Providence, Divine

In a direct riposte to post-tsunami Portuguese Jesuits, like the immensely powerful Gabriel Malagrida, who declared unequivocally that the catastrophe was God’s anger at the population’s immoral behaviour, Voltaire rejected a compassionate deity and the notion of providence, divine or otherwise, asking what sin babies had committed to deserve such a punishment.

At the less complicated end of the spectrum are British posy rings from the 16th and 17th centuries, the simplest of which are ornament-free gold bands with amorous inscriptions on the inside like “I Like My Choyse” and “Providence Divine Hath Made Thee Mine.”

Oh Providence Divine! she cried, how minute is the perfection, yet how grand the harmony of thy works!

But if your providence divine For other ends design her, To obey your will at any time, I’m ready to resign her.”

“Providence” divine or human, prepense moral or spiritual “foresight,” was a thing in the excellence of which our prophet of divine instinct and inspired flesh could not consistently believe.