How does this model either align with or diverge from your view of Providence or prayer?

I will be upfront and say that I believe that God does respond to prayer and sometimes amazingly enough in ways in which we expect. This model diverges from my personal view because I believe in both God’s conditional and unconditional will. Some events (the cross) are testimonies to God’s unconditional will – it was going to happen regardless of people’s will. Other events are conditional upon our faith and perseverance in prayer – examples like the persistent widow, the lack of miracles in an area by Jesus due to people’s lack of faith, Sermon on the Mount and the teaching on prayer.

I don’t know how this fits into the acts and subacts of God. Maybe it is similar but I don’t know.

What are the gains and losses of this view?

The gains of this view is that it gets God off the hook for anything bad that happens. We can shift it from God to the affects of sin in the world. Faith and trust in this way becomes easier to hold onto as our consciences are not troubled. However, the losses are many: 1. God cannot enter into our pain or engage us where we are. 2. Christian spirituality becomes one of defeatism instead of victory as we are left bereft of any ability to respond constructively to bad situations. 3. Questions centering on God’s promise of love, care, and presence teeter on the brink of lies. 4. We have no ability to respond to acts of divine intervention – the blind receiving sight, the lame walking, cancer going into remission, barren women becoming pregnant – all we can say is that either the doctors or experts were wrong or simply that sometimes mysterious things occur without any agent responsible.

There are probably others, but these come to mind.

What might be some direct implications for our doctrine of God?

A belief in a “semi-deist” model directly challenges a few basic tenents of our Doctrine of God: 1. His Omniscience, Omnipotency, and Omnibenevelence are called in question in how they are realized in history as well as if they are integral to who He is. 2. His Kingship over His creation as well as His ability to govern His creation is called into question. 3. His “personalness” and imminence is lost as he maintains an arms distance from our pain and need in times of distress.

Again there are others as well.
What examples from the scriptural witness would be difficult to reconcile with this view (each model will have some)?

Or, what are some other questions you think we should be asking of this model?

Another question to think about concerning this model is how to explain when things do happen that we can’t explain – Richard escaping from the terrorists without harm and being reunited from his family. Or to put it more plainly, how do we explain modern-day “miracles”?