Thesis A: The doctrine of creation means that God is the ultimate cause or origin of everything that happens in the universe (which includes spiritual beings as well as physical beings such as humans, animals, and inanimate things). Since change or motion is an attribute of creatures, it follows that God is also in some sense the Creator of time and change.
But this does not imply the exaggeration of A: that nature is merely a fixed, space-time object in which all apparent changes are really predetermined and programmed by God from the outset.
Thesis C: On the contrary, natural history is real. God's activity in nature is usually through second causes, but God relates to a real universe that he created. Contingency or change in the creation is real to God as well as to us. God's relationship to the world momement-by-moment is described by the doctrine of providence.
But the reality of change does not imply the exaggeration of C: that the universe is the only reality; that there is no sovereign God behind the autonomous universe. In that case all things would happen by accident, chance or fate. Christianity rejects these conceptions of nature (naturalism). God is not, as it were, caught off guard by something that happens in the creation.
A & C: So Christian doctrine acknowledges God as the sovereign over all things, but on the other hand, the nature that God created is real, and contains processes that operate as secondary causes. Nature is not merely an embodiment of God. On the other hand, "there is no chance back of God" (Francis Schaeffer).
In the concept of providence, the emphasis of Christian theology is on the presence of God in the world. While Christian doctrine emphasizes the reality of the world, this is not at the expense of the transcendent reality of God. Naturalism excludes God; pantheism identifies nature with God. But pantheism in so doing does not exalt God. Rather, if God is everything, then God is nothing. The net effect in both cases is to exclude a real, living and active God from nature. When God is thus excluded as a real Power to be reckoned with, nature itself becomes meaningless. As Steven Weinberg, the particle physicist stated, "The more the universe seems comprehensible, the more it seems pointless." (The First Three Minutes ).
The relationship of God to nature is more complex and interactive than these simplistic views. Since we are creatures, we can only comprehend the creation from our creaturely vantage point. In dealing with such a profound subject as God's relationship with the creation, "we see through a glass darkly" (I Cor. 13:12).