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Encyclopedic overview
Sculpture of the Eye of Providence in the relief of the Kazan Cathedral, Saint Petersburg
Michelangelo's painting In theology, divine providence, or simply providence, is God's intervention in the universe. The term Divine Providence (usually capitalized) is also used as a title of God. A distinction is usually made between "general providence", which refers to God's continuous upholding of the existence and natural order of the universe, and "special providence", which refers to God's extraordinary intervention in the life of people. Miracles and even retribution generally fall in the latter category.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “divine providence” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.