The grace and peace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with all of you.
My good friend, “Little One0307,” asked me to respond to this thread.
*Hi, guys —
Scripture states:
Exodus 9 [12] But the Lord hardened the heart of pharaoh, and he did not listen to them; as the Lord had spoken to Moses.
In the above passages from Exodus, the Lord has hardened the Pharaoh’s heart. However, it would seem that God is not the cause of the hardness of his heart. Basically, God is good, and therefore, he would not harden anyone’s heart so that they can commit evil.
•Is this true or false?
St. Augustine says that God does not cause the human being to become worse.
St. Thomas Aquinas says that God is the cause of the hardness of the heart.
•Well, who’s right?
Both of these people are saints and Doctors of the Church. Both are highly regarded to be geniuses in the theology.
Please help,
I’m really curious.
Eric*
{ Would God harden someone’s heart? St. Augustine and St. Thomas appear to disagree. }
**Paul replied:
Hello Eric,
I admit the passages you speak of are a bit perplexing; but is it not possible that both Augustine and Aquinas are correct?
•Could God not have hardened the pharaoh’s heart as a response to the stubbornness freely chosen by the pharaoh?
A more philosophical look at this could see God is the First Cause of all things. We, as secondary causes, freely act as extensions of the First Cause. So whenever we do anything, we could say that God is the Ultimate Cause of it occurring; yet it is our fault if we choose not to cooperate as a secondary cause with God’s will.
There is a mystery here that has the First Cause and human free will working simultaneously, creating what is known as God’s positive will (when we cooperate with Him) and God’s permissive will (when we don’t).
Regardless, in the bigger picture, that only can God, in His eternal perspective can see, He will bring about a greater good from all of it.
Paul**
Additionally, I found the following replys from “Radio Replys.”:
Is it, then, God’s will that people should suffer from such terrible diseases as cancer?
We must distinguish between God’s positive will, and His permissive will. He positively wills all the good that happens. Suffering He permits to occur, and this only when he foresees that good can result from it. He positively wills that I should be holy. If He foresees that I will make use of good health to sin and to lose my soul, He may mercifully permit my health to be ruined, and thus lead me to Him where He would otherwise lose me. There would have been no diseases had men not sinned. God did not will sin, but having made men free, He permitted it and its consequences. This permission was a less serious thing than would have been the depriving us of our freedom.
If God is loving, just, and all-powerful, why does He permit moral evil, or sin?
Because God is Love, He asks the freely given love of man, and not a compelled love. Because He is just, He will not deprive man of the free will which is in accordance with his rational nature. Nor is this against the omnipotence of God, for even His power does not extend to contradictory things. Man cannot be free to love and serve God, without being free to reject Him and rebel against Him. We cannot have it both ways. Even God, if He wants men to be free, cannot take from them the power to choose evil. If He enforces goodness, He takes away freedom. If He leaves freedom, He must permit evil, even though He forbids it. It is man’s dignity that he is master of his own destiny instead of having to develop just like a tree which necessarily obeys natural law. Men, as a matter of fact, misused their freedom, and sin and brutality resulted. But it was impossible to give man the gift of freedom and the dignity of being master of his own destiny without risking the permission of such failures.
Do you tell me that a good God permits deformed children, with a lifetime of misery before them?
God is certainly good, and if He permits evil of any kind it is only because He knows that He can draw greater good from it in the end. The human race misused its freedom, abandoned God, and found not happiness but misery. It is good to be just, and God’s justice permitted this misery. Also, in His wisdom, He may permit a child to be born deformed who with health and strength would fling itself into pleasures which wold end in eternal loss. Again, an imbecile is incapable of sin, and it would often seem to us a mercy had some apparently sane people been born imbeciles. Poor people, whether mentally or bodily deformed, do not spend the whole of their lives in misery and suffering. We must remember that what we call “the whole of their lives” is not confined to this earth. There is a continuance of existence in eternity, where all well be rectified.
Hope this helps.
God bless you,
Quis ut Deus 3
Which will this fits: