Without divine choices, everyone is free only to challenge God.
Man can only sin and continue on his deviant path, unless and until he is straightened by the Spirit of God.
? Martin Luther
As we said earlier, we have released a new type of article in Back to the Gospel: Let’s Go Back to the Classics, where we will read and discuss together a book that is a classic of Christian literature. read chapter 3 (up to page 85) of the book Nascido Escravo.
Romans 9! It’s an hour, isn’t it? There is no way to debate “free will,” not to mention Jacob and Sau and the famous “hardening of Pharaoh. “In this third chapter, Luther deals with the interpretation of Erasmo of Romans 9 and the texts quoted there, Exodus 9. 12 and Malachi 1. 2-3.
But before we begin, we must recognize that this is certainly not an easy question. Luther himself confesses, with strong images, the internal conflict he had, more than once:
Of course, will men oppose the idea that God?Is that good? He can abandon, harden, and condemn them, as if he were pleasing in their sins and eternal torment. I myself have stumbled on this point more than once, falling into the deepest abyss of despair, wishing I had never been born. . (This happened before I knew how healthy this despair is and how close it is to divine grace. ) Is that why the men tried to find her?Explanations?
Led, we are called to know God and worship Him in all his majesty. We can’t leave a part out, because we don’t like it or because it’s so hard. Know and continue to know the Lord? (6. 3), recognizing our limitations and asking for the help of divine grace.
As we have said, Luther will challenge Erasmo’s interpretation of Romans 9 First, Luther accuses Erasmo of interpreting the words: “I will harden his heart,” as if they meant, “My long patience, with which I tolerate the sinner. , and which leads others to repentance, only causes Pharaoh to persist more and more in his wickedness, “and reverses the meaning of”. Will Pharaoh’s heart harden his own heart?(70).
Luther states that we must accept the clearest meaning of the text unless such an explanation is absurd (69) and the clear meaning of the text is:
When God said, “I will harden Pharaoh’s heart,” he said, “I will harden Pharaoh’s heart. “God, with the greatest certainty, knew and, with the greatest certainty, declared that Pharaoh’s heart would harden. With the same certainty, God knew that Pharaoh could not avoid divine actions against him, and God also knew that as a result, pharaoh would certainly get worse, ill will can only want to do evil, even when God brings good to exert a beneficial influence, as in the case of the gospel?He’s enduing. (75)
Now it’s important to make an observation. Some of you may think, “How could God do this with a pure heart?”Isn’t that what Luther says, because there is no pure heart?About the fallen man! The fact that God hardens Pharaoh does not mean that God hardens a neutral heart, Luther repeatedly affirms that God was hardening a wicked heart!Here is Luther’s answer:
“My answer is that, apart from the grace of choice, God treats men according to their nature; because their nature is evil and perverted, when God exhorts them to act, their actions are evil and perverted (73).
“God does not create a new evil in the hearts of men, on the contrary, He uses evil that is already in his heart, for his own good and wise purposes” (74).
In short, God hardens Pharaoh’s heart, but this does not stand in the way of Pharaoh’s nature. God hardens a heart of stone.
Here’s what Luther says
Why doesn’t God change the wicked will of people like Pharaoh?This question touches the secret will of God, whose ways are unsonable (Rom. 11:33). If someone who is guided by her human reason is offended by her, so be it. Complaints will change nothing and God’s chosen ones will stand firm. We might also wonder why God dropped Adam. We must not try to establish rules for God, God does it is not right because we approve it, but because God wants it.
Remember that I suggested separating the spheres of discussion on free will: salvation and providence?Here, the debate moves to providence. The question we must ask ourselves is: if God has planned something, can this event be changed?
For Luther, does divine prescience eliminate free will?(76-77) and if it exists, would God be a very weak and pathetic deity if his prescience were not trustworthy and if he could be countered by events?(78).
However, when God predicts something, it happens because He foretold it. If you do not accept it, it undermines all of God’s threats and promises. I was denying God Himself. (77)
The natural reason must admit that God would be a very weak and pathetic deity if his prescience were not trustworthy and if he could be countered by events (78).
Erasmo states that “In God’s unwavering prescience, Judas was fatally destined to become a traitor; Still, was Judas able to change his will?Luther finds this contradictory, because if Judas had been able to change his will, then God would have misjudged him. In other words, if God foreseed A, could B occur?If the answer is no, for Luther, man cannot have “free will. “
Let’s move on to the controversial text: “I loved Jacob and I hated (or hated) Sau. “One of Erasmo’s answers remains very common today: “Isn’t God’s hatred equal to that of man?that “hating means less love”). But, as Luther points out, that’s not the point!He said, “Now everyone knows that God’s love and wrath are not like human passions; However, the question we face now does not compel us to ask ourselves how God loves or hates us, but why does God love or hate?(81).
In other words, you’re asking the wrong question. Even if getting bored means “loving less,” the big question is not this one, but why God odo, he sned, loved less (as he wanted).
Then why did God bother Sau? The usual answer is that Esau was bad. Yes, it’s a fact, but that’s not what the Text of Romans 9 says!Here’s what Luther says:
“God’s love and wrath are not subject to change, as is the case with us. In God, they are both eternal and immutable. Free will? It’s possible. We see in this that neither God’s love nor anger awaits human reaction, but precedes it. [?] What could have made God love Jacob or hate Sau?Certainly, not for anything they did, because God’s attitude toward them was established and declared even before they were born. Wasn’t there much free will action?(81)
Finally, we have the text of the glass for honor and dishonor. Erasme shoots 2 Timothy 2: 20-21 (? If someone cleanses the most of these things, will it be a glass of honor?) To show that the glass of Romans 9 had free will, since it purifies itself, that is, an out-of-context text. Luther shows how the texts speak of totally different things, noting that 2 Timothy speaks: of the personal piety of the believer?(83).
Many say that this interpretation would make God unjust, and that is exactly what Paul preceded in the discussion of Romans 9, Luther says:
Now you’re using human reasoning. You cannot accept God’s right to throw the wicked into eternal fire, because, as you suggest, this is unreasonable, because God created the wicked as they are, and then the truth comes to light!Do you take the same position as whistleblowers, as Paul quotes in Romans 9:19:?What is [God’s] complaining about again? For those who have never resisted his will. That said, human reason requires God to act according to human ideas about what is right and what is wrong; And the sovereign who created all things must submit to his own creation!
When God saves those who deserve to be condemned, no one complains, but when God condemns them, a great protest is heard (84).
It’s your turn!
1) Who hardened the heart first?
2) Why did God love Jacob and odoo ToEsau?
3) What struck you most in this chapter?
4) Anything you don’t agree with?