My question is: in the Old Testament, there seems to be a repetitive theme that God hardens
the hearts of the enemies of Israel.
If he can harden hearts, why can't he just soften them?
And if he does harden hearts, how does he do it?
That's something I've been struggling with, reading the Old Testament.
You have to understand the way that Old Testament authors write.
They have a worldview where there are all kinds of competing—people who believe in
competing gods.
So one of the things they do is they really stress the idea that the true God is in control,
that He is almighty, that He is not like the gods of the nations.
So the biblical authors use—they really want to stress that God is in control, and
that nothing would happen if God didn't at least allow it; but to make that point, they
frequently used a form of speech called hyperbole.
Hyperbole is exaggeration to make a point.
It's like, if someone's done something nice for me, and I'm grateful, and I say, "Oh,
thanks a million!"
Well, that's hyperbole.
I'm not envisioning literally thanking the person a million times.
But I'm making the point with this exaggeration.
And similarly, when Jesus says in order to avoid sin cut off your hand or pluck out your
eye, that's exaggeration to make a point.
It's hyperbole.
He means do whatever you need to do to deal with sin; but he doesn't envision literally
plucking out your eye or literally cutting off your hand, because really the root of
sin is in your heart, and simply cutting off your hand would not deal with the root of
sin.
You'd still have temptation, you'd still be able to sin.
His point is; "Do what you need to do to deal with it."
So when we look at the way God is discussed in the Old Testament, especially, we find
the biblical authors using hyperbole to emphasize God's control over world events.
And this results in a form of speech where they will, at times, attribute things directly
to God.
For example, if you read the historical books of the Old Testament, and you compare what's
written in the books of Samuel versus what's written in the books of Chronicles, you look
at the account of David taking a census of Israel—which is something he was not supposed
to do in that circumstance—and in one book it'll say "God caused David to take the census";
but in another book, it'll say "The devil caused David to take the census."
And since we know the census is sinful, that David shouldn't have done it, it's really
the latter, that the devil stirred up David to take the census; and when it says God did
it, what it means—it's exaggeration to make a point that God is ultimately in control—it
means God allowed the devil to stir up David.
But we know that it doesn't mean God Himself really caused David to sin, because that would
make God the author of sin, and that's inconsistent with God's holiness.
So God, as the book of James says, does not Himself tempt anybody to sin.
He may allow temptations to come, but He Himself doesn't cause anybody to sin, He doesn't tempt
anybody to sin, He merely at most allows that to happen.
And so that understanding informs the way we need to look at passages where it talks
about God hardening peoples' hearts, like Pharaoh's heart.
It's famous, in Exodus God tells Moses "I'm gonna harden Pharaoh's heart so he's gonna
resist the exodus, but then in the end he will let Israel go."
One of the things that's been pointed out about that incident is that actually the text
says that Pharaoh hardened his heart first, and only later did God harden it.
And so that may be—and various interpreters have understood it to be—a sign of God simply
allowing Pharaoh to go on the sinful course he wanted to go on.
Pharaoh hardened his heart, and then God let him do that, and it becomes spoken of as if
God had hardened his heart; but really that's exaggeration to mean that God let Pharaoh
continue in his hardened, sinful way.
In terms of how God softens hearts, He once again does it in a way that doesn't violate
free will.
He doesn't override our free will and force us to do good things, but what he does do
is give us graces that make it easier to choose to do the right thing.
And that's what it means when the Bible talks about God softening our hearts.
He's giving us grace to make it easier to do the right thing; and then the reverse of
that, hardening people's hearts, is simply not giving them that grace, so it's harder
for them to do the right thing, or not as easy as if He had given them special grace.
Why would He not give His grace in some circumstances, and thus so-called "harden" people's hearts?
Well, it's partly a mystery, it's part of the problem of evil; but, as in the case of
Pharaoh, if someone just repeatedly abuses their free will by choosing evil, God may
say, "Okay, well, I've been trying to help this person, and they're clearly not responding,
so I'm not gonna go out of my way to give them extra help.
If they're gonna turn around, it's gonna be a bit more difficult for them to turn around,
but they can do it, because I've given them free will, and I'm letting them do it.
But if they persist in evil, they may not get all the extra help that they would otherwise
get if they consistently used their free will towards good."