How do Arminians deal with this passage?

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eternally-gratefull

Guest
#61
#61
Depleted said:
It has been made clear by quite a few people that Calvinism is a terrible belief system. God can't possibly be choosing who he will save and choosing who he won't save. We have free will, for Pete's sake. But my memories of Arminian-think are fading. So, I ask your help.

Arminians, how do you handle these verses in The Gospel of John?

Joh 12:37 Though he had done so many signs before them, they still did not believe in him,
Joh 12:38 so that the word spoken by the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled: "Lord, who has believed what he heard from us, and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?"
Joh 12:39 Therefore they could not believe. For again Isaiah said,
Joh 12:40 "He has blinded their eyes and hardened their heart, lest they see with their eyes, and understand with their heart, and turn, and I would heal them."
Joh 12:41 Isaiah said these things because he saw his glory and spoke of him.
Joh 12:42 Nevertheless, many even of the authorities believed in him, but for fear of the Pharisees they did not confess it, so that they would not be put out of the synagogue;
Joh 12:43 for they loved the glory that comes from man more than the glory that comes from God.

How could God possibly blind eyes and harden hearts for fear otherwise he'd have to heal them?
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the term harden ones heart means to strengthen ones heart. God strengthens their belief system, bcause he knows their heart. And they want absolutely nothing to do with him.

They way you do it is you keep putting truth in their face, the more they see the truth and deny what they KNOW to be true (see romans 1) the easier it is for them to not believe, the more their heart is strengthened to there point of view. They thing they KNOW is true (again romans 1) becomes a faded memory, and it is easier to reject.

God did that to pharaoh, he started light, then strengthened him even more by putting more truth in, by harder testing, until Pharoah reached the point that even after seeing his own son die, he still was in rebellion and unbelief.

He did the same to the pharisees, and the religious jews. Many who did not believe, because they did not want to. They wanted king messiah not the suffering servant, So god kept exposing them to truth to harden their heart.

Yet many of them still believed (Saul became paul, Nicodemus, and many others)
 
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eternally-gratefull

Guest
#62
#62
By the way I am not Armenian, I am neither Armenian or calvanism. I am just a bible believeing adopted child of God.
 
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