Today’s reading brings us to one of the most demanding—and clarifying—chapters of Calvin’s Institutes, where the doctrine of providence is pressed to its furthest edge and refuses to retreat. In Book 1, Chapter 18, Sections 1–2, Calvin confronts the uneasy question of how God can sovereignly govern even Satan and the wicked without becoming the author of sin, rejecting the comforting but unbiblical idea that evil occurs merely by God’s “permission.” Scripture itself will not allow that escape: the devil cannot touch Job apart from God’s will (Job 1:12; 1:21), Ahab is deceived by divine judgment (2 Kings 22:20), Christ is crucified according to God’s determined counsel (Acts 2:23; 4:28), and even the hidden movements of human hearts—including fear, blindness, and hardening—are directed by God’s righteous purpose (Exodus 4:21; Joshua 11:20; Romans 1:28). Calvin insists that God governs all things actively and intentionally, bending even the reprobate to serve his judgments, while remaining perfectly pure, just, and untainted by their evil. The result is not philosophical comfort but theological sobriety: God’s providence leaves no room for chance, no refuge for human pride, and no explanation for history apart from the sovereign will of the Lord who “does whatever pleases him” (Psalm 115:3).

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