Just Peachy!

This week I had the pleasure of seeing the first blossoms appear on one of the fruit trees I planted last year (the peach). Still just leaves on the others, and still another four years before I get any fruit to speak of from any of them. Nevertheless, I found it exciting.

Away Game

Eric and I have moved our discussion of Calvinism over to his blog.

True or False?

God can save whomever he wants, whenever he wants.

Hooray! Sap!

Finally noticed some good flow from a broken branch today. Tapped my first three trees. Taste is already a little buddish. Hope I didn't wait too long.

Mercy Upon Whomever He Wills: Part I

It has been stated that, in order to accomplish his purposes, God will sometimes show mercy even to men who have hardened their own hearts. It has been suggested, however, that even if God does have mercy upon such men, this mercy will only be effective if they are willing to accept it. The implication, then, is that the fulfillment of God’s merciful purposes upon hard-hearted men is, to some degree at least, dependent upon hard-hearted men’s willingness to accept God’s mercy.

Let us imagine a scenario in which God’s attempt at showing mercy is met with the kind of resistance here described. Let us imagine that God sets his attention upon some hard-hearted man, determining that, instead of further hardening him, he will have mercy upon him. He offers his mercy to the man, only to find that the man is unwilling to accept it. What are to become of God's purposes? Are they to be thwarted? What are we to suppose that God might do in such a situation?

It would seem there are only two things God can do. He could just give up, deciding not to accomplish his purpose and perhaps move on to some hard-hearted man more willing to accept his mercy. But what if God really insisted upon having his way in a particular case? What if he was truly adamant about accomplishing his merciful purposes in this particular hard-hearted man? Would God’s determination be of any avail? Would there really be anything God could do in such a situation?

We might first consider what success here would require. If God’s mercy can only be effective upon men who are willing to receive it, then, of course, the only way he could accomplish his purpose would be to make the man willing to receive his mercy. But this is a tall order; after all, we’re talking here about a man who has already hardened his own heart. We’re taking about someone who wants to do evil, who has committed himself to do it, someone who has decided to reject God. How could God possibly make such a person willing to accept his mercy?

Certainly, the only way God could ever make a man (especially a hard-hearted man) willing to do something he was formerly unwilling to do would be to change his heart. Men's desires are determined by their hearts. Pure, soft hearts give rise to good desires, and defiled, hardened hearts give rise to evil desires. Therefore, if God is to have any hope of accomplishing his merciful purposes in a hard-hearted man, if God should ever expect to make a man willing to receive his mercy, it can only be through changing his hardened heart.

But would God ever go so far as to change a man’s heart? Would God really take a man who desires evil and cause him to desire good? Would God really ever be so bold as to tamper with a man’s will?...

My Wife to My Two-Year-Old Daughter

Mama: "So Corina, who do you think will win the primary, Clinton or Obama?"
Corina: "Clinton."
Mama: Then, who do you think will win the election, Clinton or McCain?"
Corina: "Clinton."
Mama: "Well, what do you think Clinton will do for our country?"
Corina: "Um...make it crunchy."

Perhaps.

And Whom He Wills, He Hardens

It has been granted, in the course of previous discussions, that God sometimes hardens the hearts of certain men, sometimes even to the point of leaving them unable to believe (John 12:39-41). It has been asked why God would do such a thing, and it has been answered that God hardens those who first harden their own hearts. Those, it is said, who desire to do evil and have committed themselves to do it, God will harden. I’m fully willing to grant this notion as an independent truth—I don’t believe that God has ever hardened a soft-hearted person—but I do not see how it even begins to answer the question of why God hardens certain men and not others.

Many men have, at one time or another, hardened their hearts; many have desired to do evil; many (dare I say all?) have at some point fully committed themselves to do what is wrong. But certainly, God has not hardened all of these. Upon some—praise his name—upon some such hard-hearted sinners, God has had mercy. But if some who harden their hearts are further hardened, and others who harden their hearts are nevertheless shown mercy, how can man’s hardening his own heart be considered the determinative factor in God’s decision as to whom he will further harden? It cannot.

We could speculate as to other possibilities. Perhaps those upon whom God has mercy are the ones who have only hardened their hearts a little bit, and the ones whom God further hardens are those who have hardened their hearts a lot. Maybe God uses a kind of Mohs scale for measuring the hardness of one’s heart: 1-5 you get mercy, 6-10 you get further hardened. But surely, we can recognize this as unbiblical nonsense. The scriptures, not to mention our own personal experiences, are replete with examples of God saving the most despicable sinners and passing over otherwise “decent” people. Often it seems, in fact, that the harder man’s heart is in sin, the bigger is his fall into grace.

But if God’s decision to harden or to have mercy is not dependent upon the fact that some have hardened their hearts, if it is not dependent upon the degree to which some have hardened their hearts, what is it in man that determines his choice? I suggest that as long as we insist upon asking the question this way, we will never find the answer, at least not in scripture.

For when the scriptures address the question of why God further hardens one hard-hearted man and has mercy upon another hard-hearted man, they do not leave us to speculate; they tell us plainly: God’s decision has nothing to do with the men themselves. It does not depend upon anything men do—either good or bad (Rom. 9:11); it does not depend on anything they will; it does not depend upon any way in which they exert themselves; it depends upon God who has mercy (Rom 9:16). And upon whom does God have mercy? He has mercy upon whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills (Rom. 9:18). He makes his choice for one reason: that his purpose in election might stand (Rom. 9:11).

If we are in any sense human, a proper understanding of these verses cannot fail to disturb our senses of fairness. In fact, it might be said that if we aren’t outraged by Romans 9, we haven’t fully understood it. For if we have truly grasped Paul’s meaning, we will be inevitably led to the question he anticipates: Why does God still find fault? For who can resist his will? (Rom. 9:19). That is to say, if God's choice of whom to harden and upon whom to have mercy, has nothing to do with man, but everything to do with God's choice, how can he justify punishing those he hardens? But our answer to this unavoidable question cannot be based on our finite, feeble, futile conceptions of what we think God ought to have the right to do with his own lumps of clay. Our answer to the question must be the same as Paul’s: Who are we to answer back to God?