Our latest assignment in the Pentateuch class is to relate the seemingly conflicting statements in Exodus about God "hardening Pharaoh's heart" so that he would not let Israel go, and those statements that say "Pharaoh hardened his heart", indicating that Pharaoh was responsible for resisting and not God. This is a real trouble spot, for me and many others. This response is yet another indication of the influence of Seminary on my perspectives. Calvinist no more, I guess...
***********
If one is a good Calvinist, one would say "what God permits.. God also ordains." This is because God is seen in this system as having perfect exhaustive foreknowledge (He is never surprised), and exercises complete sovereignty (His will is never thwarted). A good Calvinist would be perfectly comfortable with the notion that God deliberately hardened Pharaoh's heart in order to force him into a position where God could then punish the Egyptians for their 400-year abuse of Israel. It was God's will for Pharaoh to resist. He couldn't help himself.
And if someone objects to God's punishment of Egypt on the grounds that Pharaoh could not resist God's will (any more than we can, for example, resist God's saving grace if He elects us), and so should not be held guilty, we can then hear Saint Paul's sharp rebuke ringing out: "Who are you, O man, to talk back to God?" (Rom 9:20) In other words, such impertinence! How dare you question God? You are nothing but a lump of clay on the wheel for God to make for whatever purpose He pleases, even to smash into powder and re-form.
Well..
If one were not a Calvinist, but rather an Open Theist, one might suggest that God does not have perfect foreknowledge, but rather is open toward the future. God is omniscient, yes, but His omniscience only extends to what actually exists, and the future does not yet exist. Only possibilities do. Only likelihoods do. God knows the inclination of our hearts, knows our temperaments, and knows those perfectly. He is exceptionally good at anticipating what we will do, since He knows us better than we know ourselves. And in this present case, He knew Pharaoh's heart inclinations and his temperament - perfectly. God knew the hardness in Pharaoh's heart, his stubborn pride, and He let it emerge.
Perhaps God even goaded Pharaoh into exercising that native pridefulness by the way God set up the confrontation, and the back-and-forth exchanges with Moses, the trading of threats and escalating plagues. Maybe God used Pharaoh's stubbornness to His own advantage, in the same way that one can goad a "macho" guy into fighting by publicly questioning his manhood. You use his insecurities against him, to get him to do what you want him to: land that first punch, so you can then proceed to lay him out on his back legitimately.
Regardless of whether God "hardened" Pharaoh's heart against his will, or whether God moved a naturally hard-hearted Pharaoh to the course of action He wanted by skillfully goading him, what matters is that God eventually gets what He aims at, whether we stand in His way, or cooperate with Him. God indeed is not thwarted in His overall purposes by our disobedience. But we can certainly suffer by opposing His will, and avoid hardship by cooperating with God. The inclination of our hearts makes all the difference, and God knows exactly what those inclinations are.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
although i have been going to a presbyterian church for the last 5 or so years, I am no Calvinist.
i like pieces of this. That pharaoh's heart was hardened by the back and forth dialogue with moses. that God reinforces the stubbornness that is already there.
i do wonder, though, about your conception that God does not know the future. I would argue about humanity's construct of time and that God exists outside of time (he was and is and is to come/ he has been here from the beginning). Whether that means God knows our individual actions before we do them... i'm not really sure :)
If I recall my theology courses correctly, St. Augustine is responsible for originating the argument that God is outside of time, seeing the end from the beginning, etc. Calvin relied a lot on Augustine's writing as he was developing his own theology, so it's natural that Calvinism would support a type of determinism.
God standing outside of time is one thing. That my future choices already exist (and I just can't see them, though God can) is quite another. There's a tension between God KNOWing my future choices and His WILLing them to happen. If my future choices exist already in the mind of God, then am I not fated to do them? Fatalism toward my future seems incompatible with the exercise of a morally responsible free will.
One way to resolve this is to say that my future choices do NOT yet exist, for I haven't made them. Though omniscient, God cannot know what doesn't yet exist. Unless of course, He intends to create it. And in the case of my future, if He intends to create a specific one for me, then I have no choice in the matter and cannot affect it. How then, can I be morally responsible for it?
http://corporatecasualty.blogspot.com/2009/05/moment.html
Post a Comment