The idea of "providence" has three components—foresight, direction, and care. It is normally found in a theistic context. In its fullest sense it means that God foresees and governs (in a word, "provides for") the world that is the object of his care (or love). Divine providence was affirmed by Plato in his Laws (887–888), where he condemns the view, later held by the Epicureans, that the gods take no interest in human affairs. The most important later thought upon the subject arose in Stoicism and Christianity.

Stoics

The Stoics held a firm belief in the providence (pronoia) of God (or the gods). Thus, Epictetus uses an elementary form of the teleological argument to prove God's supervision of the universe (Discourse 1.16). But two factors prevented the Stoics from taking a fully personal view of providence. First, they often conceived God abstractly (as a cosmic logos) and even physically...