Originally Posted by
alanmolstad
the Pharaoh question:
many who disagree with the idea that men have Free Will always love to point to the text talking about Pharaoh.
the key thing that they want to point out is where the text clearly says that "God hardened his heart"
To some people this proves that Pharaoh lacked free will, because it seems God forced him to do stuff against his will.
But if you dig a bit deeper you see another thing in play too.
The other thing you see is that just as the text tells us that "God hardened Pharaoh's heart" is also teaches just as clearly that "Pharaoh hardened his own heart" too.
So the text actually claims both things were going on at the same time....
Yes, God is still Sovereign and God did hardened the heart of Pharaoh....and yes, Pharaoh did hardened his own heart at the same time too!
This is why I always tell people that the Bible teaches > "Man has Free Will, and God is Sovereign"
So in the real world, what does this mean to us today and our topic?
It means that when God does something in our lives, if He perfoms some action to put His plans into effect, He does so without needing to first take away our Free Will.
God did a work in the life of Pharaoh, but never even for a second needed to strip away the Free Will of Pharaoh to carry out His plans.
Its my understanding that the example we are given of God being able to carry out his plans yet maintaining the Free Will of Pharaoh is something that carries-over into all of our lives too.
If God has a plan for your life, and is at work in accomplishing His plan in your life, God does so without needing to take away your free Will!
how does God do this?.....we dont know.
But the information we get from the text leads us to the conclusion that Man's free will is not taken away, nor is a challenge to God....rather God's plans take the free will of men into full account at all times.
So when we read in the Bible where it teaches us that God bound someone, or held them, or stopped them from doing something, that we need to keep in mind the more complete example of this same thing going on in the life of Pharaoh.
For in the example of Pharaoh we can learn that while God has free will to do what he wants, so too does man have free will within the sovereignty of God over his world.