When the question is raised as to how this absolutely suffi-
cient providential control is accomplished, the answer some-
times given is that it is through absolute predetermination of
every event, including every human action. This predeter-
mination is sometimes thought of as having been antecedent
to all creation, sometimes as more immanental and progressive
throughout the course of time. In any case, it is claimed, by
this means it is guaranteed that everything that happens shall
be, as seen from the ultimate point of view, perfectly in accord
with the perfectly good and wise will of God. But any such
doctrine of absolute predetermination is opposed by two ob-
jections, which, from the point of view of our empirical theology
as thus far developed, are absolutely fatal. In the first place it
would make it necessary for us to think of moral evil, or what
we cannot avoid judging to be moral evil, as being God's deed--
in which case we could not regard him as good enough to be
absolutely worthy of trust or worship. In the second place,
since absolutely to predetermine free moral agents is impossible,
being self-contradictory, man would have to be regarded as
not free--in which case he could not even be a moral person,
much less morally saved. Manifestly God's providential con-
trol of the universe must be conceived in some such way as
will mean the avoidance of any interference with man's being
a free and responsible agent.

Another suggestion sometimes offered as to how God secures
his absolutely sufficient providential control of the universe
is that he intervenes from time to time, as need may arise, by
free, more or less creative acts (such as "miracles" would be),
in order to direct the course of events according to his good
pleasure. Waiving for the moment the question whether there
is or is not divine intervention within the inner life, religious
or other, of the human spirit, it may be remarked that even if
there is intervention enough for moral salvation, it by no means
follows that there is direct intervention in external nature.
Moreover, the assertion of such intervention in external nature
would raise serious problems. In the first place, is there any
evidence, tested with adequately critical care and found con-
vincing, upon which such intervention can be based as in any
one instance an established fact? In the second place, if inter-

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