God's Work in Creation is Direct

Selection of James Jordan from Judges: God's War Against Humanism
Context: Judges 5:20-21
Text: (Page 102)

"The concept of the stars fighting in heaven, and of the stars controlling the weather (bringing rain), was common in Baalism. Here Deborah asserts that the stars are part of God’s heavenly host, and that their (angelic) control of the weather is for the good of Israel. Baalism is impotent. The notion that those who trust in the Baals have the stars and the weather on their side is a lie.

Stars in Scripture are associated with angels (Job 38:7, Is. 14:13; Rev. 12:4). Storms, at least special ones, are also associated with angels (Ezk. 1; 10; Ps. 18:9-12; 104:2-4; Ex. 19:16 with Heb. 2:2). Because of the influence of neo-Baalism (secular humanism) in our modern culture, we tend to think that God, when He made the world, installed certain “natural laws” or processes that work automatically and impersonally. This is a Deistic, not a Christian, view of the world. What we call natural or physical law is actually a rough approximate generalization about the ordinary activity of God in governing His creation. Matter, space, and time are created by God, and are ruled directly and actively by Him. His rule is called “law.” God almost always causes things to be done the same way, according to covenant regularities (the Christian equivalent of natural laws), which covenant regularities were established in Genesis 8:22. Science and technology are possible because God does not change the rules, so man can confidently explore the world and learn to work it. Such confidence, though, is always a form of faith, faith either in Nature (Bard) and natural law, or faith in God and in the trustworthiness of His commitment to maintain covenant regularities."

This is a concise statement of what I think to be the correct view of God's work in creation. Sometime, before today, I have attempted to stop using terms such as nature and luck but rather replace them with the more meaningful terms creation and providence.