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What Does It Mean When Scripture Says That God Hardens Certain Human Hearts?
Archdiocese of Washington ^ | 06-27-16 | Msgr. Charles Pope

Posted on 06/28/2016 6:44:48 AM PDT by Salvation

What Does It Mean When Scripture Says That God Hardens Certain Human Hearts?

June 27, 2016

Blog-06-27

One of the more difficult biblical concepts to understand is that of God hardening the hearts and minds of certain people. The most memorable case is that of Pharaoh: before sending Moses to him, God said that He would “harden Pharaoh’s heart” (Ex 4:21). And there are other instances in which biblical texts speak of God hardening the hearts of sinners, even from among his own people.

What are we to make of texts like these, which explicitly or implicitly speak of God hardening the hearts of people? How can God, who does no evil, be the source of a sinful mind or a hard heart? Why would God do such a thing when He has also said the following?

  1. As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign LORD, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live. Turn! Turn from your evil ways! Why will you die, O house of Israel? (Ez 33:11)
  2. God our Savior … wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth (1 Tim 2:4).

To be sure, these questions involve very deep mysteries, mysteries about God’s sovereignty and how it interacts with our freedom, the mysteries of time, and the mysteries of causality. As a mystery within mysteries, the question of God hardening hearts cannot be resolved simply. Greater minds than mine have pondered these things and it would be foolish to think that an easy resolution can be found in a blog post.

But some distinctions can and should be made and some context supplied. We do not want to understand the “hardening texts” in simplistic ways or in ways that use one truth to cancel out other important truths that balance it. So please permit a modest summary of the ancient discussion.

I propose that we examine these sorts of texts along four lines:

  1. The Context of Connivance
  2. The Mystery of Time
  3. The Mystery of Causality
  4. The Necessity of Humility

To begin, it is important simply to list a few of the “hardening texts.” The following are not the only ones, but they provide a wide enough sample:

  1. The LORD said to Moses, “When you return to Egypt, see that you perform before Pharaoh all the wonders I have given you the power to do. But I will harden his heart so that he will not let the people go” (Ex 4:21).
  2. Moses and Aaron performed all these wonders before Pharaoh, but the LORD hardened Pharaoh’s heart, and he would not let the Israelites go out of his country (Ex 11:10).
  3. Why, O LORD, do you make us wander from your ways and harden our hearts so we do not revere you? Return for the sake of your servants, the tribes that are your inheritance (Is 63:17).
  4. He [God] has blinded their eyes and deadened their hearts, so they can neither see with their eyes, nor understand with their hearts, nor turn–and I would heal them (Jesus quoting Isaiah 6:9-10, in John 12:40).
  5. They perish because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. For this reason, God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie (2 Thess 2:11).
  6. Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another … Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done (Rom 1:24, 28).

I. The Context of ConnivanceIn properly assessing texts like these, we ought first to consider the contexts in which they were written. Generally speaking, most of these declarations that God “hardens the heart” come after a significant period of disobedience on the part of those whose hearts were hardened. In a way, God “cements the deal” and gives them what they really want. For seeing that they have hardened their own hearts to God, He determines that their disposition is to be a permanent one, and in a sovereign exercise of His will (for nothing can happen without God’s allowance), declares and permits their hearts to be hardened in a definitive kind of way. In this sense, there is a judgment of God upon the individual that recognizes the person’s definitive decision against Him. Hence this hardening can be understood as voluntary on the part of the one hardened one, for God hardens in such a way that He uses the person’s own will for the executing of His judgment. God accepts that the individual’s will against Him is definitive.

In the case of Pharaoh (e.g., #1 and #2 above), although God indicated to Moses that He would harden Pharaoh’s heart, the actual working out of this is a bit more complicated. We see in the first five plagues that it is Pharaoh who hardens his own heart (Ex 7:13; 7:22; 8:11; 8:28; & 9:7). It is only after this repeated hardening by Pharaoh of his own heart that the Exodus text speaks of God as the one who hardens (Ex 9:12; 9:34; 10:1; 10:20; 10:27). Hence the hardening here is not without Pharaoh’s repeated demonstration of his own hardness. God “cements the deal” as a kind of sovereign judgment on Pharaoh.

The Isaiah texts (many in number) that speak of a hardening being visited upon Israel by God (e.g., #3 and #4 above), are also the culmination of a long testimony by Isaiah of Israel’s hardness. At the beginning of Isaiah’s ministry, God describes (through Isaiah) Israel’s hardness as being of their own doing: For the LORD has spoken: “I reared children and brought them up, but they have rebelled against me. The ox knows his master, the donkey his owner’s manger, but Israel does not know, my people do not understand.” Ah, sinful nation, a people loaded with guilt, a brood of evildoers, children given to corruption! They have forsaken the LORD; they have spurned the Holy One of Israel and turned their backs on him (Is 1:2-4). There follows a long list of their crimes, their hardness, and their refusal to repent.

St. John Chrysostom – Of the numerous texts later in Isaiah (and also referenced by Jesus (e.g., Jn 12:40)) that speak of Israel being hardened by God (and having their eyes shut by Him), St John Chrysostom said, That the saying of Isaiah might be fulfilled: that here is expressive not of the cause, but of the event. They did not disbelieve because Isaiah said they would; but because they would disbelieve, Isaiah said they would … For He does not leave us, except we wish Him … Whereby it is plain that we begin to forsake first, and are the cause of our own perdition. For as it is not the fault of the sun that it hurts weak eyes, so neither is God to blame for punishing those who do not attend to His words (in a gloss of Is. 6:9-10 at Jn 12:40, quoted in the Catena Aurea).

St. Augustine – This is not said to be the devil’s doing, but God’s. Yet if any ask why they could not believe, I answer, because they would not … But the Prophet, you say, mentions another cause, not their will; but that God had blinded their eyes, and hardened their heart. But I answer that they well deserved this. For God hardens and blinds a man by forsaking and not supporting him; and this He makes by a secret sentence, for by an unjust one He cannot (quoted in the Catena Aurea at Jn 12:40).

In the text of 2 Thessalonians (# 5 above), God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie. While this verse speaks of God as having sent the delusion, the verses before and after make clear the sinful role of the punished: They perish because they refused to love the truth and so be saved … so that all will be condemned who have not believed the truth but have delighted in wickedness (2 Thess 2:10,12).

St. AugustineFrom a hidden judgment of God comes perversity of heart, so that the refusal to hear the truth leads to the commission of sin, and this sin is itself a punishment for the preceding sin [of refusing to hear the truth] (Against Julian 5.3.12).

St. John Damascus[God does this] so that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness (The Orthodox Faith 4.26).

The texts from Romans 1 (e.g., # 6 above) speak of God handing them over only after they have suppressed the truth (1:18), persevered in their wickedness (1:18), and preferred lust and idolatry (1:23-24). Hence, as a just judgment, God hands them over to sexual confusion (homosexuality) and countless other destructive drives. So here, too, though it is said that God hands them over, it is really not that simple. Again, God has “cemented the deal.” They do not want to serve Him and so God, knowing their definitive decision, gives them what they want.

Thus our first point in understanding the “hardening texts” is that the context of connivance is important in assessing them. Scripture does not assert that God takes a reasonably righteous man and, out of the blue, hardens his heart, confuses his mind, or causes him (against his will) to become obstinate. The texts are usually presented as a kind of prevenient judgment by God, such that the state of the person’s hardness becomes permanent. God “cements the deal” and “causes” the person to walk in his own sinful ways since he has insisted on doing so.

II. The Mystery of Time – In understanding these “hardening texts” (which we have seen are akin to judgment texts) we must strive to recall that God does not live in time in the same way that we do. Scripture speaks often of God’s knowledge and vision of time as being comprehensive rather than speculative or serial (e.g., Ex 3:14; Ps 90:2-4; Ps 93:2; Is 43:13; Ps 139; 2 Peter 3:8; James 1:17).

To say that God is eternal and lives in eternity is to say that He lives in the fullness of time. For God past, present, and future are all the same. God is not wondering what I will do tomorrow; neither is He waiting for it to happen. For Him, my tomorrow has always been present. All of my days were written in His book before one of them ever came to be (Ps 139:16). Whether and how long I live have always been known to Him. Before He ever formed me in my mother’s womb He knew me (Jer 1:5). My final destiny is already known and present to Him.

Hence when we strive to understand God’s judgments in the form of hardening hearts, we must be careful not to think that He lives in time the way we do. It is not as though God is watching my life unfold like a movie. He already knows the choices I will make. Thus, when God hardens the hearts of some, it is not that He is trying to influence the outcome by “tripping them up.” He already knows the outcome and has always known it; He knows the destiny they have chosen.

Now be very careful with this insight, for it is a mystery to us. We cannot really know what it is like to live in eternity, in the fullness of time, where the future is just as present as is the past. And even if you think you know, you really don’t. What is essential for us to realize is that God does not live in time the way we do. If we try too hard to solve the mystery (rather than just accepting and respecting it) we risk falling into the denial of human freedom, or double predestination, or other misguided notions that sacrifice one truth for another rather than holding them in balance. That God knows what I will do tomorrow does not destroy my freedom to choose what I do. How this all works out is mysterious, but we are free (Scripture teaches this) and God holds us accountable for our choices. Further, even though God knows our destiny already, this does not mean that He is revealing anything about that to us, such that we should look for signs and seek to call ourselves saved or lost. We ought to work out our salvation in reverential fear and trembling (Phil 2:12).

The key point here is mystery. Striving to understand how, why, and when God hardens the heart of anyone is caught up in the mysterious fact that He lives outside of time and knows all things before they happen. Thus He acts with comprehensive knowledge of all outcomes.

III. The Mystery of Causality – One of the major differences between the ancient and the modern worlds is that the ancient world was much more comfortable dealing with something known as primary causality.

Up until the Renaissance, people thought that God was at the center of all things and they instinctively saw the hand of God in everything—even terrible things. Job said, The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away; may the name of the LORD be praised … if we have received good things at the hand of God, why should we not receive evil? (Job 1:21; 2:10) Thus the ancients would commonly attribute everything as coming from the hand of God, for He was the “first cause” of everything that happened. This is what is meant by primary causality. The ancients were thus much more comfortable attributing things to God than we are. In speaking like this, they were not being superstitious or primitive in their thinking; rather, they were emphasizing that God was sovereign, omnipotent, and omnipresent, and that nothing happened apart from His sovereign will. They believed that God was the primary cause of all that existed.

Of this ancient and scriptural way of thinking the Catechism says, And so we see the Holy Spirit, the principal author of Sacred Scripture, often attributing actions to God without mentioning any secondary causes [e.g., human or natural]. This is not a “primitive mode of speech,” but a profound way of recalling God’s primacy and absolute Lordship over history and the world, and so of educating his people to trust in him (CCC # 304).

We need to understand that the ancient biblical texts, while often speaking of God as hardening the hearts of sinners, do not mean to say that man had no role, no responsibility. Neither do they mean to say that God acts in a merely arbitrary way. Rather, the emphasis is on God’s sovereign power as the first cause of all that is. Hence He is often called the cause of all things and His hand is seen in everything.

After the Renaissance, man moved himself to the center and God was gradually “escorted” to the periphery. Man’s manner of thinking and speaking began to shift to focusing on secondary causes (those related to man and nature). If something happens we look to natural causes, or in human situations, to the humans who caused it. But these are actually secondary causes, because I cannot cause something to happen unless God first causes me.

Today, we have largely thrown primary causality overboard as a category. Even believers do this (unconsciously for the most part) and thus exhibit three related issues:

  1. We fail to maintain the proper balance between two mysteries: God’s sovereignty and our freedom.
  2. We exhibit shock at things like the “hardening texts” of the Bible because we understand them poorly.
  3. We try to resolve the shock by favoring one truth over the other. Maybe we just brush aside the ancient biblical texts as “primitive” and say, inappropriately, that God didn’t have anything to do with this or that occurrence. Or we go to the other extreme and become fatalistic, denying human freedom, denying secondary causality (our part) and accusing God of everything (as if He were the only cause and should shoulder the sole blame for everything). We either read the hardening texts with a clumsy literalism or we dismiss them as misguided notions from an immature, primitive, and pre-scientific age.

The point here is that we have to balance the mysteries of primary and secondary causality. We cannot fully understand how they interrelate, but they do. Both mysteries need to be held. The ancients were more sophisticated than we are in holding these mysteries in the proper balance. Today, we handle causality very clumsily; we do not appreciate the distinctions between primary causality (God’s part) and secondary causality (our own and nature’s part). We try to resolve the mystery rather than holding the two in balance and speaking to both realities. Thus we are poor interpreters of the “hardening texts.”

IV. The Necessity of Humility – We are dealing with the mysterious interrelationship between God and Man, between God’s sovereignty and our freedom, between primary and secondary causality. In the face of such mysteries we have to be very humble. We ought not to think more about the details than is proper for us, because, frankly, they are largely hidden from us. Too many moderns either dismiss the hardening texts outright, or accept them and then sit in harsh judgment over God (as if we could do such a thing). Neither approach bespeaks humility. Consider a shocking but very humbling text in which St. Paul warns us about this very matter:

What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Not at all! For he says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” It does not, therefore, depend on man’s desire or effort, but on God’s mercy. For the 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.” Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden. One of you will say to me: “Then why does God still blame us? For who resists his will?” But who are you, O man, to talk back to God? “Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’” (Romans 9:14-20)

None of us can demand an absolute account from God for what He does. Even if He were to tell us, could our small, worldly minds ever really comprehend it? My thoughts are not your thoughts, and my ways are not your ways, says the Lord (Is 55:8).

Summary – In this (rather too long) post, we have considered the “hardening texts,” in which God hardens the hearts of certain people. But texts like these must be approached carefully, humbly, and with proper distinctions as to the scriptural and historical context. At work here are profound mysteries: God’s sovereignty, our freedom, His mercy, and His justice.

We should be careful to admit the limits of our knowledge when it comes to interpreting such texts. As the Catechism so beautifully states, texts like these are to be appreciated as a profound way of recalling God’s primacy and absolute Lordship over history and the world, and so of educating his people to trust in him (CCC # 304).

This song says, “Be not angry any longer, Lord, and no more remember our iniquities. Behold and regard us; we are all your people!”


TOPICS: Apologetics; Catholic; History; Theology
KEYWORDS: bible; catholic; catholicism; msgrcharlespope; oldtestament
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1 posted on 06/28/2016 6:44:48 AM PDT by Salvation
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To: nickcarraway; NYer; ELS; Pyro7480; livius; ArrogantBustard; Catholicguy; RobbyS; marshmallow; ...

Monsignor Pope Ping!


2 posted on 06/28/2016 6:45:40 AM PDT by Salvation ("With God all things are possible." Matthew 19:26)
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To: Salvation

I chalk it up to the Mystery of Colloquialism.


3 posted on 06/28/2016 6:47:41 AM PDT by Buttons12 ( It Can't Happen Here -- Sinclair Lewis.)
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To: Salvation

I will tell you what it says to me:

When people sin, they are sinners until they ask for God’s forgiveness.

When people are immoral, and enact rules for the majority of people to have to live by, that are not immoral, that is a direct slap in God’s face and should be denounced quickly...which I have done, and will continue doing in my life...

God is a loving God, but He will only put up with just so much, and I think He’s about had enough of the World and their immoral thinking, behavior and not looking towards Him to guide us...


4 posted on 06/28/2016 6:48:35 AM PDT by HarleyLady27 ('THE FORCE AWAKENS!!!' Trump; Trump; Trump; Trump; 100%)
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To: Salvation

God picks who is saved through faith and who is not.


5 posted on 06/28/2016 6:49:32 AM PDT by DungeonMaster (Rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft.)
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To: HarleyLady27
People can't feel

People can't understand

People can't relate

All part of a "hardened heart"

When you continue in sin especially after learning the truth and you reject God's Grace and Forgiveness ... there may come a time when God says ... "Nope ... y'jes' ain't listenin' .... FINE .... have it YOUR way"

My tagline

6 posted on 06/28/2016 7:01:30 AM PDT by knarf (I say things that are true ... I have no proof, but they're true ... and it ticks people off.)
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To: DungeonMaster

I believe in Jesus, and the reason for his death and resurrection. However, after knowing the truth, I committed many terrible wrongs. Could it be that I am currently worshiping in vain and will go to hell no matter how much repented and asked for forgiveness?


7 posted on 06/28/2016 7:05:35 AM PDT by castlegreyskull
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To: Salvation
Mark 4:11

“And he said unto them, Unto you it is given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God: but unto them that are without, all these things are done in parables:”

8 posted on 06/28/2016 7:13:05 AM PDT by JPG (Go Trump!)
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To: castlegreyskull
I believe in Jesus, and the reason for his death and resurrection. However, after knowing the truth, I committed many terrible wrongs. Could it be that I am currently worshiping in vain and will go to hell no matter how much repented and asked for forgiveness?

No.

John 6:28 Then they said to Him, “What shall we do, that we may work the works of God?” 29 Jesus answered and said to them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He sent.”

9 posted on 06/28/2016 7:14:12 AM PDT by DungeonMaster (Rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft.)
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To: Salvation
These forums are a terrible place to discuss almost anything, and that is also true of the Christian faith. Why? Because in order to respond to a question like this we need to sit down and go through some Scripture together to demonstrate what it means while using the Scriptures to do that.
10 posted on 06/28/2016 7:15:30 AM PDT by Arcy (When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice; But when a wicked man rules, people groan.)
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To: DungeonMaster

Mataios (Gk)

My interpretation is that if you reject the gospel enough times, and fill your mind with Satan’s lies, you eventually become incapable of understanding the truth.


11 posted on 06/28/2016 7:19:54 AM PDT by smokingfrog ( sleep with one eye open (<o> ---)
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To: castlegreyskull

I don’t know if you are saved or not. I pray you are. I can say that mere mental assent to the facts of the gospel does not equal salvation. I can also say He is able to save to the uttermost. No sin is too great.

We are saved by looking wholly to Him, not our works. We have no sin that He can’t put away. The idea that our sin post conversion would tear us from Him flies in the face of what Scripture teaches. If you are saved your sin has been put away forever. In Romans 7 Paul laments that he does what he doesn’t want to do and isn’t able to do what he should. That’s certainly true of me. And it will always be true this side of eternity because we live in fallen sinful bodies in a fallen world.

We are never actually sinless or righteous in this life. Rather, by trusting wholly in Him through faith we are declared as righteous, holy (holy = set apart), and as spotless as Christ Himself. When God looks upon a man who has been born again He doesn’t see that man’s sin, He sees the righteousness of His sinless Son. A man who has been saved has had Christ’s righteousness imputed to His account and it cannot be taken away. At the same time, those who are born again have their sin imputed to Him. That is known as the “great exchange.” Few teach imputation anymore. Nevertheless, it remains true and it’s a great comfort.

Look to Him alone and be saved! He is able!

http://www.ligonier.org/learn/devotionals/great-exchange/


12 posted on 06/28/2016 7:27:38 AM PDT by .45 Long Colt
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To: Buttons12

“I chalk it up to the Mystery of Colloquialism.”

Bingo!

God allows us to have free will on this earth, he wants to encourage us, but he will not force us. However, we will face the consequences later. So far as hardening of the heart goes, I imagine God to say, “Okay, if you continue to resist me, I shall finally step back and let you have your own way, but you will regret it”.


13 posted on 06/28/2016 7:43:18 AM PDT by TexasRepublic (Socialism is the gospel of envy and the religion of thieves. Socialism is governmental theft!)
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To: TexasRepublic

BTTT


14 posted on 06/28/2016 7:46:52 AM PDT by I got the rope
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To: smokingfrog
My interpretation is that if you reject the gospel enough times, and fill your mind with Satan’s lies, you eventually become incapable of understanding the truth.

Every unsaved person is incapable of believing the truth.

John 6:44 No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up at the last day

15 posted on 06/28/2016 7:47:58 AM PDT by DungeonMaster (Rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft.)
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To: castlegreyskull
My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit. A broken and contrite heart you, O God, will not despise.

We must put our faith in Christ. You and I have both done terrible things: but God is Mercy itself. He will have mercy, if we too are merciful.

I need to say more than this. We must be very sure that our faith, our trust in Christ inspires us to do good and to help our neighbors. If we do not have love, we are nothing.

What good is it, my brothers, if someone claims to have faith, but has no deeds? Can such faith save him? Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you tells him, “Go in peace; stay warm and well fed,” but does not provide for his physical needs, what good is that? So too, faith by itself, if it is not complemented by action, is dead.

Hope this is helpful.

16 posted on 06/28/2016 8:05:17 AM PDT by agere_contra (Hamas has dug miles of tunnels - but no bomb-shelters.)
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To: agere_contra

It is very helpful. It is very comforting to talk with believers.


17 posted on 06/28/2016 8:10:57 AM PDT by castlegreyskull
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To: Salvation

God owns Time. He KNOWS who is intractable and who is not. I find it IMPOSSIBLE to believe that I did not benifit from Grace along the way when I consider where I SHOULD have wound up versus where I found my way to. I don’t think I did it alone.


18 posted on 06/28/2016 8:40:54 AM PDT by TalBlack (Evil doesn't have a day job....)
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To: Salvation

God owns Time. He KNOWS who is intractable and who is not. I find it IMPOSSIBLE to believe that I did not benifit from Grace along the way when I consider where I SHOULD have wound up versus where I found my way to. I don’t think I did it alone.


19 posted on 06/28/2016 8:40:59 AM PDT by TalBlack (Evil doesn't have a day job....)
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To: Salvation
Another way to look at this is to recognize that faith is a gift of God. He is constantly reaching out to us to turn to Him. There comes a point, though, where God, Who is all-knowing and in all times, knows we will not turn to Him. The "hardening" of the heart could be seen as simply God taking a step back and letting us have our own sought-after destruction.

Jesus spoke of the unforgivable sin. I see this sin as the sin of despair. It is a sin against the Holy Spirit through Whom God reaches out to us in mercy. When we are so committed to our sin that we turn away fully and finally from God and despair of His mercy, we seal our own fate because we have turned away from our only means of salvation. Judas followed this path... and it was better for him had he never been born.

20 posted on 06/28/2016 8:45:49 AM PDT by pgyanke (Republicans get in trouble when not living up to their principles. Democrats... when they do.)
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