Purpose and providence

Do our lives have a purpose? Despite the rise of secularism, we are still confronted by a sense of meaning and direction in the events of history and our own lives--something beyond us, not just our own creation. Vernon White tracks this belief in intellectual history and tests its resilience in modern literature, using the novels of Thomas Hardy and Julian Barnes to suggest how it persists even when it seems lost. The discussion then moves to an exploration of this belief in its theological form, through the doctrine of providence and the pressures on it. Drawing especially on Barth and Frei, White suggests ways of re-imagining divine providence to take account of these issues. A constructive proposal is then tested against scripture, experience and praxis, to provide an outline picture of providence which does not rely on empirical progress. (Back cover).