Opatrzność Boża i historia zbawienia. Analiza porównawcza pojęć

Abstract

The article discusses relations between three notions essential for the theological description of God’s activity in the world: Divine Providence, the history of salvation and God’s plan (Divine plan of salvation). The theology of Divine Providence is nowadays in decline, the history of salvation remains essential for many theological approaches in the post Vatican II period. The notion of God’s plan, which does not find much interest, in spite of being one of the important notions in the teaching of the Second Vatican Council, is connected with it. Contemporary approaches to the question of Divine Providence and to the history of salvation, as found in the main theological lexicons such as “Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche”, have the same essential feature: its key truth is the salvation of the human being in Christ. So, the two notions in question can be considered as complementary notions, on condition that the history of salvation is considered together with God’s plan (economy of salvation). Then, for a more adequate description of God’s activity in the world both notions should be used at the same time. But there are some differences between them. The most obvious one is that Divine Providence is of philosophical origin, while the history of salvation comes from the Revelation. Then, the first one describes the relation of God to the whole creation (material and spiritual beings), while the second one describes this relation to human beings only.