Providence

In “Providence” (Chalcedon Report No. 131), Rushdoony argues that Christianity is founded on God-ordained distinctions between good and evil, righteousness and sin, holy and profane while humanism destroys these distinctions by making autonomous man the sole standard. When man becomes god, all absolutes collapse, progress ceases, and meaning evaporates, because a self-deified humanity has no reason to grow, judge, or reform itself. Rushdoony traces this levelling impulse through Asian philosophies, Greek and Roman decline, medieval decay, and modern relativism, showing how the denial of providence leads inevitably to nihilism, stagnation, and despair. In contrast, biblical faith affirms God’s sovereign providence and holiness, calling for separation according to His law and the active exercise of dominion. Holiness, he concludes, requires both divine grace and cultural obedience; without providence, all values flatten into nothingness, and “equality” finds its truest symbol not in democracy, but in death.