Foreknowledge by Joel Hayes - Library of Theology

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without a motive. As has been seen, a choice remains as a fixed principle of the soul until there arises some motive for change. Moreover, the presentation of motives is in the hand of God. He selects the times and the circumstances under which they shall be presented. And it was evidently the design of God that no motive for change should occur to Pharaoh until he had multiplied his signs and wonders in the land of Egypt. But, it may be asked, did not God thereby cause Pharaoh to continue in sin? Certainly. It is not opposed to God's righteousness to suppose that he causes a sinful choice once made to continue for a longer or shorter time as a fixed principle of action. But in this case, it may be said, the continuance of Pharaoh's sinful choice caused it to result in a greater number of sinful actions. Certainly; yet no addition was thereby made to Pharaoh's sinfulness. All his sin was committed when his choice was made, and whether that choice resulted in one or many sinful actions, his sin remained the same. He would not have been less to blame if an opportunity for repentance had been given earlier. "What if God, willing to show his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much long- 228 suffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction," says St. Paul. (Romans 9:22) St. Paul here seems to suggest that Pharaoh was already a vessel of wrath fitted to destruction, whom the Lord preserved and "raised up" only for the purpose of making his power known. If so, all possible motives had already been exhausted on Pharaoh. If he was fully fitted to destruction, it was only because he had already refused all possible motives to do right, so that no motive for change could have been presented. But it may be asked, what, then was the use in God's hardening his heart? If Pharaoh had already so hardened his own heart that he could not obey God's commandments, what was the necessity of any further hardening to cause him to refuse to let the people go? Why, although Pharaoh could not yield true obedience to God's commandments if the above suggestion is correct, yet he might have consented on the basis of some other chosen passion to let the people go, if those special chosen passions which resulted in his refusal had not been awakened. All this supposes hardness of heart to be used in its ordinary sense. And there is no doubt that Pharaoh was hard-hearted in this sense. He had very little regard for the feelings and interests of the Hebrews. There is no doubt, too, that this hardness of heart was at least one of the reasons why he refused to let the Children of Israel go. But the Hebrew word , translated harden in Exodus 4:21, in its Piel species, which is here used, means to strengthen, to repair, to embolden, to cause to be unyielding. It is translated to strengthen in Ezra 1:6, 4:22; Nehemiah 6:9; Psalms 147:13; Isaiah 35:3, 54:2; Ezekiel 13:22, 30:24, 34:4, etc. In Deuteronomy 1:38, 3:28; 2 Samuel 11:25, it is translated encourage. In its Kal form it is translated be strong in Deuteronomy 31:6, 7, 23; Joshua 1:6, 7, 9, 18; be of good courage in 2 Samuel 10:12; 1 Chronicles 19:13; Ezra 10:4; Psalms 31:24, 27:14. Perhaps in this case it means that God strengthened or emboldened Pharaoh's heart so as to cause it to be unyielding. The passion of fear, which the circumstances were well calculated to arouse, might, in an ordinary way, have caused Pharaoh to let the people go. This passion God doubtless caused to be inoperative, either by directly quenching it, or by bringing into play other passions which had already been chosen in preference thereto. But however this may be, whatever means the Lord used to cause Pharaoh to refuse to let Israel go, we may rest assured that he merely operated on his emotions and judgment, without in the least interfering with the exercise of his free volitions. Dr. Adam Clarke says in a comment on Exodus 4:21, "All those who have read the Scriptures with care and attention, know well, that God is frequently represented in them as doing what he only permits to be done." Also Dr. Summers, in a comment on John 12:40, says, "These are Hebraistic idioms, by which God is represented as doing, or ordering to be done, what he only predicts or permits. Cf. Ex. 7:3; 8:15; 2 Sam. 24:1; 1 Chron. 21:1; Jer. 1:10; Ezek. 43:3." I see no use whatever in these exegeses. Do Drs. Clarke and Summers think thereby to defend God's character? If so, they have miserably failed; for it is as much a reflection on the holiness and righteousness of God's character to say that he permitted sin when he could have prevented it as to say that he caused it. But they have also utterly missed their aim in thus attempting to shield God from the imputation of being the cause or the author of sin. It makes no difference whether 228 Fitted by themselves, not fitted by the Lord, as necessitarians are in the habit of assuming. 102
he caused, permitted, or predicted, the hardening of Pharaoh's heart. It is sufficient to say that he did something in order that Pharaoh might disobey him in refusing to let the people go. Even if God only predicted the hardening of Pharaoh's heart, he evidently did so in order that this act of disobedience might be performed. If this act of disobedience was sin, therefore, God was the indirect cause of it. But if Drs. Clarke and Summers had simply recognized the fact that Pharaoh's true disobedience had already take place, and that God in hardening Pharaoh's heart merely designed that this disobedience should express itself in this particular act rather than in some other, they would not have found the necessity of perverting God's word in order to defend his character. We are now prepared to examine those texts which were thought by President Edwards to prove that God foreknew the final obstinacy of the Children of Israel; viz., "Isaiah 6:9-11; Jeremiah 1:18, 19, 7:27- 229 29; Ezekiel 3:7, and 24:13, 14." Isaiah 6:9-11. Our Saviour gives the sense of this passage in Matthew 13:14, 15, "By hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see, and shall not perceive: for this people's heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them." Also in John 12:40: "He hath blinded their eyes, and hardened their heart; that they should not see with their eyes, nor understand with their heart, and be converted, and I should heal them." Dr. Summers says on Matthew 13:14, "Our translators render the Hebrew [of Isa. 6:9-11] in the imperative: others, in the indicative: `Ye shall hear, but not understand; and ye shall see, but not perceive. This people have made their heart fat, and have made their ears heavy, and shut their eyes'--which agrees with the LXX., the Syriac, and Arabic, Matthew and Acts." President Edwards mentions the whole of Isaiah 6:9-11, as a prophecy of the final obstinacy of the Children of Israel; but, as it is rendered in Matthew 13:14, 15, the only prophecy or prediction is contained in the ninth verse, rendered in Matthew, "By hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see, and shall not perceive." The rest of the quotation merely gives the reason why they should hear and not understand, and see and not perceive. The reason why they should not understand nor perceive, then, is given. According to Matthew they had closed their eyes and hardened their heart; their not understanding was the necessary result of their own previous action. According to John, "He hath blinded their eyes and hardened their heart;" their not understanding was the necessary result of God's action. In either case, there is a prediction only of what was necessary; there is no evidence, therefore, that God foreknew any free volition. According to Matthew, the people of Isaiah's day hardened their own heart; according to John, God hardened their heart: the hardening, therefore, was both their action and God's. This agrees with the doctrine set forth in Part III, Chapter II. It was their action, because it was the result of their free choice to gratify their idolatrous disposition; it was God's action, because he directed that choice to that particular result. The translation of Isaiah 6:9-11, by the indicative, however, does not appear to give the full sense. According to this, Isaiah is represented as saying, "This people have made their heart fat...until the cities be wasted without inhabitant, and the houses without man, and the land be utterly desolate." Moreover, the verbs , make fat, , make heavy, and , shut, are certainly in the imperative (or infinitive) in 230 Hebrew, and although a mood in one language does not always have the same scope of meaning as the same mood in another, yet there is not very much difference between the Hebrew and the English imperative. The only places in which the Hebrew imperative is translated by the English indicative in our common version are Genesis 20:7, 45:18; Exodus 18:22; Numbers 1:50, 8:12, 24:21, 27:7; 2 Kings 5:10; 2 Chronicles 20:20, 25:8; Psalms 37:3, 65:10, 128:5, 6, 142:4; Proverbs 3:4, 20:13; Isaiah 8:9, 54:14; 229 Will, Part II., Section XI., p. 64. 230 Neither is , this people, the subject of the verb, , make fat. 103
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THE FOREKNOWLEDGE OF GOD 1 or, THE
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PREFACE I am not entirely pleased w
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Bayle, "is to cause it, if he can,
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imply no contradiction. Hence it is
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3 Theodicy, p. 198. FAILURE OF DR.
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harmonies of sound. Moral agency, i
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constituted the reason why he, for
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heaven," as well as the angels; yet
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One point more from Dr. Bledsoe. He
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power not to perform. As a free act
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of the soul." But to return. A free
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33 President Edwards. 34 35 consequ
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But experience may show a class of
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41 Will, Part II., Chapter II., P.
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"SECONDLY. If a power of Will deter
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"MOTIVE is usually considered as a
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62 it suits best to gratify the vil
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is especially evident when, as is v
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70 by the flavor, may be considered
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to gratify, the subjective motive.
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of choice. The former being a quali
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In the preceding paragraphs I have
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Mr. Webster also gives as one defin
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97 Will, Part I., Section II., p. 5
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105 Will, Part I, Section IV., p. 1
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Page 117 and 118: Deut. 32:21, compared with Rom. 9:1
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Other evidence that he did not poss
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From the same notion of God's ignor
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