Apathy is the Work of the Devil

Conservative Christians are generally pretty good at teaching Christian ethics for the individual, moving towards the alleviation of one's sin and helping people break free of their individual bondage.

Liberal Christians are generally pretty good at teaching Christian social ethics, including care for the poor, care for the environment, and so on.

Unfortunately, conservative Christians aren't typically very good at Christian social ethics, and liberal Christians aren't usually very good at individual inner reform. Both engage in a measure of apathy, either apathy in the face of social injustice, or apathy in the face of one's own sin.

There is an obvious middle ground here that Jesus taught and lived. Jesus understood that seeking inner reform must result in seeking social reform and seeking social reform must include inner reform.

I will demonstrate this by using John Lennon as an example. Lennon was in sync with Jesus in that they both taught peace as the ultimate goal we should all be working towards ("War is over if you want it," is basically the Christian message--I'll deal with that in a future blog). However, John Lennon was also a very angry person, and I'm not talking about righteous anger. He was often impatient, belittling, explosive, verbally abusive, and in at least one case, physically abusive. While he taught "do everything for peace," he often failed to actually embody peace. As Richard Rohr says, activists "might have the answer, but they are [often] not themselves the answer."(1)

Jesus shows us that you cannot be an activist for social change without being an activist for your inner change. I watched an interview of a millionaire businessman and democrat describing what he does with his money. Since he doesn't need or want millions of things, he doesn't stimulate the economy through consumption, because one person can only spend so much. So what does he do? Capital gains. He turns his money into more money, accumulating more and more. He also exploits tax loopholes and ends up paying a lower percentage than many of his subordinates.

This, he says, is bad for the economy. He shouldn't be able to do that. He says we need to change the system so this kind of thing can't go on. Does it occur to him to maybe...stop doing it himself?! How funny it is that rich democrats believe in taxing the rich in order to provide for the needs of the poor, and yet they often keep most of their wealth for themselves. Sure, maybe they give to charities now and then, but is it ever enough to actually make a dent in their finances? Is it as taxing as their political opinions are?

My message to conservatives and liberals--as well as to myself!--can be summed up in Lennon's words: "Apathy isn't it. We can do something." Apathy in the face of evil is indifference to evil. You can be cognitively aware and attentive to the evil and injustice in the world, but you are ambivalent towards it if you are apathetic. As Thomas Merton says, "How can we claim that our inertia is innocent? It is the source of our guilt."(2)

So, let us not be apathetic. Let us pursue inner and social change. Conservative Christians, listen to the liberal Christians who emphasize social injustice and the need to pursue social change. Liberal Christians, listen to conservative Christians who emphasize the need for one to face one's inner sin and move toward spiritual change.

Are you an angry person? Do you have road rage? Are you impatient? Are you sexually immoral? Are you envious? Do you have addictions? Do you lie a lot? Are you manipulative? Are you selfish?

Whatever your inner vice is, know that your pursuit of the abolition of injustice should begin and end with the pursuit of the abolition of evil within yourself.

Are there people around you in need that you don't help despite having the means? Do you support companies that profit off of cheap and/or slave labor? Are you ambivalent towards care for the environment? Are you ambivalent towards the maltreatment of animals? Are you ambivalent towards the poor? Are you ambivalent toward those in need? Is your political ideology self-focused?

Whatever your social vice is, know that Jesus said failure to be salt to the earth makes one good for nothing (Matt. 5:13).

The steps toward change, social or personal, will for the most part be small. Whether you're trying to be a more Christ-like driver, or you're trying to reduce student loan interest rates, it will be a long, inch-by-inch road. But as Jesus showed with his mustard seed analogy, little things have power, for they can grow. Don't mistake lack of action for realism. As Heschel says, "remain[ing] neutral, impartial, and not easily moved by the wrong done unto other people" is "an evil most of us condone and are even guilty of."(3)

When it comes to social change and personal change, I am guilty of failure in both courts. We all are. The Christian response to that is not apathy. It is not, "What's the use?" The Christian response is to seek the realization of the kingdom of God at all times, through failure and victory, through small changes, big changes, bad changes, or no changes. Apathy is the work of the devil.

"All of heaven is waiting on us. I can hear all of creation crying: 'We're waiting!'" - Jason Upton

Notes:
(1) Richard Rohr, Everything Belongs, rev. ed. (New York: Crossroad Publishing, 2003), 73-74.
(2) Thomas Merton, Raids on the Unspeakable (New York: New Directions, 1966), 56.
(3) Abraham Joshua Heschel, The Prophets (New York: HarperCollins, 2001), 364.

Grace, Part II: Is Salvation a Human Choice?

I again use Grace Kelly to personify grace

So far, I have laid out that salvation and humanity’s coming-to-God is possible because the Spirit resides within us. However, there has still been talk of a required human response to God’s work in order for it to take effect, which still leaves the question of Philippians 2:13 open:  if “it is God who is at work in [us], enabling [us] both to will and to work for his good pleasure,” how can we say we choose God with our own free will? How can we say it is all God’s grace when it requires our response? I will begin this discussion with 3 foundational thoughts: 

First, as we have already seen, the breath of God in Adam’s nostrils gave him more than just life—that is, more than just mere being. It also gave him more than the presence of God’s Spirit within him; it equipped him with everything he needed to be a servant and lover of God.  To re-use a quote from Origen, he equipped Adam with “all the desires and all the impulses with which [he could] work towards virtue and make progress, and also planted in [him] the power of reason with which [he could] recognize what [he] ought to do and what to avoid.”(25) Included in this equipment was free will. He endowed Adam with the ability to choose to love him or hate him, embrace him or reject him.

Secondly, God sustains all things (Heb. 1:3; Col. 1:16). Paul said in Acts, “In him we live and move and have our being” (17:28). As Karl Barth notes, “It is on the free will of God that everything depends.”(26) Reality itself, then, is God’s grace. God’s breath in Adam’s nostrils reveals that the fact we breathe at all is God’s grace.

Finally, we are told that every perfect gift comes from the Father (Jas. 1:17). He is responsible for all the good, not only of that which he has directly provided, but of the good we have accomplished. Therefore, we should not boast in anything we do, for we branches do not support our root, but the root supports us (Rom. 11:18). 

The answer to our question, then, is that because of everything with which God has provided us, we cannot refer to any good that we accomplish as our own doing. He gave us the breath of life, the capacity for good, the ability to reason, the free will, the influence of his Spirit, etc. We might also add that he himself is goodness, and so nothing good can find its origin in us because all goodness is God’s self-communication.  

Consider this analogy. Let us say a man opens up a bank account for his son and places billions of dollars in it. Then he gives his son a debit card and the PIN. If the son purchases something, can it really be said that he pays for it? Can it be said that he makes himself able to use the money? No. His father gave him the money, and his father gave him the ability to use it (the debit card and PIN). That being said, the Son cannot just walk around and experience the benefits of the money he has in his account; he has to use the card his father gave him in order to experience it. But even the using of the card is attributable to his father, because he gave him the card.

Likewise, God has given us salvation and has given us everything we need in order to experience it and engage in relationship with him. We must make the decision to engage, but God is ultimately responsible for the decision because he is responsible for everything that brought us to the decision.

Origen

Heschel says that in establishing a relationship with God, the “initiative must be ours, yet the achievement depends on Him.”(28) Indeed, yet, God is even, in part, responsible for the initiative. Not that he himself made the decision for us, but he gave us the ability to make the initiative. He gave us will power. Again, he gave us every single thing we needed in order to choose him. As Origen said, “God does most of the work.”(27) But even the work we do is something for which God is responsible, even if indirectly.(28) 

“God is at work in us” does not mean that God is the one doing all the work. It means he is “enabling us to will and to work.” He is drawing us to him, luring us to him, and giving us what we need to come to him. Philippians 2:13 is referring to the supernatural existential at work, that divine immanence in us that is responsible for all the goodness we manifest, including our choice to follow God. Again, it does not do the work for us, as the Calvinist doctrine of irresistible grace implies, but it influences and entices us to embrace Christ. When and if we do, God is the one responsible, for he gave us reason and free will, and he gave us the Spirit to influence that reason and free will. And everything he gave us is a manifestation of his grace.(29) We play a part, and indeed a vital one, but it is most definitely nothing of which we can boast, for God is ultimately the one responsible.

Conclusion 

This study, rather than thinking of salvation as either the work of grace or a human choice, has embraced salvation as both the work of grace and a human choice. It emphasizes both the biblical teaching of God’s grace and providence, and the biblical teaching of human choice and moral responsibility. 

We need not believe that we have no part in our salvation in order to say with confidence that grace is the all-determining factor. I have often heard from Calvinists that because they know how sinful they are, they know that they could never choose God, so he had to have chosen them. A human can do nothing for God without grace, they say, so salvation must be solely the work of God’s grace and we must not have anything to do with it. This conclusion is understandable, but, as we have seen, it demonstrates a misunderstanding of God’s grace. Our free choice to serve and love God is itself a manifestation of grace, for such a choice would not be possible without it. God’s grace is the equipment with which God empowered humanity, and it was indeed sufficient in enabling humanity to walk freely to him. Thus, we can affirm with Paul that when we work out our salvation, it is God who is at work in us, enabling us both to will and to work for his good pleasure. 

Notes:
(25) von Balthasar, 195.
(26) Barth, 74.
(27) Heschel, 129.
(28) von Balthasar, 196.
(29) If this is true, one could then ask, “Doesn’t that mean God is indirectly responsible for evil?” Since this is not relevant to the topic of my paper, I will not spend too much time answering this question, but it is important to at least respond to, even if in a small way.
First, evil was not created when man sinned. Evil entered into this world through humanity’s sin, but its origin was found in Satan, before the earth was created. We do not know the nature of evil’s actual origin; all we have are the bits and pieces we find in some biblical and apocryphal books. For an overview, see Elaine Pagels, “The Social History of Satan: From the Hebrew Bible to the Gospels,” in The Origin of Satan (New York: Random House, 1995), 35–62. The question then becomes, “Is God responsible for evil’s entrance into this world?” No. Evil is not of God, and he was not responsible for its origin. He is also not responsible for Satan’s influence on creatures. The reason why he is—at least indirectly—responsible for the human’s choosing of him is because he has not only given them the ability to choose him, but he has done everything they need in order for them to choose him. Because he has not provided evil, and he has not provided the devil’s influence, but has only given humans the ability to choose to reject him, he is not responsible in any way—even indirectly—for humanity’s sin.
(30) As Origen says, God “gives everything as grace.” See von Balthasar, 196.

Grace, Part I: Is the Doctrine of Total Depravity Totally Depraved?

I chose this picture because nothing says
'grace' like Grace Kelly

The relationship between God’s providence and the human will has been the subject of much theological debate throughout Christian history, particularly as it regards to salvation. If God’s work “depends not on human will or exertion, but on God who shows mercy” (Rom. 9:6) and if it is true that grace does not depend on works (11:6), then how can we say that humans choose God out of their own volition?(1) How can we say that the choice is ours when we are told that “it is God who is at work in [us], enabling [us] both to will and to work for his good pleasure” (Phil. 2:13)? Calvinist doctrine states that we cannot, that salvation is not at all based on the human’s response to God but solely on God’s choice of whom to save—his elect. Furthermore, it states that humanity is totally depraved and unable to choose God, and that it is God’s grace alone which brings the elect to him.

I, on the other hand, contend that the most balanced and accurate response to the question states that the human’s free choice to enter into a relationship with God is a manifestation of the reality of grace, because God equipped the human with everything necessary in order to walk freely to him—and that this divine equipment was a bestowal of grace, and thus, everything accomplished by its work finds grace as its origin.

Humanity in the Pre-Cross and Post-Cross Periods

We must begin with a discussion of what occurred at the Fall, so that we can understand what occurred on the Cross. With these, we can more accurately discuss the nature of grace and human will, and their roles in salvation.

Jonathan Edwards describes well the view of the Fall I wish to oppose here:

When man sinned, and broke God’s covenant, and fell under his curse, [the divine principles of the Spirit] left his heart: for indeed God left him; that communion with God, on which these principles depended, entirely ceased; the Holy Spirit, that divine inhabitant, forsook the house.(2)

Thus, Edwards believed the Fall made us totally depraved. Greg Forster defines the doctrine of total depravity in the following way:

Calvinism says that everything in our fallen nature is hostile to the perfect goodness of God--to 'goodness' in the absolute sense. This is not because our nature contains nothing that is good in any respect, but because everything in us is spoiled by our sin. In other words, Calvinism is saying that we are born as slaves to Satan. . . . We are born with every part of ourselves participating in, and hence defiled by, a state of freely chosen rebellion against God.(3)

Thus, to Calvinist doctrine, the Fall left us completely unable to move toward God without him doing all the work. Such is the Calvinist understanding of the Fall, and the doctrine of total depravity. This interpretation, however, runs counter to the Hebrew understanding of God’s ruah. God breathed his breath into Adam’s nostrils (Gen. 2:7), which was very significant to ancient Hebrew anthropology. Harold Knight provides that this “essential quality of the divine” was “the acceptable explanation of all that was striking or unusual in human conduct,”(4) such as, wisdom.(5) It meant that “God’s Spirit [is] in the human person”(6) and was understood to be a “permanent indwelling in man”(7) and “a core human characteristic.”(8)

Therefore, to the ancient Hebrew mind, the Spirit of God did not forsake the house, as Edwards put it. Rather than making humans totally unable to move to God, the Fall made humans conflicted; it assured that they would thenceforth be engaged in a constant inner battle between good and evil. The Fall established that life would be a long stream of existential choices between stepping towards God or stepping towards total depravity. Humanity’s constant movement towards depravity is what made the Cross more and more necessary.

What strikes me as odd about the doctrine of total depravity is that it is maintained even after the Cross. Christ brought us salvation, but Calvinist doctrine says that it can only be obtained by those upon whom God has bestowed it. Since humanity's corruption makes us unable to move to God, we cannot choose salvation; it can only be given by God’s irresistible grace.(9) 

The predicament in the pre-Cross period was not that humanity was rendered incapable of moving to God, but that the seed which God had planted in humans became perishable in the Fall (1 Pet. 1:23). In the event that humanity strayed far enough from God, that seed would cease to exist. If humanity chose to follow depravity long enough, we would eventually lose our ability to choose God at all, for we would have trapped ourselves in a depraved mind. Thus, if salvation was going to spread throughout the world, it was going to require further action on God’s part.

Enter Jesus Christ, who came to undo what Adam and Eve did (Rom. 5:12–21; 1 Cor. 15:20–49). The Cross re-established the image of God that humanity was created to be, and planted an incorruptible, imperishable seed in humans (1 Pet. 1:23). He placed inside us the Holy Spirit, God’s indwelling presence (Rom. 8:23; Jn. 14:17). Therefore, humanity is not in a state of total depravity. On the contrary, Christ perfected humanity’s state of being (Heb. 10:14), and created all people anew (2 Cor. 5:17). In this state, humanity is not doomed to slip into total depravity, but, as Karl Barth says, “[all of humanity’s] mistakes and confusions and sins are only like waves beating against the immovable rock of his own proper being.”(10) Sin no longer has the power to destroy the image of God and the seed of the Holy Spirit held within us.

Origen beautifully states that, “God has given human beings all the desires and all the impulses with which they can work towards virtue and make progress, and also planted in them the power of reason with which they can recognize what they ought to do and what to avoid.”(11) Christ established in the hearts of humans everything we needed in order to choose God and be saved. As Vernon Grounds puts it, “God working through Jesus Christ and by his Holy Spirit enables a man to be and do what otherwise tantalizes him as merely an impossible possibility.”(12)

Grace and the Supernatural Existential

What, then, of the choice? Is it our own? Norman Geisler provides that the general Calvinist response to this question is that “if God’s choice to save was based on those who chose him, then it would not be based on divine grace but would be based on human effort.” He sensibly states of this claim that it “flies in the face of the whole biblical teaching on grace.”(13)

The simplest definition of God’s grace I can think of is divine help. And for all of human history, we have been in need of it. H. Wheeler Robinson states, “It is emphatically recognized that man is totally incapable of good without grace, and that no element in him can be, so to speak, isolated from the corruption of his fallen nature.”(14) Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel echoes this understanding, stating that, “for all our aspirations we remain spiritually blind unless we are assisted. Without [God’s] love, without His aid, man is unable to come close to Him.”(15)

Karl Rahner

There is truth to the doctrine of total depravity, but human depravity is not “total.” We are, as I said above, in a constant state of existential conflict between the Spirit of God and our sin nature. Because we are faced with a constant barrage of evil influence, and because we have been made frail by our choice of sin, we have always needed the assistance that Heschel spoke of, that divine aid, that grace. And this grace is not only expressed transcendently in what God does for his creatures, but it is expressed immanently in what God does within his creatures. There is in human nature a divine immanence at work, which Karl Rahner referred to as the “supernatural existential,” imparted to humanity by God’s grace, as God’s grace.

This grace, Rahner explains, “makes it possible for [the spiritual movement of mankind] to reach God in himself. Naturally, therefore, grace divines man and bestows upon him a share in the holiness of God.”(16) He further describes grace as the self-communication of God, and that this self-communication “stamps and determines man’s nature.”(17) Such is the supernatural existential. Henri De Lubac describes it as the “divine element which man’s effort cannot reach . . . but which unites itself to man, elevating him . . ., penetrating him in order to divinize him, and thus becoming as it were an attribute of the ‘new man’ described by St. Paul.”(18) It is “God’s gift [that] has been implanted in the depths of man’s nature.”(19) This supernatural existential, this divine immanence, paved the way for humanity to freely enter into relationship with God. The Cross altered human nature, restoring the image of God. Christ breathed God’s breath back into humanity, and solidified his Spirit inside all, making it forever possible for us to reach God.

Rahner goes on to say that the Cross made humans “subject to the universal salvific will of God, . . . redeemed and absolutely obliged to tend to this supernatural end. This . . . is an objective, ontological modification of man, added indeed to his nature by God’s grace and therefore supernatural.”(20) The Cross established an objective reality: the reconciliation and perfection of all of humanity. Christ has made us his own (Phil. 3:12); though we sin, we have been deemed saints (Rom. 1:7).

Thus, Christianity is about subjectively experiencing this objective reality: “We, then, who are perfect, let us think on that!” (Phil. 3:15);(21) “Let us live up to what we have already obtained” (v.16, NIV). This subjective experience can be described as the affirmative response to God’s initiative, to his Spirit dwelling inside us: “welcome with meekness the implanted word that has the power to save your souls” (Jas. 1:21). In our subjective experience of salvation, we make ourselves vulnerable and malleable to the Spirit. The kingdom of God is within us (Lk. 17:21), and we must say ‘Yes’ to the Spirit’s work so that the kingdom can be manifested in our lives.(22) 

Jesus said, “No one comes to the Father except through me” (Jn. 14:6). He also said that “No one can come to me except drawn by the Father who sent me” (6:44). And he also said that when he is lifted up from the earth, he will draw all people to himself (12:32). No one can come to the Father except through the Son; no one can come to the Son except by being drawn by the Father; and the Son is in the business of drawing all people to himself, through the work of the Spirit, who resides in us (Jn. 14:17; 1 Cor. 2:10–13).

Notes:
(1) Scripture quotations are from the NRSV unless otherwise noted.
(2) Jonathan Edwards, “God is Not the Author of Sin,” in Readings in Christian Thought, 2nd ed., ed. Hugh T. Kerr (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1990), 203-204.
(3) See Greg Forster, The Joy of Calvinism: Knowing God's Personal, Unconditional, Irresistible, Unbreakable Love (Wheaton: Crossway, 2012), 35-39.
(4) Harold Knight, The Hebrew Prophetic Consciousness (London: Lutterworth Press, 1947), 9.
(5) Tremper Longman III states that “wisdom [was not understood as] the result of human effort, but rather [as] a gift . . . the gift of the spirit of God.” See “Spirit and Wisdom,” in Presence, Power and Promise: The Role of the Spirit of God in the Old Testament., eds. David G. Firth and Paul D. Wegner (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2011), 109. John Levison echoes this understanding, stating that, to the ancient Hebrew mind, “wisdom belongs to the providence of the spirit within, of the influx of life that all humans receive.” See Filled with the Spirit (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdman’s Publishing, 2009), 66. He adds that “the language of filling [with the spirit] is not about a particular experience at a particular moment with an eye toward a particular task. . . . [Rather], filling is actually about fullness, about the expansiveness of the spirit within.” See 65–66.
(6) Richard E. Averbeck, “Breath, wind, spirit and Holy Spirit in the Old Testament,” in Presence, Power and Promise: The Role of the Spirit of God in the Old Testament., eds. David G. Firth and Paul D. Wegner (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2011), 36.
For more on an Old Testament understanding of the Spirit of God, see Presence, Power and Promise: The Role of the Spirit of God in the Old Testament, eds. David G. Firth and Paul D. Wegner (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2011), Wilf Hildebrandt, An Old Testament Theology of the Spirit of God (Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers, 1995), John R. Levison, Filled with the Spirit, Leon J. Wood, The Holy Spirit in the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1976), and Christopher J. H. Wright, Knowing the Holy Spirit through the Old Testament (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2006).
(7) Knight, 31.
(8) Levison, 67. Also see p. 81.
(9) For a more thorough overview, see R. C. Sproul, “Humanity’s Radical Corruption,” in What is Reformed Theology? Understanding the Basics, (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1997), 117–138. Also, Edwin H. Palmer, “Total Depravity,” in The Five Points of Calvinism, 3rd ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1972), 11–28, and, David N. Steele, Curtis C. Thomas, and S. Lance Quinn, “Total Depravity or Total Inability,” in The Five Points of Calvinism: Defined, Defended, and Documented, 2nd ed. (Phillipsburg: P&R Publishing, 2004), 18–26.
(10) Karl Barth, The Doctrine of Reconciliation, Vol. 4.1:57-59 of Church Dogmatics, eds. G.W. Bromily and T.F. Torrance, trans. G.W. Bromily (New York: T&T Clark, 2010), 89.
(11) Hans Urs von Balthasar, Origen, Spirit and Fire: A Thematic Anthology of His Writings, trans. Robert J. Daly (Washington D. C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1984), 195.
(12) Vernon Grounds, “God’s Universal Salvific Grace,” in Grace Unlimited, ed. Clark H. Pinnock (Minneapolis: Bethany House, 1975), 24.
(13) Norman Geisler, “God Knows All Things,” in Predestination & Free Will: Four Views of Divine Sovereignty and Human Freedom, eds. David Basinger and Randall Basinger (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1986), 66.
(14) H. Wheeler Robinson, The Christian Doctrine of Man, 3rd ed. (Edingburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1926), 194.
(15) Abraham Joshua Heschel, God in Search of Man (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1983), 129.
(16) Karl Rahner, Experience of the Spirit: Source of Theology, Vol. 16 of Theological Investigations, trans. David Morland (New York: Crossroad, 1983), 40.
(17) Karl Rahner, “Anonymous Christians,” in Vol. 6 of Theological Investigations, trans. Graham Harrison (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1972), 394.
(18) Henri De Lubac, A Brief Catechesis on Nature & Grace, trans. Richard Arnandez (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1984), 41.
(19) Ibid., 85.
(20) Karl Rahner and Herbert Vorgrimler, Theological Dictionary, ed. Cornelius Ernst, trans. Richard Strachan (New York: Herder and Herder, 1965), 161.
(21) This is Karl Barth’s translation of the verse. See his Epistle to the Philippians, 40th anniversary ed., trans. James W. Leitch (Lousiville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2002), 111. I believe it to be the most accurate translation given the message of the context and the statement in the following verse.
(22) See Rahner and Vorgimler, “Grace,” in Theological Dictionary, 196.

Is God a Universalist?

"I am not a universalist because there are some people that I don't want to see again. But God may be."
Jurgen Moltmann

Which Universe Do I Live in?

Before I get into a defense of Universalism, I should clarify which form of Universalism I am defending.

I don't believe that all roads lead to God, or that it doesn't matter how people live in this life because they will all be in Heaven when they die. Nor do I deny the existence of Hell.

I believe in Universal Reconciliation, which states that as long as there is a Hell, God will be trying to reconcile all of its inhabitants back to himself. In this, Jesus is the one way to salvation, but eventually everyone will choose to say Yes to him.

Is Universalism in Scripture?

Any Bible-believing Christian must at least recognize that Universalism is something God wants.

1 Timothy 2:4 says that God "wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth."

We are told in 2 Peter 3:9 that God "is patient with [us], not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance."

Similarly, in Ezekiel 33:11, God says, "I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live." So, at the very least, Unversalism sounds just as wonderful to God as it does (or should) to us.

But can we go further than that and say that all people will actually be saved?

The Psalmist of Psalm 65:2 says to God, "to you all people will come."

Psalm 86:9 says, "All nations whom you have made shall come and worship before you, O Lord, and they shall glorify your name."

Psalm 145:21 says, "all flesh will bless his holy name forever and ever."

Isaiah 2:2 says that "all nations will stream" to "the mountain of the LORD's temple."

Then, in 52:10, we are told that "all the ends of the earth will see the salvation of God."

Jesus says in John 12:32 that "when I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all people to myself."

Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians, "as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive" (15:22).

He tells us in Philippians that, "at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord" (2:10-11).

The writer of Hebrews quotes what God revealed to the prophet Jeremiah, that "No longer will they teach their neighbor, or say to one another, ‘Know the Lord,’ because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest" (8:11).

So it appears there are actually several places throughout Scripture that support Universalism. How then do we reconcile these verses with verses that talk about Hell?

Is Hell Forever?

The Greek and Hebrew words that are translated 'forever' or 'eternal' or 'everlasting' do not actually fit the description of these English words. The Hebrew word olam and the Greek words aion and aionios do not have specific durations. They do not mean "absolutely unending."

They denote time-independence, describing an age that is not bound by time and cannot be measured. It cannot be measured because the end is not known or in sight. These words mean "until the vanishing point" or "beyond the horizon."

The punishment one experiences in Hell is described in Scripture as something that is perpetual, ongoing. However, its actual duration is unknown. Thus, it does not have to be taken to mean forever.

And why should we limit God to that one thing? Why limit God to "All unrepentant sinners will go to Hell when they die and will be there forever and ever"? Does this not make us like Jonah, who, after he prophesied to the Ninevites, sat and waited for God to destroy them? He limited God to that one option. But God, when he "saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he relented and did not bring on them the destruction he had threatened" (Jon. 3:10).

Forever is a long time. Why decide for God that billions of years from now he is still going to be in Heaven thinking, "Yah, they still deserve it. I'll let them continue to suffer"? Why not let God decide how long Hell is going to last? This is what the biblical writers did. The words they used implied that people would be punished but they left the end of that punishment up to God.

Is God a Universalist?

The parable of the Lost Sheep is one of the most powerful explanations of the Father's heart that we have in Scripture. Every time I read it, I see something new and experience a little piece of the Father's love in the most magnificent way.

As an aspiring theologian, I often think about the theological implications of this parable. What does it tell us about God? Recently I have asked, what does it tell us about God and the doctrine of Hell?

But before we go there, let's look at some other parts of Scripture that tell us about the character of God.

Psalm 30:5 tells us that God's "anger lasts only a moment, but his favor lasts a lifetime."

It is revealed in 1 John 4:16 that "God is love" and in 1 Corinthians 13:8 that "Love never fails."

Similarly, in Lamentations 3:22 we are told that "the steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; his mercies never come to an end."

A few verses later, we are told that "no one is cast off by the Lord forever. Though he brings grief, he will show compassion, so great is his unfailing love" (vv.31-32).

This is similar to what James says, that "mercy triumphs over judgment" (2:13).

God tells us in Malachi 3:6, "I, the LORD, do not change."

Simarly, James tells us that "there is no variation or shifting shadow" in the Father of Lights (1:17).

So, now let us return to the parable.

God is the kind of God that leaves the 99 sheep to rescue the 1 that ran away (Lk. 15:4-7). He searches for it "until he finds it" (v.4). And "when he finds it" (v.5), he rejoices and throws a party. This is God's attitude toward sinners who run away from him.

Let us put these pieces together.

God is love. God's love never fails. (The Greek words that are used to describe punishment after death do not have to mean forever, but the Greek and Hebrew words for never are quite clear.) Though his anger comes, though he brings grief, mercy triumphs over judgment. He will show compassion because his love is unfailing. 

This is the way God is. He does not change. Though we are inconsistent, God remains the same.

What about after people die? Does God stop being the God who leaves the 99 to rescue the 1? Does his love cease? Does he stop trying?

In the Old Testament, God struggles with his people. He often threatens destruction and brings punishment, but he always ends up bringing restoration and promising ultimate reconciliation and victory. This is because, as Abraham Joshua Heschel says, "God does not delight in unleashing anger"(1) but, rather, his anger is used "to bring about repentance; its purpose and consummation is its own disappearance."(2) Ultimately, he pours out his love on his people; "It is a love that transcends the most intense anger, a love that abides in full recognition of human weakness."(3)

In the New Testament, this is beautifully revealed through Jesus, who tells us that God is not indifferent to sinners, but searches for them until he finds them. He runs to them when he sees them and embraces them as much as he can, knowing that when they sin and run away "they know not what they do" (Lk. 23:34).

Will this change once they die? Or will God keep seeking sinners even after they have chosen Hell?

Heschel said that, "All of human history as described in the Bible may be summarized in one phrase: God is in search of man."(4) I don't think this is a search that will ever end until God finds all of his creations and can embrace all of them.

So how do we reconcile the Universalist parts of Scripture with the Hell parts? We can affirm both. Yes, people will go to Hell if they choose it with their lives now (click here to see my blog about the nature of Hell for more explanation).

But, eventually, it will be that all people will come to God, all people will worship and glorify and bless his name, all nations will stream to his temple and experience salvation, all people will be drawn to Christ, all will be made alive in Christ, every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus is Lord, and everyone will know him.

Yes, I think God is a Universalist.


Notes:
(1) Abraham Joshua Heschel, The Prophets (New York: HarperCollins, 2001), 369.
(2) Ibid., 367.
(3) Ibid., 380.
(4) Heschel, God in Search of Man (New York: Farrar, Starus and Giroux, 1983), 136.

What we can learn from A. N. Whitehead about the nature of God

This is the third post that I've written about what we can learn from a liberal theologian (except Karl Barth wasn't actually liberal). I believe it is important for us to read these theologians and learn from them what we can. They will challenge us on a lot of our assumptions and can transform our thinking on several issues as well.

Alfred North Whitehead was a scientist, mathematician, philosopher, and theologian, and followed a natural religion dictated by his own philosophy.(1) Here, I will use Whitehead to challenge Christian thinking on God's impassibility, immutability, and all-controlling sovereignty over human wills.

Rather than believing in an omnipotent, timeless God, Whitehead believed that the world contained God: "the world creates God and God creates the world."(2) He did believe that God was superior to the world, but also that God evolves with the world and becomes more and more superior over time.(3)

Furthermore, Whitehead believed that there are two aspects of God: the primordial and the consequent. The primordial aspect of God represents everything in his character that remains constant, the part of God that does not change. The consequent aspect of God is God's actual experience, which constantly changes and adapts to the world, because Whitehead believed that the world affects God. He also believed that God affects the world, that he is constantly trying to influence and persuade the world with his ideals so that he may accomplish them and "enhance harmony, beauty, and enjoyment."(4)

In this God-world relationship, Whitehead believed that God does not accomplish his ideals through coercion, meaning he does not force his plans into action. He did not believe that God possesses a dominating control over everyone and everything. He believed that everyone has "free will and self-determination and may comply with God's ideal or resist it."(5) Whitehead did believe in evil as well; he held that evil is what happens when humanity resists and rejects God's ideals, and he believed this causes God to suffer, because "God is enriched and impoverished by the world's responses to his persuasive influence."(6)

In order to assess what we can learn from A.N. Whitehead, I will examine his theology of God in regards to popular Christian understandings of God as impassible, immutable, and completely sovereign over all human action.

On these subjects, Gregory Boyd has observed that, "In Western philosophical tradition, emotional vulnerability is a weakness, so we have projected onto God the attribute of 'impassibility' (above suffering). All variability is thought to be an imperfection, so God must be 'immutable' (above any sort of change). Lack of control is also an imperfection, so God meticulously controls everything."(7) These flawed philosophical assumptions are the focus of this blog.

Does God Suffer?

Jürgen Moltmann has stated that, "The one who is capable of love is also capable of suffering, for he also opens himself up to the suffering which is involved in love, and yet remains superior to it by virtue of his love."(8)
 
Anyone who reads the prophets can see that God does indeed suffer. Terence Fretheim has noted that, in the prophets, the "grief of God is as current as the people's sin."(9) Indeed, "God is revealed not as one who remains coolly unaffected by the rejection of the people, but as one who is deeply wounded by the broken relationship."(10) Harold Knight goes as far as to say that God is "the greatest sufferer of all, because He alone . . . experiences the ultimate significance of every turn and phase of [the drama of human history] in the most intimate personal way."(11) This is due to the fact that "God relates at every level with the whole person of each individual."(12) Abraham Joshua Heschel observed in the prophets that God "is personally involved in, even stirred by, the conduct and fate of man. . . . man is a perpetual concern of God . . . a factor in the life of God."(13) 

However, God's grief does not mean that he is in any way pathetic or powerless. Fretheim has added that, "while indicating that God is indeed a vulnerable God, touched and affected in the deepest possible way by what the people have done to the relationship, God's grief does not entail being emotionally overwhelmed or embittered by the barrage of rejection."(14)
 
God's suffering is in his passion. Walter Brueggeman has described this divine passion as "a propensity to suffer with and suffer for, to be in solidarity with Israel in its suffering, and by such solidarity to sustain a relationship that rightfully could be terminated."(15) God's passion is passion to the fullest extent possible: "Is Ephraim My dear son? . . . My heart (mē’eh) yearns (hāmâ) for him" (Jer. 31:20). The Hebrew words here indicate that the deepest part of God has been disturbed by a tremendous, tempestuous heartache brought about by his incomprehensible love, strong compassion, unending care and concern, and boundless empathy. This is the passion and, consequently, the suffering of God. In Jeremiah, God's sorrow over his people's rejection "is beyond healing" (8:18); he is broken for the brokenness of his people (v.21); "dismay has taken hold of [him]" (v.21), to the point where his eyes are a fountain of tears, weeping day and night (9:1).

Thus, Whitehead's understanding of God as one who is affected by the world and suffers when it rejects him is very biblical.

Does God Change?

"I, the LORD, do not change," says Malachi 3:6. And there is also James 1:17, which tells us that "there is no variation or shifting shadow" in the Father of Lights. But there are a multitude of instances in which God changed his mind (Gen. 6:6-7; Ex. 32:14; 1 Sam. 15:11, 35; 2 Sam. 24:16; 1 Kings 21:21-22, 28-29; 1 Chron. 21:15; 2 Chron. 12:5-8; Ps. 106:45; Jer. 7:5-7; 15:6; 18:8-10; 26:3,13,19; 42:10; Ezek. 20:5-22; Hos. 11:5-9; Amos 7:3,6; Jonah 3:9-10; 4:2; Joel 2:13). So his mind can change; But does anything else about him change?

What about the incarnation? The Word became flesh (John 1:14). Jesus Christ, whose nature was that of God, emptied himself and became a servant whose nature was that of humanity (Phil 2:6-8). Christ became sin (2 Cor. 5:21); he became a curse for us (Gal. 3:13). If that doesn't tell someone God can change, I don't know what will.(16) 

So what do Malachi 3:6 and James 1:17 mean when they say that God does not change? I contend that Whitehead's understanding of the two aspects of God answers that very question. There is the aspect of God that is immutable (or, in Whitehead's terms, the primordial aspect of God). For example, God is love (1 Jn. 4:8). He is and always has been and always will be love. As Boyd says, "The cross reveals the immutability of God’s love."(16) There are many other parts of his nature as well that have never changed and will never change.

However, there is also the aspect of God that adapts to the world (the consequent aspect). We can see throughout the Old and New Testaments that God adapts to the cultures of his people. Though it is safe to say that God does not approve of slavery, he put up with it in order to communicate himself to the cultures that engaged in it. Though it is safe to say that God's ideal for marriage is monogamy, he put up with men who had several wives and concubines. H. Wheeler Robinson observes that in the divine purpose, "we see the unchanging will of God, and in that sense He is the unchanging One." However, he adds that changes "are involved in the working-out of that purpose."(18) It is not that his ideals change or that his nature changes, but he does adapt to humanity in order to communicate himself to us.(19) Is this not what he did in Christ?

Thus, Whitehead's understanding of the primordial and the consequent aspects of God is also quite biblical.

Does God Control Everything?

In 2 Samuel 24, it is written that God's anger drove him to incite David to take a census of Israel and Judah (v.1). In verse 10, David is grief-stricken and convicted because taking the census was apparently a sin, so he begged the Lord to take away his guilt for being so foolish. In 1 Chronicles 21, the same story is recorded. Except, in verse 1, it says that Satan incited David to take the census! And in verse 8 David begs God to take away his guilt for listening to Satan.

I think what we see here is a change of theology. According to Heschel, "Evil was accepted because it came from God. Then people began to wonder whether it was right to hold God responsible for all misfortunes that happen to man."(20) They realized that the evil in the world could not be contributed to God, but that there was a free agent of chaos trying to kill, steal and destroy God's creation. They realized that God does not control everything, because there is evil in this world, of which God in all his goodness is not the source.

We can see throughout Scripture that God clearly does not control everything. One proof of this can be seen in the fact that God experiences opposition with his people. He suffers and is angered by their rejection of him. He often asks his people 'Why?'.

"All day long I have held out my hands to an obstinate people" (Isa. 65:2; Rom. 10:21)

"Turn! Turn from your evil ways! Why will you die, O house of Israel?" (Ez. 33:11)

"Rid yourselves of all the offenses you have committed, and get a new heart and a new spirit. Why will you die, O house of Israel?" (Ez. 18:31)

"Why then has this people turned away in perpetual backsliding? They hold fast to deceit; they refuse to return." (Jer. 8:5)

"Why have they provoked me to anger with their images, with their worthless foreign idols?" (Jer. 8:19)

If God is controlling everything and everyone, why does he face opposition? Why does he cause people to reject him, only to experience suffering and anger? Why would he ask 'Why?'? If he was in control of everyone's actions, he could make them do whatever he wanted them to do. He would never face opposition or rejection. Furthermore, if God controlled everyone and everything, why would he ask, "Why?"? It simply would not make sense, for he would be asking himself the question. He would not need to ask why if he was the one behind people's actions.

In the New Testament as well, we see people rejecting God and resisting the Holy Spirit.

"Pharisees and experts in the law rejected God's purpose for themselves" (Lk. 7:30)

"You stiff-necked people, with uncircumcised hearts and ears! You are just like your fathers: You always resist the Holy Spirit!" (Acts 7:51)

And then there are the words of Jesus himself, who said:

Jerusalem . . . how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing. (Matt. 23:37)

If God controlled everyone and everything, there would not be anyone rejecting his purpose for them or resisting his Holy Spirit. If God controlled everything, why on earth would Jesus say "you were not willing," as if the person was not controlled by his Father? If God controlled everything, to say such things would be absolutely absurd!

Thus, it is entirely biblical to believe like Whitehead that God does not coerce anyone because everyone has free will and self-determination; he can only be as persuasive as he possibly can.
Whitehead is also accurate in his depiction of God always trying to influence the world with his ideals. This is basically the mission of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. They are forever trying to draw all of humanity to their wonderful embrace. They seek to reconcile the world to themselves so that they can restore all people to the images of God that they were intended to be. They are fighting to restore peace and "enhance harmony, beauty, and enjoyment."

So you can see that there is plenty we can learn from Whitehead's theology of God. Though he did offer some ideas that are not compatible with Scripture (for such was not his concern), he emphasized a lot of ideas that, though are unusual in many Christian circles, are entirely biblical. We have seen yet again that an unorthodox theologian can challenge ideas we have that may not be biblical (and in this case, are not) and can even cause our theology to evolve into a more Scriptural, more reasonable philosophy.

Notes:
(1) See Roger E. Olson, The Story of Christian Theology: Twenty Centuries of Tradition & Reform (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1999), 600-601.
(2) Ibid., 600.
(3) Ibid.
(4) Ibid.
(5) Ibid.
(6) Ibid., 601.
(7) Gregory A. Boyd, Is God to Blame? Beyond Pat Answers to the Problem of Suffering (Grand Rapids: InterVarsity Press, 2003), 36. For a further study on this, see Jürgen Moltmann, "The apatheia of God and the freedom of man," in The Crucified God, trans. R. A. Wilson and John Bowden (New York: Harper & Row, 1974), 267-270.

(8) Moltmann, 230. Also, see H. Wheeler Robinson, Suffering, Human and Divine (London: Student Christian Movement Press, 1940), 176: "Let us wheel and attack the doctrine of divine impassibility by asking what meaning there can be in a love which is not costly to the lover?"

(9) Terence Fretheim, The Suffering of God (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1984), 111. This is a fabulous work on the subject of God's suffering and passion.
(10) Ibid., 123. 
(11) Harold Knight, The Hebrew Prophetic Consciousness (London: Lutterworth Press, 1947), 138.
(12) Fretheim, 123.
(13) Abraham Joshua Heschel, The Prophets (New York: Perennial Classics, 2001), 289, 292. This is another absolutely essential work on God's passion and suffering. Heschel refers to it as God's pathos.
(14) Fretheim, 111. 
(15) Walter Brueggemann, Theology of the Old Testament: Testimony, Dispute, Advocacy (Minneapolis, Fortress Press, 1997), 299. 
(16) I owe these insights to Greg Boyd. See Is God to Blame?, 36.
(17) Gregory A. Boyd, Repenting of Religion: Turning from Judgment to the Love of God (Baker Books, 2004), 168.
(18) Robinson, 173. For a fantastic challenge of the Christian understanding of God's immutability and impassibility, see his chapter "The Suffering of God," 158-182.
(19) I would also add that God's omniscience is also adapting with the world. As Nelson Pike states, "God is immutable with respect to His omniscience, but the specific content of God's knowledge might change. It might change as the objects and circumstances that are the objects of His knowledge change." Quoted in Linwood Urban, A Short History of Christian Thought. Rev. ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), 188-189.
(20) Heschel, 376.

Inciting the Wrath of God: Divine Hardening and Human Depravity

"But my people did not listen to my voice,
And Israel did not obey me.

So I gave them over to the stubbornness of their hearts,
To walk in their own devices."
                                         - Psalm 81:12

"Professing to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures. Therefore, God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity . . . God gave them over to degrading passions . . . God gave them over to a depraved mind."
                                                                                                - Romans 1:22-24, 26, 28

In my post "Bane and Hell: Tortured with Hope" I examined these passages in regards to the doctrine of Hell. Here, I am going to examine them in an explanation of what happens when God hardens hearts.

Perhaps the most disturbing verse on this topic can be found in Romans 9: "So then, God has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills" (v.18). This verse is used by many to support double predestination and God's absolute control over humans. John Piper, for example, says God "decides who will rebel in their hardness of unbelief and therefore deservingly be condemned." He adds that God "does not base his decision whom to harden on anything a person does." In other words, God arbitrarily picks people and hardens them--this hardening makes it impossible for one to choose to obey God and forces one to live an evil life. But don't think that this makes God responsible for one's evil, because "people who are hardened against God are really guilty. They have real fault. They are really blameworthy. They really deserve to be judged. And God decided who would be in that condition." You think this an absurdity? Piper isn't surprised, because you are thinking with a "natural, fallen human mind" and "the opinions of man don’t count for much."(1) Thus, it is simply a mystery.
If what Piper is saying was true, I do not think I could be a Christian. This kind of god is not praiseworthy, in any whatsoever.

So let me offer a different explanation.
I contend that God's hardening is his appropriate response to a person's (or a people's) depraved sinful state. In hardening, I believe God removes himself from their hearts; he severs his influence on their minds.

Plenty of biblical scholars and theologians share a similar view. Joseph Fitzmyer states that “The ‘hardening of the heart’ by God is a protological way of expressing divine reaction to persistent human obstinacy against him, a sealing of a situation arising, not from God, but from a creature that rejects divine invitation."(2) Likewise, Abraham Joshua Heschel contends that God's wrath "is never a spontaneous outburst, but a reaction occasioned by the conduct of man."(3) Indeed, Morgan Guyton suggests that "God's οργή [wrath] is the proliferation of sin itself."(4)
 
God's hardening looks exactly like the passages quoted at the top. People refuse to listen to God's voice; they disobey him; they become stubborn; they become fools; they replace God with earthly things; they lust in impurity and fill themselves with degrading passions. So then, God gives them over to a depraved mind. He withdraws his influence from them. Gregory Boyd says that "the essence of God’s 'wrath' against sin is simply allowing evil to run its self-destructive course."(5)
 
"How abysmal stubbornness can be," Heschel observes, "Man rears his own despots--idols, lies, perversions; he labors to prepare his own disaster. Is he insane?"(6) Sins themselves are steps to absolute depravity. Such was the nature of the fall: "one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind" (if you will).

Humanity was created in God's image; though the fall corrupted humanity, it did not destroy the Spirit of God inside them. From the beginning, God's grace has been the ever-present hand extended towards humanity, constantly pleading that they grab hold of it and be reconciled back to his image. But there comes a point (which you may call 'the point of no return') when people cross a line. In Isaiah 65 God laments, "I have held out my hands to an obstinate people, who walk in ways that are not good, pursuing their own imaginations--a people who continually provoke me to my very face . . . who say, 'Keep to yourself, do not come near me" (vv.2-3, 5). This is the point where God pulls back his hands.

It is almost as if sin becomes one's exhortation to God to harden his heart. Indeed, in all of the times God is recorded to have hardened someone's heart, he was hardening a heart that was already, if not mostly, hard. Heschel says, 

It seems that the only cure for willful hardness is to make it absolute. Half-callousness, paired with obstinate conceit, seeks no cure. When hardness is complete, it becomes despair, the end of conceit. Out of despair, out of total inability to believe, prayer bursts forth. . . . Where signs and words from without fail, despair within may succeed.(7)

A perfect example of this is found in the most famous (or infamous) occurrence of divine hardening. That is, the hardening of Pharoah.

The first instance of this is found in Exodus 4: God tells Moses to perform before Pharaoh all the wonders for which he has given him the power, and then he says, "but I will harden his heart so that he will not let the people go" (v.21). It must be said that the "so that" does not actually appear in the Hebrew text. It would be more accurate to either split the statements up or say "I will harden his heart and he will not let the people go." The difference is that, in the former, God is purposefully going to harden his heart so that he will not let the people go; whereas, in the latter, God is merely stating a fact. This could very likely be God's prediction that he will harden Pharoah's heart and, consequently, Pharoah will not let the people go. The same thing appears in 7:3-4 (the second occurrence of the phrase). 

Later, there is one instance that says, "When Pharaoh saw that the rain and hail and thunder had stopped, he sinned again: He and his officials hardened their hearts. So Pharaoh's heart was hard and he would not let the Israelites go, just as the LORD had spoken through Moses" (9:34-35, emphasis mine). This verse is most likely referring to 4:21 and 7:3-4. Yet, in the fulfillment of these verses, Pharoah hardens his own heart! Thus, when God says "I will harden Pharoah's heart," rather than telling Moses that he will override Pharaoh's free will and force him into a state of depraved stubbornness, he is predicting(8) the inevitable based on his knowledge of Pharaoh's sinful state. 

Indeed, in the next seven occurrences after God's prediction, Pharoah hardens his own heart (Ex. 7:14, 22; 8:15, 19, 32; 9:7, 34-35). After these, there are four verses in which God hardens his heart (Ex. 9:12; 10:20, 27; 14:8). So then, when God hardened Pharoah's heart, he was merely giving Pharoah over to the depraved mind he was already seeking. He was making Pharoah's willful hardness absolute by withdrawing from his heart. He was letting Pharoah's sin take its self-destructive course.

It should also be noted that this "divine hardening did not override Pharoah's decision-making powers."(9) After all, Pharoah did end up letting the people go. But what is interesting is the response of Pharoah's servants after being hardened. They hardened their hearts (9:34), and consequently God hardened their hearts (10:1); however, they responded by begging Pharoah to change his mind: "How long will this man be a snare to us? Let the people go, so that they may worship the LORD their God. Do you not yet realize that Egypt is ruined?" (10:7). It seems that Heschel was right: the despair within them from their absolute hardness of heart caused them to surrender.

God is not an arbitrary puppet-master that forces half of his puppets into a hell-bound state of hardness. He is a God of love, never giving up in his mission to reconcile humanity back to himself. He seeks man's heart in every way that he possibly can. But there comes a point when man rejects him so much that God gives him what he wants. Man says "Keep to yourself! Do not come near me!" and God responds, "As you wish." In that state, he can either see his utter need for God, or he can reject the Holy Spirit. This, I believe, is why rejection of the Holy Spirit is the only unforgivable sin. Because the Holy Spirit is the embodiment of God's mission to reconcile humanity back to him. The Holy Spirit is within man and all around him, forever trying to influence him. When man fully rejects the Holy Spirit and his work, there is no more that can be done, for he has cast out his only hope. He has smacked God's hand away and has given an adamant 'No!' to the offer of grace. This is unforgivable because man will not go back after this. He will not seek forgiveness or receive it.

"How abysmal stubbornness can be. Man rears his own despots--idols, lies, perversions;
he labors to prepare his own disaster. Is he insane?"

But how does this understanding of hardening fit with Romans 9:18? Well, the context is the key to this verse, so you should check out my blog on Romans 9. But without reading another couple thousand words, when you consider what it means for God to harden someone's heart, and what the meaning of God's wrath truly is, the verse is no longer intimidating. That is, God's hardening does not mean he is making someone evil, but rather that he is withdrawing from the person's heart and his withdrawal causes the heart to harden. Furthermore, God only does this when the person is rejecting his will or resisting his Spirit (cf. Luk. 7:30; Acts 7:51). Thus, Paul here is merely stating that God retains the right to harden people if he so chooses. He is not at all advocating for an arbitrary God who hardens people regardless of what they have done, as Piper suggests.

To conclude, it must also be remembered that God's wrath is never what God wants. "God's heart is not of stone," says Heschel, "God does not delight in unleashing anger," but rather, his wrath is executed in order "to bring about repentance; its purpose and consummation is its own disappearance."(10) In Ezekiel 22, God says "I looked for a man among them who would build up the wall and stand before me in the gap on behalf of the land so I would not have to destroy it, but I found none. So I will pour out my wrath on them . . ." (vv.30-31). Throughout the Old Testament there are people who plead to God not to unleash his wrath upon his people. And many, many times God changed his mind. This is because God is not one who loves and desires to unleash his wrath. God is one who suffers when he has to use it. He is one who is always looking for a reason to show mercy, as he was in Ezekiel 22. Yes, God can harden whomever he chooses, he can withdraw his influence from whomever he chooses, but he only chooses to if he absolutely must. And I contend that it is never because he desires to, and it is never something he enjoys. Furthermore, Heschel has added that "Judgment, far from being absolute, is conditional. A change in man's conduct brings about a change in God's judgment. No word is God's final word."(11) God's love endures forever! Thus, love is going to be the victor. God is long-suffering as he wrestles with humanity; and his patience is due to his confidence that he will win the hearts of his creations. No word is God's final word when his purpose is the reconciliation of all of his poiéma (Eph. 2:10).

Notes:
(1) All of these quotes were pulled from John Piper, "The Hardening of Pharaoh and the Hope of the World," DesiringGod.org, http://www.desiringgod.org/resource-library/sermons/the-hardening-of-pharaoh-and-the-hope-of-the-world
(2) Joseph A. Fitzmyer, Romans, Vol. 33 of The Anchor Bible, eds. William Foxwell Albright and David Noel Freedman (New York: Doubleday, 1993), 568.
(3) Abraham Joshua Heschel, The Prophets (New York: Perennial Classics, 2001), 362. 
(4) Morgan Guyton, "4 Cringe-worthy Claims of Popular Penal Substitution Theology," Huffington Post, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/morgan-guyton/four-cringeworthy-claims-_b_1631944.html
(5) Gregory A. Boyd, "How do you explain the violent judgement of Ananias and Sapphira," Reknew.org, http://reknew.org/2012/08/how-do-you-explain-the-violent-judgement-of-ananias-and-sapphira/
(6) Heschel, 242.
(7) Ibid., 244, emphasis mine.
(8) The New Living Translation actually translates Ex. 9:35 "just as the LORD had predicted through Moses."
(9) Terence Fretheim, Exodus (Louisville: John Knox Press, 1991), 99.
(10) Heschel, 376, 369, 367.
(11) Ibid., 247, emphasis mine.