Can we be more exact about the character of divine providence? In summary, the essential elements of divine providence are these. God preserves his creation and all that it contains. This is the most fundamental and basic way in which the care we have referred to is expressed. To preserve is to keep in being or in existence. Having brought the creation into being, God keeps it in being. It does not have an inherent power to sustain itself. But if our idea of divine providence were confined merely