of the contemporary discussion on divine providence focuses on the execution of the divine plan, on God’s active involvement in the historical development of creation, and in particular on the salvific history of human beings. Only few comments are made about an understanding of how God planned his plan for creation, even before putting that plan into action. This chapter discusses in what sense natural contingency can play a role in this planning and pairs this analysis with an exploration of how natural contingency allows God to execute that plan. The chapter, thus, analyses how natural contingency can be seen both in the planning and the execution aspects of divine providence. To this end, the chapter contrasts the perspectives of some current trends in science and religion circles, finding natural causal gaps in the created order to allow for God’s providence, with a typically Thomist approach in classical theistic circles.
