God Hardened Pharaoh's Heart?

We welcome your comments in the Reasonable Faith forums:

[hyreonk]

Much like making a skinner box. We "feed" the birds, but only by giving the birds the opportunity to eat, and desiring that the bird would eat. The food is neither given from our hand, nor forced into the bird's mouth. Yet knowing what will happen is much the same as making it happen.

[soulifam]

God hardened Pharaoh's heart in the sense that he (God) exposed Himself to Pharaoh via Moses' words and deeds. If God had not shown Himself, Pharaoh would not have been put in a position to choose, hence, harden his heart. Did God know Pharaoh would reject the testimony of God's words and deeds? Of course. But the idea of hardening the heart doesn't necessarily mean that God made Pharaoh obstinate. That seems inconsistent with the nature of God.

[philochristos]

Yeah, but I doubt that's what the author meant when he said God hardened pharaoh's heart.

[TruthSeekerAll]

I think God hardened Pharaoh's heart because that's what the text says. Whether God caused the preconditions that led to the hardening of Pharaoh's heart directly or indirectly, is still the cause of Pharaoh's heart hardening. Another verse in Proverb says this; Proverbs 21:1 – “The king's heart is in the hand of the LORD, like the rivers of water; He turns it wherever He wishes.” God is sovereign in Heaven and on earth, He does whatever He pleases. None can stay His will. If we accept what the text says, without needing to inject in our own sentiments & reading into it our own preferences then it is what it is. Its wrong to say that God created the conditions that led to the hardening of heart of Pharaoh but takes no credit /responsibility in the hardening that resulted is to say that God is manipulative and deceptive and that is plainly wrong. Any other way around avoiding what the clear text says is creating more problems.

[petruslourens]

"Weakly actualized" come on man....God hardened Pharaoh's heart period. Deal with it.

[dylanschweitzer]

For those who think that the hardening of Pharaoh's heart was some sort of override of free will, I encourage you to look at these two verses.

Exodus 10:1 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Go to Pharaoh, for I have hardened his heart and the hearts of his officials so that I may perform these signs of mine among them

Exodus 10:7 Pharaoh’s officials said to him, “How long will this man be a snare to us? Let the people go, so that they may worship the Lord their God. Do you not yet realize that Egypt is ruined?”

The officials hearts were hardened as well. And yet they wanted to free the Israelite's. Therefore, contextually, it shows us hardening of hearts does not mean God overrided their free will.

[jenna]

So God removed Pharaoh's free will. That's the best a tri-omni "god" could do is prevail by removing someone's free will to choose their behavior. He had ZERO opportunity to change his mind - the "death bed conversion" if you will. And Christians are fine with that. They are because they don't consider it; they're TOLD to accept that an ultimate "god" can break his own moral laws with impunity, denying a person their free choice.

It's way more likely that a people called Hysos were acting up and finally given the boot. They never actually left Egypt because Egypt controlled Canaan, too. But hey, don't like listen to history or anything.

[snakeb]

Why would God even put him in this situation where he knew he would harden his heart. More importantly, why didn't God just teleport the Israelites out of Egypt. I guess an epic story and showing off his might is more important, very humble of him. After all we wouldn't have the price of Egypt if it weren't for such a great story.

[SterlingTate]

I appreciate Dr Dan Mclellans response to this video. Hardening Pharaohs heart and Biblical Apologetics

[LJ]

I think it's a passive/active grammatical issue in English that confuses people. People think "God hardened Pharaoh's heart" is like a transitive verb "hardened" as in God himself actively hardened the heart. But only if you read it in this way. If you put it in a winder context of, such as: "(the presence of) God hardened Pharoah's heart", changes the meaning somewhat, in that now, the Pharoah has obstinately hardened his own heart after having God revealed to him.

[getayalewe]

The starting point for removing a hardened heart is to thank the Creator. God created us a second time in Christ so that we can praise him.

We thank you, Doctor, this was a big question for me. Why did the creator harden the heart of the pharaoh? The answer has come back to me now. May God bless you?
Now we are all in a spiritual Egypt in this current world. This is our wilderness. So let’s only do good things, let's not obey God, let's praise the Lord in all things
instead of complaining, because
our tongue was not created to grumble, but to praise and give thanks to the Lord our God.
But, if we complain we will fall into the wilderness of this world and we become a tool of the enemy.
When a person complains, he begins to harden his heart. But if he is thankful and grateful, the heart will not be hardened.
Let's learn from the Israelites the day they started to complain they hardened their heart against God.
The starting point for removing a hardened heart is to thank the Creator. God created us a second time in Christ so that we can praise him.
Here is what the bible says
do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion, during the time of testing in the wilderness, (Hebrews 3:8)

[matthewbateman]

As a former Calvinist, God saying "I put you in the exact scenario that I knew would cause you to freely choose the thing I wanted you to choose" is Calvinism. It's predestination, just saying.

[sanetallen]

“God knew that if Pharoah were in these circumstances he would freely react by hardening his heart”
Isn’t this exactly the same as entrapment, making God deceitful?
Not sure why we are dancing around the obvious here… it is completely up to God as to whether we are saved or not, who will serve who, who He hates and who He loves, who He has mercy on and who He doesn’t, who He shows compassion to and who He doesn’t, who He hardens and who He doesn’t, who He prepares for destruction and who He doesn’t, and who He makes for special purposes and who He makes for common ones. Romans 9 is crystal clear on this. Which brings us to the obvious conclusion that we do NOT have free will (and there seem to be no biblical verses that support us actually having it).
Romans 9:11-21
11Yet, before the twins were born or had done anything good or bad—in order that God’s purpose in election might stand: 12not by works but by him who calls—she was told, “The older will serve the younger.” d 13Just as it is written: “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.” e

14What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Not at all! 15For he says to Moses,

“I will have mercy on whom I have mercy,
and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” f
16It does not, therefore, depend on human desire or effort, but on God’s mercy. 17For Scripture says to Pharaoh: “I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.” g 18Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden.

19One of you will say to me: “Then why does God still blame us? For who is able to resist his will?” 20But who are you, a human being, to talk back to God? “Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’ ” h 21Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for special purposes and some for common use?

22What if God, although choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath—prepared for destruction?

[dcouric]

Only passively, by allowing him to harden his own heart as the restraining power of the Holy Spirit in common grace was withdrawn.

[tanaka]

I don't agree. Every reference to God "hardening Pharaoh's heart" is in the context of a situation where any reasonable person would have relented and freed the Israelites. Pharaoh was surrounded by people telling him that he should relent, but he refused to, even under pressure to do so. His stubbornness in this is completely absurd from a human point of view, so the externality of "God hardening his heart" is necessary in order for the story to still be coherent.

In other words I think Pharaoh's actions go against the circumstances he's in, rather than being the result of the circumstances he's in.

[Nikator]

You can theologically interprete anything really as long as you want to. The question is whether that is what the authors meant.

[harry]

And an intriguing side angle:
How did the *author* of Exodus conceive of God's actions? I would propose two 'negative' guardrails to this question: 1) Presumably the author did not have a heavily nuanced philosophical/theological view of freedom in mind, but 2) Even if the author didn't go to the nth degree philosophically, the author did have *some* conception in mind, not some (literally) meaningless use of language.
If those two claims are proper, what can we say about the author's meaning in these passages, and thereby Scripture *itself's* teaching?

[Chibling]

He knew what he would do. How is that freely?

[c.g.ryderii]

You also have to take into consideration that God put it in the hearts of the Egyptians to give to the Hebrews before they left. So did God fix circumstances so that they would? Much love Jesus Christ is King

[gnhman]

I think that the reason why God hardened Pharaoh's heart is because Pharaoh hardened his own heart first. So God's hardening of Pharaoh's heart is a response to Pharaoh hardening his own heart first. You see, I believe in the doctrine of Reprobation. I believe that a person can reject and disobey God to a point where God, in turn, rejects that person and stops calling that person, and allows that person's sinfulness and wickedness to fully consume his entire being. After all, the reason why we are still able to do good and are still able to have some good in us is because God is still restraining or limiting the effects of sin and the effects of how Satan can affect our minds and hearts. For if God restrained not the effects of sin, no flesh would survive. Also, I do not believe that God directly hardened Pharaoh's heart. I believe in a doctrine called Total Depravity; where humans are unable to obey God or accept God unless God calls that person first. So the way God hardened Pharaoh's heart is simply, just by not calling Him and simply by just abandoning him. But it was not God's fault that Pharaoh's heart was hardened as a result of him withdrawing His divine calling; it is Pharaoh's fault, for as I said before, God's hardening of Pharaoh's heart is a response to Pharaoh hardening his own heart first. Imagine this:

There was a man named Gary who was standing upon a sinking ship. Then, a helicopter that was flying in the skies approached Gary who was standing upon the sinking ship. The pilot of the helicopter said to Gary, "Get on my helicopter and live the ship! It is going to sink soon!". But Gary kept refusing to enter the helicopter and kept saying, "No!". So after a few minutes, the pilot of the helicopter left Gary and Gary was drowned to death because he refused to leave the sinking ship.

I believe this is how God's hardening works; God's hardening is always a response to us hardening our own hearts first.