Pharaoh’s Heart

[Fred]

I think it is important to also see the Christological significance of this topic in that "the Lord" who opened the heart of Lydia (and of all believers) in Acts 16:14 is the Lord Jesus. Luke uses this same Greek word (dianoigō) in reference to Him in Luke 24:45 - He opened their minds/understanding of the Scriptures.

And "the Lord" to whom Paul prayed to direct their hearts also refers to the Lord Jesus in 2 Thessalonians 3:5 (cf. 1 Thessalonians 3:11; 1 Chronicles 29:18).

 

[CrowCross]

Well, I was asking what/who determined Adam's nature before the fall.
As to after the fall ... who determined that the "fall" would change Adam's nature and who implemented the change in Adam's nature?

The triune God.

Hmmm... so you maintain that God knows what nothing will do. So "in the beginning" there was God and some source of information outside of God that God could make inquiries as to what the future would hold. "Nothing" informing God seems to be a contradiction. So God's knowledge increased (He learned) from nothing is you contention. Does this not contradict immutability as God's knowledge would increase.
Do you know of any example of something be made from nothing; maybe the creation of the universe (Big Bang)?

You're trying to hard.

BTW, there was no big bang.

 

[fastfredy0]

You're trying to hard.

Maybe. You didn't answer my question. I'll let it go.

 

[Arial]

Maybe we should pause here a moment to answer what sin is. It is often called missing the mark, but it is more radical than that. It is aiming at the wrong target.
(definition courtesy Michael D. Williams Far As the Curse is Found)

 

[Carbon]

re: What was the 'first cause' of this hardness?

That’s the ( A, giggle) question. Or is it….

How can a non-eternal being (Adam) chose what his will (his nature) is where such will/nature determines choices.

hmmm. But this is different from the op.

Premise 1: From nothing, nothing comes

Indeed.

(even Gods cannot know what nothing will do in the future)

Sure He does.

Premise 2: God knows ALL THINGS (including all future events; where every atom He created will
be though out time; time also being His creation

Sure. He is the Alpha and the Omega. He has (does) see all things throughout time when He desires. And as He desires, that’s if He desires.

Conclusion: God is the first cause of all things. God DETERMINES ALL THINGS.

But that didn’t answer the op.

 

[Carbon]

Yes, but that is not to be (over-)generalized to say God made Pharoah sinful, with a sinfully hardened heart before He created Adam.

No it’s not. God created man good, very good actually. Man messed things up, not God. From
the time of the fall, Adam and all his posterity could give birth only to those who are of the same nature. Spiritually dead. From birth we could do no other than seek evil.

 

[Carbon]

So, yes, the hardening of Pharoah's heart was ordained from eternity BUT Pharoah's ordained hardening did not make God the author of sin, do violence to Pharoah's will, or do violence to the contingencies of secondary causes.

So how then did God harden pharaoh’s heart? Or even Joseph’s brothers, which they meant for evil but God meant for good.

I know scripture reads in the case of pharaoh that he also hardened his own heart. But of course, that would go without saying. Though it needed to be said.

 

[Carbon]

I'm fine with this...

Romans 9:18 ESV
So then he has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills.

how would God harden whomever He wills and they do something sinful, yet God is not guilty of causing him to sin? So how does God harden?

 

[fastfredy0]

what sin is

Evil is nothing. It is not a thing that has existence. It is an action of something that is a thing. When I do something that is not good, then I am doing something that is evil, but evil then is an activity of some being. It has no being of itself.
Sin is “any want of conformity to or transgression of the law of God.
R.C.Sproul

God cannot sin by definition as He has not restrictions on Himself. Human erroneously conflate what is sinful for man to God.

 

[fastfredy0]

How can a non-eternal being (Adam) chose what his will (his nature) is where such will/nature determines choices.

hmmm. But this is different from the op.

Possibly. The question of the thread is, IMO, who is the cause of Pharaoh's hardening. To do this one has to dig deeper for evidence to contemplate cause. It's obvious that Pharaoh did what he desired, but then one can ask: What was the cause of Pharaoh's desires. That's the semi-tangent I went on.

I guess I didn't understand the question of the OP. If you're asking how God does this or that I have no idea. Example: how He healed the blind man; I have no idea. I have some idea of secondary causes, but how God causes things to happen is beyond me or any man for that matter IMO.

 

[fastfredy0]

how would God harden whomever He wills and they do something sinful, yet God is not guilty of causing him to sin?

“The entire problem of theodicy arises from a wrong question or a wrong presumption. Rather one should see God as essentially good and deriving the definition of good from observing the one true and living God. We abstract an idea of good and then try to measure God against that human abstraction. That is always a losing proposition because we don’t know what ‘good’ is. The problem occurs when persons come up to us and says “if God does this, He can’t be good.” They don’t realize that is an internal contradiction. The only God that exists is a God who is good. He defines what is good by consistency with His own character, and not by the fact that He corresponds to some arbitrary understanding of good. But we must never fall into the trap – we can’t accept the presumption that we are trying to define God over against a human abstraction called “good.” Instead we have to simply come back again and again to the fact that God is good. Whatever He does is good. Albert Mohler

Since God causes everyone to die I suppose one could use human measurements of sin and propose God murders everyone. God, by definition, can do no wrong.

 

[makesends]

And I do not believe that God can be said to be the first cause of Adam's sin. God did not make him sin, He only gave him a will that could. And yet He intended that Adam would sin, because, as we see in the completion of the Scriptures, that God had a grander, and far reaching purpose in it. That of a completely new creation out of the utter destruction of evil.

I know human words turn on one-another dealing with the things of infinity, but I have to ask —if all that be so, what do you mean by "first cause"?

 

[makesends]

Adam's will was not created with preference/tendencies. It was created innocent.

We don't know that Adam's will was not created with preferences/tendencies. But maybe that isn't quite what you meant. He was not created with sinful preferences —that's true. But I bet you he preferred the taste of fruit to that of dirt.

 

[makesends]

fastfredy0 said:
(even Gods cannot know what nothing will do in the future)

Sure He does.

What @fastfredy0 has presented, I at first thought to be a rather humorous reference to gods (plural), but since I've seen two or three reactions to his saying God cannot know, which he did not deny, I guess I was wrong. The question, IMHO, is false, assuming substance to a self-contradictory notion, in order to claim God could or could not do it. Neither applies. If there is nothing there for God to know, then what more is there to say? There is nothing there about which to reason farther down that road.

I hope the reader can understand without further development on my part, what I mean here by saying that God is the cause of all fact, including our imaginations. This does not give substance to the wordplay we do in our heads.

 

[Arial]

I know human words turn on one-another dealing with the things of infinity, but I have to ask —if all that be so, what do you mean by "first cause"?

I simply mean nothing exists unless He brought it into existence. There is no other who created and noting that exists apart from Him. In Him all things hold together and lives and moves and has its being in Him.

 

[CrowCross]

how would God harden whomever He wills and they do something sinful, yet God is not guilty of causing him to sin? So how does God harden?

It might be similar to God sending a delusion.
2nd Thes 2:11 Therefore God sends them a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false,
The preceding verse give a reason.... because they refused the love of the truth that would have saved them.
Why? in order that judgment may come upon all who have disbelieved the truth and delighted in wickedness....which I believe Pharaoh qualified as.

 

[CrowCross]

We don't know that Adam's will was not created with preferences/tendencies. But maybe that isn't quite what you meant. He was not created with sinful preferences —that's true. But I bet you he preferred the taste of fruit to that of dirt.

Perhaps, but as Arial said.... It was created innocent.

 

[fastfredy0]

God is the cause of all fact, including our imaginations.

 

[makesends]

Arial said:
And I do not believe that God can be said to be the first cause of Adam's sin. God did not make him sin, He only gave him a will that could. And yet He intended that Adam would sin, because, as we see in the completion of the Scriptures, that God had a grander, and far reaching purpose in it. That of a completely new creation out of the utter destruction of evil.

I simply mean [by first cause (MQ)] nothing exists unless He brought it into existence. There is no other who created and noting that exists apart from Him. In Him all things hold together and lives and moves and has its being in Him.

Do human words, and does human process of thinking, then, bring us to the point where we have to say that evil (sin) does not 'exist' as such? After all, First Cause —God himself— caused what resulted in moral evil, no?

 

[fastfredy0]

he [Adam] was not created with sinful preferences —that's true. But I bet you he preferred the taste of fruit to that of dirt.

While I agree that Adam was created innocent (he had done no wrong) ... how do you know he wasn't created with sinful preferences? Adam obviously was given some preferences ... like wanting to breathe and eat. If Adam did not have a preference to commit sin in certain circumstances, how did he develop such a preference? (Libertarian Free Will?)
When we get to heaven, will not our 'preferences' be reprogrammed such that we will never sin again and why couldn't Adam's preferences be so programmed so as not to sin?

Aside: If you have the answers then you got can possibly write a Ph.D. thesis. Maybe mention me as contributor. *giggle*