Excerpt from The Duke Divinity School Review, Vol. 45: Winter 1980 Now to return - after an over-lengthy absence, you may well think - to the doctrine of Providence. What sort of picture emerges if we apply the notion of God's power as the power of 'persuasion' here? Clearly, it would mean abandoning for good the notion of a divine super-plan governing every detail of life and existence. 'persuasion' leaves too much room for creaturely freedom and spontaneity for that. But does any-one really want to preserve the idea of a such a divine plan any-way? Would not the evil we can, or could if we wanted to, see so evident in our world (if not in ourselves) be overwhelming evidence against such a plan? Or else a decisive indictment against the character of God, if he did plan it all? To do away with the idea of a divine plan does not, however, mean doing away with purpose. On the contrary, the divine per suasion presupposes it. Philosophical speculation and analysis such as Whitehead and Hartshorne engage in can give some delineation of this purpose. As I have indicated, it is conceived in terms of bringing into harmony the increasingly complex ele ments of the cosmos engaged in the on-going creative process. Yet there is surely no reason why Christian faith could not take this framework and, in the context of the experience of the Christian community, fill it out with dynamic content. More bluntly, and biblically, God's love, love for his creation, love in which he wants his creatures to share; love not as a sentimental make-believe or some noble ideal, but love as it has been defined, let loose in the world, in a life lived, incarnated in jesus Christ. And if this is the purpose - that Christ shall be all in all - then surely 'persuasion' is a much more fitting, appropriate and credi ble agent than force. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.