Providence In The Works Of Phillis Wheatley And Olaudah Equiano

The discussion of the role of providence in one’s life permeates the works of Phillis Wheatley and Olaudah Equiano, as they both attempt to convey how God interacts with humans. This relationship brings up questions of salvation both in the immediate and the eternal. In Equiano’s narrative and Wheatley’s “Thoughts on the Works of Providence,” providence is a saving presence, but it is viewed from different theological perspectives, specifically that of humanity’s weakness and the unchanging realities of the natural world respectively. These perspectives are determined by the authors’ lives and how they differ. In both works, the authors attempt to convey their perception of who God is to the reader. For the purposes of this paper, the authors’

As an educated woman, she is fascinated by natural philosophy and, throughout her poem, discusses how she finds the glory of God in the world around her. She describes the solar system as a calculated entity, in which God has a hand in directing. She likens the earth to a “vast machine” and “adore[s] the God that whirls surrounding spheres” (Wheatley 12,14). This view of God as a tinkerer of the machinery of the universe was prevalent at that time, especially in the deist view of God as someone like a watchmaker. Central to this idea of God is the understanding that he is predictable and in

He began to view “every extraordinary escape, or single deliverance, either of myself or others” as “the interposition of providence” (Equiano). Even though he believed in this instance that God was saving him from harm, this created in Equiano a sense of “fear and reverence,” because he believed that “the hand of God” was directly deciding whether or not men would live or die, just like it determined when a sparrow would fall (Equiano). From this point on, Equiano begins to experience more and more stress concerning his eventual eternal destination, because he is focusing only on mankind’s frailty and “meanes[s]” (Equiano). Equiano does not feel as though he can have the assurance of salvation, unlike Wheatley, and this creates in him much