Concurrence

Overview

Concurrence is the Christian doctrine that, in creation and providence, God sustains and governs all creaturely events through real secondary causes. The term comes from the Latin concurrere, “to run together,” and it names the way divine action and creaturely action operate together without being confused with one another. God is not understood as a distant first cause who begins the world and then withdraws. Rather, God remains the living Creator in whom creatures “live and move and have their being” (Acts 17:28), who “upholds the universe by the word of his power” (Hebrews 1:3), and in whom “all things hold together” (Colossians 1:17).

At the same time, concurrence preserves the integrity of created agency. Human choices, natural processes, and historical events are genuinely creaturely acts, not mere appearances. The doctrine therefore seeks to hold together two affirmations found throughout Scripture: God is fully sovereign over creation, and creatures truly act according to their own natures. In classical Christian theology, concurrence belongs within the larger doctrine of providence and is especially important in discussions of freedom, grace, evil, prayer, and divine sovereignty.

The biblical pattern behind concurrence is not one of competition between God and creation, but of ordered dependence. Creation is derivative, preservation is continuous, and governance is active. For that reason, concurrence often serves as a bridge concept: it explains how one can speak both of God’s universal rule and of meaningful creaturely causality without reducing one to the other.

Biblical shape

Scripture presents God as the source of all being, the sustainer of all life, and the governor of ordinary and extraordinary events. In the opening of Genesis, God brings the world into existence by command. The Psalms likewise portray creation as dependent on divine support, not self-sufficient mechanism. This theme continues through the New Testament, where Christ is described as the one through whom and for whom all things exist, and in whom they continue to hold together.

The doctrine also arises from biblical narratives that join divine purpose and human action. Joseph’s words to his brothers are a classic example: what they meant for evil, God meant for good. The crucifixion likewise shows that a morally evil human act can be included within God’s saving plan without making God the author of sin. The same pattern appears in exhortations that assume real human decision and labor, while still confessing that God is at work in and through those actions.

Concurrence therefore reflects a biblical world in which causality is layered. Rain, harvest, human planning, political power, prayer, and suffering can all be described as real events within creation, yet none of them are independent of God’s sustaining and governing will. Scripture does not flatten these levels into a single explanation.

Key passages

• Genesis 1:1-31 — God creates all things; creaturely existence is given, not self-originating.
• Psalm 33:6-9 — Creation comes to be by God’s word, emphasizing divine initiative.
• Psalm 104:27-30 — Creatures depend on God for food, breath, and ongoing life.
• Nehemiah 9:6 — God made the heavens and preserves the host of heaven.
• Psalm 145:14 — The Lord upholds all who are falling and raises up the bowed down.
• Isaiah 46:3-4 — God carries and sustains his people throughout their lives.
• Acts 17:24-28 — In God we live and move and have our being.
• Hebrews 1:3 — Christ upholds the universe by the word of his power.
• Colossians 1:17 — In Christ all things hold together.
• Genesis 50:20 — Human intention for evil and God’s good purpose are held together.
• Acts 2:23 — The crucifixion occurs according to God’s plan and human responsibility.
• Philippians 2:12-13 — Human obedience and God’s effective working are joined.
• Romans 8:28-39 — Providence is ordered toward God’s redemptive purpose.
• 1 Corinthians 15:24-28 — God’s reign orders history toward consummation.
• James 5:16-18 — Prayer functions as a real creaturely means within providence.

Theological significance

Concurrence is significant because it protects several central Christian claims at once. First, it affirms the Creator-creature distinction. God is not one cause among others, and creatures do not possess independent existence. Their power to act is itself received from God. Second, it protects genuine creaturely agency. Human beings deliberate, choose, work, pray, and sin as real agents. Natural processes also operate as real causes. Concurrence rejects both deism, which leaves the world to function apart from God, and occasionalism, which reduces created causes to mere appearances.

Third, the doctrine helps Christian theology speak carefully about providence and evil. Scripture can say that God’s purpose is accomplished through morally evil acts, yet it also insists that God is not the author of sin. Classical theology typically distinguishes God’s sustaining and governing action from the sinful defect or intention belonging to the creature. Concurrence is tested most sharply here, because it must explain how God can be truly sovereign over history without being morally implicated in evil.

Fourth, concurrence gives a framework for prayer, labor, and ordinary life. Prayer is not an interruption of providence from the outside; it is one of the means through which God works. Likewise, medicine, counsel, repentance, political responsibility, and daily work are not meaningless beside divine sovereignty. They are creaturely acts that belong within God’s providential ordering. This makes concurrence pastorally consoling, since it teaches that ordinary life is not outside God’s care, while also requiring humility about suffering and restraint in assigning meanings to hardship.

Fifth, concurrence supports a layered account of nature and history. Natural law and scientific explanation need not compete with divine providence. A process can be fully real as a physical or historical event and also dependent on God’s faithful sustaining action. In that sense, concurrence offers a way to speak of divine action without collapsing into a “God of the gaps” model. It also keeps Christian reflection open to the confession that the world is held together in Christ and moving toward renewal in him.

Across Christian traditions, the doctrine has been developed in different ways. Some emphasize meticulous providence and compatibilist freedom; others stress participation, communion, or libertarian contingency. Yet the shared aim remains the same: to confess that God is actively present to creation without erasing the reality of created causes.

Related Atlas concepts

• providence
• creation
• doctrine of God
• preservation
• government
• secondary causality
• divine permission
• election
• predestination
• free will
• theodicy
• miracle
• natural law
• prayer
• sustenance