Becoming Better Theologians (part 14)

Human Will, Free Will, and the Question of Why People Believe

Our Father in heaven, we thank you and are delighted to be here with your people to celebrate your day. Father, I pray for this entire church throughout this facility that everything that is done would redound to your glory.

Lord, I pray for the children, for the ladies, for us, that as we look to your word that you would bless it, convict us. Father, none of our need to do better, but to worship you more, to rely upon you more, to trust you more.

Father, would you bless our time this morning and bless Pastor Mike as he deals with physical issues. Father, I just pray that you would bless him as he preaches to us this morning. In Christ's name, amen.

Well, we've been talking about human will, free will. Specifically, I started talking about why people don't believe. Low those many weeks ago. We've talked about many things including one particular man's view, Dan Corner, of free will and how free will is the linchpin, basically, of Christianity.

He went through the prodigal son and how that, he said, taught free will and Romans 6 and how Calvinists are afraid of it. I just wanted to... I mean, we went through that at some length, but I wanted to read a couple things here from this book.

Disparate times, but this is a book called The Potter's Freedom by James White. How many have read this book? I would just so commend this book to you. It's called A Defense of the Reformation and a Rebuttal of Norman Geisler's Chosen but Free.

In Norman Geisler's Chosen but Free book, he says, in essence, that what the sovereignty of God he would describe in salvation, he would describe as, if you hold to that in terms of the doctrines of grace, he would say that you are...

What did he call it? You're a super Calvinist. He likes to think of himself as a reasonable Calvinist. He says this. This is Dr. Norman Geisler, so smart, by the way, that I would never want to debate him in a million years, but listen to this.

God will achieve the greatest number in heaven that he possibly can. He does not love just some men. He loves all and will do everything within his loving power to save all he can. When the statement is made that God will achieve the greatest number possible, it does not mean the greatest number of people will be saved that is logically possible.

That would be 100%. What is meant by that statement is that God will save the greatest number of people that is actually achievable without violating their free choice. A loving God will not force anyone against their will to love him or to worship him.

Forced love is not love. Forced worship is not worship. Heaven will not be composed of robots. God is love and love works persuasively but not coercively. Those whom God can love, can lovingly persuade, have been foreordained to eternal life.

Those whom he cannot are destined in accordance with their own choice to eternal destruction. Any thoughts on that, Bruce? Yeah, God would really like to save everybody. He really can't because he's held hostage to their free will, their free choice.

They can, as Mike says, give him the stiff arm, the Heisman Trophy pose. There's nothing God can do about that because he's too much of a gentleman to violate their free will. I wanted to look at just a couple of other passages that are frequently used to present this free will argument.

2 Peter 3 and God's Patience Toward the Beloved

Let's look at 2 Peter 3. I'm going to start in verse 1 so that we get the full flavor of this. 2 Peter 3. This is now the second letter I am writing to you, beloved. In both of them, I am stirring up your sincere mind by way of reminder that you should remember the predictions of the holy prophets and the commandment of the Lord and Savior through your apostles, knowing this first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires.

They will say, where is the promise of his coming? In other words, Jesus says he's coming again. Where is he? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation.

And in fact, that's what unbelievers say today. Same as it ever was. For they deliberately overlook this fact, that the heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God, and that by means of these, the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished.

But by the same word, the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly. But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord, one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years is one day.

The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.

Now, people often refer to verse 9 and say, there you have it. God is not willing that any should perish, therefore, what? He wants all men to be saved. Same kind of argument that Geisel was giving us.

I preached this some time ago, just looking through my notes. You know, the mockers question whether Jesus is able to return or question the soonness of it, because it's been so long in the eyes of men.

Peter explains it, though, not in terms of God is late, but God is patient toward believers. Slow literally means to delay or be late. The allegation by the mockers is that somehow God has missed the deadline.

So then the question comes about, you know, can God really be late? Is his timetable off? Of course, that's not right. And the verb then, to be patient, means to bear up under provocation without complaint.

So really what it presents to us, this verse presents to us a picture of God constantly being, what? Provoked by the sinfulness of mankind. And yet, what does he do? I mean, it's kind of like, I don't know if you've ever had this experience, but you have little kids on the floor and they start grabbing your leg and, you know, trying to pull you down.

They're like two or three years old. Do they pull you down? My kids did. They knocked me down mercilessly. But, oh. The answer is no. And so it's that same kind of thing. All these, you know, I mean, he doesn't just knock them away like he could.

He just kind of undergoes that. He takes it and just says, well, you know what? The day is coming. I'm not really worried about it. He's patient. He's going to punish sin, but that day is ultimately punished sin.

But that day has not yet come. In fact, the but in that verse 9, but is patient toward you, indicates a strong contrast. God is not slack at all. He's not late at all. In fact, the reason he's not, Jesus has not returned to judge the world has nothing to do with God being late and everything to do with his patience and his forbearance.

Look at that verse again. Does it say that God is long-suffering, that he's patient toward all men? Toward you. What's that? The beloved. Those who are chosen. Peter is not writing this letter, you know, dear world, everyone in the world.

It's to believers. So this idea that he's patient toward all, not wishing any, it's toward you, the beloved, not wishing that any of those should perish. I would argue that in one sense he is patient toward all men, in that he doesn't instantly condemn anyone.

The first sin and then they're not struck dead. I mean, certainly Ananias and Sapphira could have been struck dead long before that. If the first time they ever sinned in their lives, God judged them.

But Peter says that God is patient toward you, the letters of the reader or readers of the letter, the believers, those who are chosen, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, all the way through that letter.

But we should not doubt the love of God. Look again at verse nine, not wishing for anyone to perish, but for all to come to repentance. I want to just spend a minute talking about the word wishing. And I've used this illustration before, but it's so vivid.

We were at Saddleback Community Church in one of our long banished pilgrimages to Saddleback when we used to go and listen before I finally convinced Mike that we didn't need to do it anymore. But we would sit there just to see, because it's one thing to read.

By the way, Saddleback, for those who don't know, is where Rick Warren is the pastor. And it's one thing to read the purpose-driven life or the purpose-driven church and to think, okay, maybe he doesn't have everything right or everything right.

But to sit in the church and to see some of the things that go on, it's just unbelievable. Well, it was a Saturday evening. The Saturday evening that we were there, Steve Arterburn was teaching, and he is a Christian psychologist.

We'll get into that. A Christian psychologist on the radio and writes books and all that. And he said that God wants us to make the right decisions. His message was called God of second chance. You know what?

In its abstract, is God the God of second chances? Yes. I mean, is he gracious? Yes. Does he forgive? Yes. But here's the picture he was painting, Dr. Arterburn was painting of God, is that God is, this is as near a quote as I can get, in heaven wringing his hands, hoping you will make the right decision.

And that's how he described wishing, that God is just wishing, hoping, anxiously considering that. That's just wrong. That's just wrong. When we think about the character of God, we know that Ezekiel 33, 11 says that God takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked.

So it's not like God wants people or that he's anxiously awaiting them to go to hell. He doesn't take any pleasure in that. But on the other hand, this idea of hoping, wishing, is not God waiting to see what we are going to do.

He already knows that. So what is it? What is that wishing? God wishes, what do you think? Not wishing for any to perish. Yes, Fred. Yeah, that whole I thing, you know, and the Masons certainly are all about good works, and you must believe in a God who really promotes kind of a social goodness, you know, sort of work and all that.

Yeah, that's correct. Yeah, Christians belong to it, and you just wonder why. Yeah, Bruce. Yeah, and it can be translated either way, but willing I would prefer in this case. Not willing for any to perish, because then if we consider that nuance instead, and we consider that he's patient toward you, not willing, in other words, he's not going to let it happen.

Yeah, it is much more of a decree than just this hand-wringing kind of idea. So he is going to, that's the idea, that none of those, he has set, and this is the question because we're talking about, in this context, we're talking about time.

The mockers are saying, where is this coming? God's slack, God's late, and Peter's point is he's not slack, he's not late, he is just being patient, and he has appointed a time for each and every believer to come to faith, and that time has not yet come, and he says, listen, he's patient, and he's not willing that any of you, any of you that he has chosen should perish.

But he's not willing, he's not wishing, I like willing better, it is better, not willing that any should not go where he has intended them to go, which is heaven. God is patient. Let's look at Matthew 23.

Matthew 23 and Jesus' Lament Over Jerusalem

This is another one that's just interesting, and I was reading this last night in White's book. It's fascinating the way that this verse is used, Matthew 23, verse 37. And again, maybe I'll just, I'll read this starting in verse 13, which is going to be a little bit of a bit, but here we go, this is Jesus preaching, and for those who have the authorized version, Matthew 23 starts with this note here, this little picture in the MacArthur Study Bible, these words, says seven woes to the scribes and Pharisees.

So that kind of sets up the context a little bit. Verse 13, but woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you shut the kingdom of heaven in people's faces, for you neither enter yourselves nor allow those who would enter to go in.

This is the context in which we're talking, it's woe to you, verse 16, woe to you blind guides who say if anyone swears by the temple it is nothing, but if anyone swears by the gold of the temple he is bound by his oath.

You blind fools, for which is greater the gold or the temple that was made, or that has made the gold sacred. Verse 23, woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, you tithe, mint, and dill, and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law, justice, and mercy, and faithfulness.

These you ought to have done without neglecting the others. Verse 25, woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence.

Verse 27, woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you are like whitewashed tombs. Verse 29, woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you build the tombs of the prophets and decorate the monuments of the righteous, saying, If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have taken part in them in shedding the blood of the prophets.

Thus you witness against yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers, you serpents, you brood of vipers. How are you going to escape being sentenced to hell?

Therefore I send you prophets and wise men and scribes, some of whom you will kill and crucify, and some you will flog in your synagogues and persecute from town to town, so that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of innocent Abel to the blood of Zechariah the son of Berechiah, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar.

Truly, I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation. Now, verse 37, here's where they go. O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it, how often I would have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not.

And they say, Look, free will. It says right there, Jesus wanted to gather them as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, but they wouldn't do it. Stiff arm. Bruce. Well, that's true. Their hearts were so hardened that they missed the Messiah.

That is true. Yeah, definitely. I mean, God, it is clear that man cannot obey the law, and this is a demonstration of it. Now, listen to what Norman Geisler says here. He's cited by James White in this book.

Geisler says, God's grace is not irresistible on those who are not willing, thus making this point again in verse 37 that the people of Jerusalem were not willing and therefore they did not get saved because God's grace could not overwhelm them as it were.

And White says this, listen, I just kind of summarize it, but number one, Geisler claims that Jesus wanted to save the Jews of whom he was speaking. In other words, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Jerusalem. How often I wanted, but okay.

Number two, point number two, Christ was unable to fulfill his desire. That's what Geisler saying. He's saying that God's grace is resistible and that when Jesus says, how often I would have gathered your children together, that basically when Jesus said that, what he's saying is he couldn't do it.

And thirdly, he says that Geisler says that Christ could not because they would not. Well, White has some points in rebuttal. He says, first of all, how do we leap from Jerusalem, the city, to individual Jews?

Especially given this context, and he goes on and he says, White writes this, he says, first of all, God sent the prophets to whom? Who do the prophets go to? Right, but specifically, I mean, what is the first thing when we think about the prophets?

Who did they go and confront? Yeah, they went and confronted the leaders. I mean, you go back to the Old Testament, they were confronting kings and on and on. Who did Jesus have most of his arguments with?

We just saw it there. The Jewish leaders of the day, the Pharisees and the scribes. And White notes, number two, the Jewish leaders killed the prophets and messengers sent to them. And then I add, as they did with Jesus, right?

Who was responsible for it? They wanted him dead. And that's what they had done historically. Anybody who disagreed with them, they took care of. Number three, White notes that Jesus spoke of your children.

Not you. Jerusalem, which would mean basically the leaders of the city, the religious leaders. And again, in the context, it's scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, over and over and over again.

Jesus spoke of your children, differentiating them from those to whom he was speaking. He wanted to gather the children, not the leaders in this case. And number four, the context refers to Jewish leaders, scribes, Pharisees, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Daniel is exactly right. I mean, this is when I read, I think it was verse 13. For you shut the kingdom of heaven in people's places or faces. For you neither enter yourselves nor allow those who would enter to go in.

So, in other words, they were basically so zealous for their religion that they would shut down even the messengers that were actually from God. So, I mean, I think over the last several weeks, we've dealt with several passages that have to deal with free will.

And I started all this because I was getting back to the very beginning here with our friend in the systematic theology. He asked, why do people believe? And I thought, well, I think it's more important to understand why people don't believe.

Because unless you understand why people don't believe, you'll never understand why people do believe. It is, why do people believe? And ultimately, it's not because, well, let me just kind of take a step back.

Let's go back to the free will debate for a minute. We talked about Romans 6. We've talked about multiple verses. Romans 6, and I would encourage anyone to challenge me on this. Feel free. Romans 6 presents two groups of people.

Those who are slaves to sin and those who are slaves to righteousness. It does not say anywhere in there, contrary to our friend Dan Corner, the Arminian, it never says that there is a third category.

People who are slaves of nothing. You know, free in the marketplace. I mean, he makes it sound like Corner did, like there's, you know, a group who are saved and who are slaves of righteousness. There are a group of people who are not saved and are slaves of sin.

But somehow, either those slaves of sin are free to move over to the slaves of righteousness. Or there's a group that are neither way, you know, neither one, and they can choose to go either way. That's just not what the Bible says.

It never says that. It always, in the teaching of Jesus, what does he say? He says there's a gate that, the narrow gate, enter by the narrow gate, which leads to eternal life. And the broad gate, which leads to destruction.

And the other gate, there's, the Bible is very black and white. People say, you know, you're too black and white. You're too this or that. That's how the entire Bible is. It's there's a right way and there's a wrong way.

There's heaven, there's hell. There's nothing in between. There is no kind of free agency. We have a will. We make choices. But we make choices in accordance with our nature. If we have an unregenerate nature, if, in other words, if we haven't, as Jesus says in John 3, been born again, then what do we do?

Slave to sin. What else does Jesus call them? You are, you are of your father, the devil. There's never a case where Jesus says, you know what? I know you guys are really neither bound by sin nor by righteousness.

You're just moral free agents. And I would just encourage you to exercise your free, independent thinking and choose me. It doesn't happen. He commands repentance and he does that because he knows that each and every person is initially dead in sin, bound in sin, sons of wrath, children of wrath.

And that they must be transferred into the kingdom of light. And that can only be done by the power of God. Questions, comments.

Corinthians 2 .14. It says the natural man, the man who's lost, the man who's dead to God, alienated from God, cannot comprehend the things of God because those things are spiritually discerned. That's right.

Without the spirit of God in an individual, how can they come to the place of recognizing what God is offering?

Well, Sean makes a great point. First Corinthians 2 .14 says that things of the word of God are not discernible by those who don't have the Holy Spirit. So then, let's just for the moment, let's stipulate free will.

Somebody has free will. First Corinthians 2 .14 says that person with a free will can come to the scripture, read it, and do what? They can't get it. They cannot understand it because even if they had a free will, without the Holy Spirit, they could not understand what it said.

So the whole idea of a free will is really kind of a canard. And let me just say this. That the objective of people, and I hope I make this clear, the reason I think that people are so zealous for free will, I think there are a lot of good Christians who believe in free will.

Why do they believe and hold so strenuously to it? Fairness. It's not because, I don't think it's because they want to diminish God. They want to protect him. They want to protect him because if God somehow chooses people and we don't have a free will and we don't choose him, then what?

God must not be fair. Because if we don't have a free choice, if it's not dependent on our own free will, then God is partial. Charlie, I saw your hand first. Yeah, that's a great point. I mean, Charlie says if we say that we are somehow defective, that we are actually, if we admit our need, then that just kind of puts us down a step.

Who wants to think of themselves as, I mean, I do. It's fine with me. But who wants to think of themselves this way, that there was something wrong with me? Not just that I was missing something, as many Arminians want to say.

You have a Christ-centered hole in your heart that only he can fill. But that there was something seriously wrong with me. That I was spiritually dead. That I had no hope. That I was bent for hell. That all my thoughts and inclinations were displeasing to God because I did not have faith.

I don't want to, you know, nobody wants to think of themselves as morally defective. So, yeah, I do think that enters into it because it does kind of, I think it would hurt our self-esteem if we had to think of ourselves that way.

Yeah, Charlie. Yeah. That's right. Your chooser is broken. I like that. I mean, you choose according to your will. Let me just give you a couple of illustrations. One is a personal one that I've never shared before in my life.

At least not on tape. But before I got saved, I remember once I went shopping in Macy's. I needed a new shirt. Went shopping by myself. Walked into the store and I'm just like, I just was so, you know, I was not a big Macy's shopper at the time.

Although I love it now. But I went into the store and, you know, after a while the choices just became so overwhelming to me that I couldn't make a choice. And I literally, I'll just say I had to leave the store because I was so flustered.

I didn't know what to do. And so I think, you know, when your capacity to choose is clouded, when it's not right, you do wrong things. If somebody's drunk, you know, their mind could say, I want to drive straight.

I want to recite the alphabet. I want to stand on one foot. And, you know, they could think whatever they want. You know, an unbeliever could sit there and say, well, I want to do what's morally right.

I don't want to be condemned by God. I don't want to be evil. I don't want to choose sin. But they have no choice. This is what they're going to do because it's their nature. They have, you know, to quote one famous movie, a brain cloud.

You know, they have, technically, they have an inability to choose God, to choose righteousness. They can't do it. It's like, you know, you can point that compass south and tell the needle to point north all you want.

Or, you know, check that. You can tell it to point to the south and it's just going to keep doing what? It's going to keep going north because that's just what it does. You can't, some things just can't be changed.

You have, before salvation, you have one inclination and it's not toward righteousness. Now, we've covered a lot. Let's just kind of get back to where we were to load those many weeks ago. Let's see. It's interesting that the Word of God says that the same message can have a different impact on the same audience.

In other words, when Pastor Mike gets up this morning and preaches, there are going to be believers and unbelievers in here. Is everybody going to receive the message the same way? Because some have ears to hear and some don't.

Some will hear the Word of God and be dumbstruck by it, be awed by it, be undone by it. Some will hear the Word of God. And I'll tell you what, here's the most amazing thing to me. And I'm not saying that anybody is saved or not saved based on this.

But you know what? Who knows what the problem is when you're preaching? If you have a great illustration, what's the problem with that? Well, it can be personal. But I mean, if you just have an illustration that makes a great point, what's the problem?

John? That's the only thing they'll remember. They'll exit at the doorway and they'll say, you know, I really like that point about da-da-da-da. And then you'll just go. And, you know, if you take that in, you wind up just wanting to tell anecdotes all the time because that way people like the whole thing.

But there will be people here today who will only remember whatever surgical illustration Mike gives us this morning. Some of you get that. And some of you are like, what kind of illustration is that?

Anyway. But if Isaiah 5511 is correct, if it always accomplishes its purpose, if the Word of God always accomplishes its purpose, and yet it goes out to two different people groups, one group of people all together, but let's say we're all either, you know, A or B or A or Z or whatever we are, you know, saved or unsaved.

How does it bring about its effect on all those different people? Well, the answer is, obviously, let's look at 2 Corinthians 2. And would somebody read verses 15 and 16, please? The Word of God divides.

It separates. It has a different impact on two groups of people. We see it all the time in Scripture. In John 6, when Jesus gives the discourse, you know, about eating and drinking of him, what happens?

This great big crowd that's been following him departs. And it's only the disciples who are left. When we think of all the miracles that Jesus performed, whether it was the healings, whether it was the mass feedings or whatever, and yet we know that the church was small.

How many people saw the resurrected Christ? Not many. Why? Because the church was small. Not many believed. And that's just the nature of the Word of God. The two thieves on the cross both heard the same message.

What happened? One believed and the other one didn't. But we talked about, weeks ago, we talked about this idea of reprobation. Reprobation. Who remembers what reprobation is? We speak frequently about being the elect, being chosen by God.

And reprobation or being reprobate is the flip side of that. And the Bible actually says that God blinds the mind of the reprobate. It's not just enough. I mean, again, it can't be more clear that God chooses the elect, that he sets his affection on it.

You know what? Before we even go there, maybe we won't even go there today, but I read something and I'm just like, this, again, it bothers me, this idea that somehow God is not just unfair, but that if he sets his affection on some, and not only doesn't, but actually hardens the heart of some people, that God is not just unfair, but that this is not an accurate portrayal of the God of Scripture.

Again, you know, citing maybe 2 Peter 3 .9, this God is not willing idea. But you have to look at everything in context. And when we look at context, let's go ahead and look at Romans 11. And we're going to see that God, in fact, does, and we would know this if we thought about it long enough, that God does, in fact, harden some people's hearts against him.

You say, why would he do that? Because he does. Who would read Romans 11, verses 7 to 10? Go ahead, Will. I mean, this isn't very, those aren't exactly the verses that you want to read before you go to bed.

You know, now I lay me down to sleep, let me just get a few verses in before I drift off. God gave them a spirit of stupor. God gave them minds that would not understand, eyes that would not see the truth, ears that would not hear the truth.

Erikson. That would be a term for it, double predestination. And you know, let me just, before Charlie goes, here's what some people say. In fact, I think your authorized version probably will say this, that God chooses some people for salvation, and others he leaves to their own devices.

So that would be like 1 .5 or one and a half predestination. But the Bible clearly teaches this. It teaches that God chooses some, and that he hardens some. And that those he hardens, I mean, look at what it says here at the end of verse 10.

It says, I'll just read all of verse 10. Let their eyes be darkened so that they cannot see, and bend their backs forever. There's going to be a burden placed on them forever. And when I read that, I can't help thinking of eternal punishment.

He's going to stop them from understanding the truth. Tim, did you have something to say? Yeah, let me just stop you there for a second. Tim raises a great point. Back to Matthew 23. He says, the Pharisees and scribes were hardened, and why?

So that God might, I would argue, demonstrate the difference between a religion of legalism, of rule following, of external appearances, of external righteousness, versus the kingdom of God that Jesus set forth, which was within a righteousness that arises from salvation.

So, Tim, did you have something else there? Yeah. Yeah, woe to you, scribes. Yeah, so that they're still ultimately responsible. Great point. Yep. Charlie. As Paul says, have not been opened. So, when we read that God hardens people, the Arminians think of that doctrine as God dispensing this malicious activity, this positive activity with malicious intent.

And could it not be that His normal, gracious expressions are the hardening agent, the same agent that God is stamping on people? I mean, there are proactive words in this verse. So maybe I'm all wet here.

But, you know, the gospel hardens some, and it quickens others. Well, I think you're right in that sense. And even in terms of His overall graciousness, unbelievers, true or false, praise God when it's beautiful weather.

They praise God when they have a new baby. They praise unbelievers just like it. They like life when things are going their way. When things aren't going their way, that's when God comes into focus. They either curse Him or, you know, the miners in the pit.

Some of them may have gotten saved during that time, who knows. But the miners in the pit, and what do they say? God, if you'll just, even unbelievers. God, if you'll get me out of this. Guy falling off a skyscraper.

You know, God, if you'll just allow me to live, I'll do whatever. You know, kind of make that deal. So I think that's partly right. I think the message of God hardens people, unbelievers, because they reject it.

I think even His graciousness can harden them in some sense. But I think also, like if we look particularly at the illustration of Pharaoh and others, God actively hardens those. Why? He tells us in regard to the Pharaoh because so that he'd be glorified.

That's right. That's exactly right. So I think it's both, Chuck.

Parables, Granted Knowledge, and the Limits of Free Will

Yeah. In Matthew 13, where Christ is talking about the parable of the sower, He ends off with, He who has ears, let him hear. Then verse 10 says, the disciples came to Him and said, Why do you speak to them in parables?

And then His answer is, To you it has been granted to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been granted.

Which is interesting. Sean brings up a great point in Matthew 13 where after the parable of the soils, parable of the sower, the disciples say, Why do you speak to them in parables anyway? What's the whole purpose behind this?

And Jesus says, To you it's been granted to know the secrets of the kingdom and not to others. You just go, well, wait a minute. Again, this strikes at the heart of fairness. If we say that God has granted some people to be allowed to know the truth and God has not granted others, this whole idea of a moral neutrality and being able to, the unbeliever to just kind of weigh the evidence and sort it out on his own is false because apart from an inward working of God, that morally neutral person, if he existed, which he doesn't, could never choose God anyway.

Leaving aside total depravity, if we just look at what the Bible says about choices and about understanding the truth, we would never come to a place where we thought people choose based on their own free will because we would know that no one can.