Providence

The Purpose of the Universe is a Secret#

In sum, Calvin presents in radical form the Christian subordination of nature to God by subordinating God’s creation itself to providence.

God gives nature order and purpose, but the fact that we can know or perceive this order does not mean we can know the purpose. The end of nature is not a natural end. The purpose of the universe is a secret.  The impulse of nature is secret; to claim to
discern it is to deny that God ““directs everything by his incomprehensible wisdom and disposes it to his own end’.’

To claim to know the end that governs a natural species or the order of nature as a whole is in effect to subject God to his creation, “to enclose [God’s governance| within the stream of nature’ (3; 200), to reduce God to an impersonal ““general principle of confused motion,”” a mere ‘“first agent…and cause of all motion’’.

(Or better said, to deprive of God of radical freedom, since if the purpose of nature that is given by God can be grasped, then the action of God will also be grasped by human intellect, this contradicts God's freedom.)

Man#

There is something, yet, we can know of the universe: the universe was established especially for the sake of mankind.

God's fatherly love toward mankind is shown in that he did not create Adam until he had lavished upon the universe all manner of good things.

The universe is good because it is for the sake of man. And yet it could not be good for man unless it were full of 
“all manner of good things. Without this goodness, we have seen, the order of nature would in itself be alien to man—empty, unconscious, and moved by blind instinct. This implies that we cannot recognize God’s providence without recognizing the goodness of nature.  But this goodness is not natural and is hidden in God's secret plan. It can serve ”our good and salvation" unless to know God's benefits means to feel his power in ourselves.

Note that God “directs everything by his incomprehensible wisdom and disposes it to his own end” and Calvin makes no exception for man, although he teaches that the universe was created for the sake of man. Man is the purpose of nature, but man has no natural or knowable purpose. Man is commended to exercise prudence, but wisdom is withheld from him. Thus, while Calvin denies man the power of free choice because he denies that man is competent to choose the good which only God knows or wills, he teaches that man is not incapable of recognizing what is necessary to his self-preservation. Self-preservation is the point where divine and human power coincide, and the mystery of providence is clothed in a form naturally accessible to man in the activity of self-preservation. Calvin mentions man's ability to preserve his physical existence and to guard against dangers to it, and it seems that, human beings should care for themselves and order their lives accordingly.