I've often been told on this very site that God has hardened my heart. Why would he mess with my free will? I can see he is a made-up god like the rest of them by myself, thankyouverymuch.
2007-04-09 03:04:15 · 42 answers · asked by Anonymous in Society & Culture ➔ Religion & Spirituality
LOL, the 'suggested category' for this was Health > Diseases & Conditions > Heart Diseases.
2007-04-09 03:06:13 · update #1
You still have free will to do as you please, but you still have a conscience to guide you.
2007-04-09 03:10:51 · answer #1 · answered by txofficer2005 6 · 0⤊ 1⤋
God does not harden our hearts. Life might do that do us, but we can all change that oursleves. People may think this way, but everyone has the free will to decide about God. If He hardened our hearts, you are correct that would be messing with free will to choose Him or not to choose Him. God is too loving for that. I don't know why someone would say that to you who is a Christian.
Actually until sometime in the period after the rapture, God will claim all believers as his own. He will even give non-believers another chance after the Rapture for those who need the physical proof. At a certain point, you cannot change your mind any longer, but that is God's choice. Hopefully, people come to believe in Him before that time period.
I do have to say though, if you believe He is made up, why would you be worried about this subject at all? Take the time to accept Him now and ask forgiveness. That little doubt that you have inside that is making you worry is God trying to talk to you. He loves you! He will take away your doubts and worries if you accept Him!
2007-04-09 03:18:15 · answer #2 · answered by debrenee211 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Who says you have free will and where would you get such a thing? An atheistic world would certainly not give it to you. According to pure materialism, your mind and behavior is simply the product of your biology -- you are just a computer made out of meat. There's no free will in that; it's just an illusion foisted upon you by nature.
For you to even begin to have free will you'd have to have something that transcends the material world: a soul. Even that is no guarantee of free will, but it makes it more reasonable. Assuming you've got free will, it doesn't necessarily mean that it is free to do everything possible to do (I can't fly, after all). If the Christian story is true, then your will is enslaved to sin, whether or not it is free in the general sense. Your heart is already "hardened" in a sense. All God has to do to harden it to any further degree is to withhold His common grace, which He employs to minimize the effect of sin in your life and your pursuit of it.
Much of this language of "hardening of the heart" comes from the story of Moses and Pharaoh. But even here you will see that it says both that God hardened his hear and that Pharaoh hardened his own heart. There is an interplay of will occurring, but it was never as though Pharaoh simply wanted to be an obedient believer but God wouldn't let Him. Besides, if God has created you and this entire universe, what is fair and unfair for God to do? How do you judge such a thing -- certainly not by the standard of putting yourself and your own "will" above God? And what it is fair or unfair where unbelievers are concerned?
2007-04-09 03:31:03 · answer #3 · answered by Scott P 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I don't see Pharaoh as having been saved in the first place, so what difference does it make if God hardened his heart even further than what he would have done if left to his own desires? We most definitely have free will, but we do not have the capability to make a decision for Christ. And neither is God messing with your free will. See John 3:18 for scriptural comments on your statements of nonbelief.
2007-04-09 10:47:34 · answer #4 · answered by ccrider 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
hello there,
Your heat is not that bad, you would not even be here in the "Religion & Spirituality" section if you had a Hard heart. (-:
the only time God had ever been responsible for Hardening (Or increasing ungodly Pride) in someones heart, was Pharaoh in Exodus.
Every other time is when man Chooses his own Pride in thinking there is no God.
So we place no blame on God.
If you claim he is "made up", then you claim to have knowledge of the entire universe, knowing there is no possibility of him existing,, do you really know this?
Ah, im just playing, but God has something nice for you if you acknowledge him...
Ezekiel 36:26
And I will give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit in you. I will take out your stony, stubborn heart and give you a tender, responsive heart.
warmest regards,
(-:
2007-04-09 03:18:34 · answer #5 · answered by Dr. Phil 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Firstly, life and the experiences you have harden your heart. While we are 'civilized humans' we are still animals and this world can be hard place at times. This does alter your 'free will' by affecting the choices available to you and your response to the decisions we all constantly make. A hardened heart will make you less gullible and open to attack. It may make you more callous and self promoting but there are also ethics that may counter react choosing these options.
2007-04-09 03:15:39 · answer #6 · answered by Kev 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
God does not harden peoples hearts in the sense that he makes it so you do not believe in Him. That is always your choice. I would suggest that (even if you don't believe in "him" either), that Satan probably has more to do with it than God does.
Anytime I hear someone say that God is made up I have nothing but pity for them. Not pity about what the future holds, but pity because I know they are losing out on the power of God in their lives today. Having a personal relationship with your Creator is something so special that nothing can compare to it. I hope that some day you will make the choice to believe in Him...but that is up to you.
2007-04-09 03:13:36 · answer #7 · answered by Poohcat1 7 · 1⤊ 1⤋
Simple answer, they’re wrong.
God doesn’t harden the soul; we do it ourselves when we refuse to be open to him.
If your plants don’t receive rain for a long time, they dry out. That’s what happens to the soul without God. It becomes dry and hard. In a drought, if the land has not received rain for a long time the ground becomes crusted and hard. When it finally rains the water rolls right off without absorbing.
This is what happens to us. God does not harden the soul. We choose to do that ourselves. But no matter how dry and hard the soul becomes, God is willing to quench our thirst, if we only ask.
2007-04-09 03:22:15 · answer #8 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
"Hardening your heart", in other words, means that God is leaving you with your decisions: your own free will.
No one has the knowledge or right to tell you that God has hardened your heart. They don't know that.
I don't believe God has hardened your heart. God said He came for EVERYONE. That means you.
You still ponder God. He hasn't given up on you. He will never give up on you.
You're running.
Why not give Him a chance?
2007-04-09 03:11:22 · answer #9 · answered by Dianne C 3 · 1⤊ 1⤋
Yeah, I always got a kick out of how the bible says that "God" hardens people's hearts so they don't believe and then he punishes them for it! Talk about a set up! Just another example of the inhumane nature of the Christian god.
2007-04-09 05:28:05 · answer #10 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
a million) isn't the hardening of Pharaoh's coronary heart evidence that God is prepared to intervene with "loose Will"? specific 2) If God will meddle in super affairs, he will meddle in small affairs. He hardened Pharaoh's coronary heart so as that he could attack the Israelites... against his will. not neccesarily authentic, after the ideal plague Pharoh lower back desperate to attack the Isrealites it truly is who he strengthen into. 3) If Pharaoh had to attack the Israelites without intervention, God does not have intervened. you don't recognize that, he could desire to have had the plan to chase them and kill all of them alongside. that's impossible so which you would be able to state the above as a actuality. 4) So would not this teach that "loose will" is in basic terms lip service to a God which will intervene including your meant loose will? in case you're walking around the line and that i see a vehicle coming in direction of you and that i yank you out of how, strengthen into it your will to be yanked or my will to yank you? If absolutely everyone has freewill the guy with the more suitable will, gets his way. Your will to calmly walk around the line strengthen into eclipsed via my will to keep you. 5) God chosen Pharaoh's destiny. Its in the Bible... till the Bible is incorrect... Or till you interpreted it incorrect. God did not tell pharoh to pursue the Isrealites as quickly as they have been set loose. How do you recognize God did not harden his coronary heart to spare his existence? If I observed all forms of plagues i does not pursue those people and yet pharoh nonetheless did. Pharoh needed conflict understanding finished properly that God worked on behalf of the Isrealites.
2016-10-02 10:16:33 · answer #11 · answered by faim 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋