Are We Born with Hard Hearts?

Are We Born with Hard Hearts?

Contra Total Depravity, part 4

The Calvinistic doctrine of Total Depravity asserts that every person before they were saved is incapable of coming to God because of their sin because all they desire is their sin and so they cannot do anything else but sin. According to this doctrine, they cannot believe in God unless God first saves them and gives them a new heart so that they can respond to God in faith. Therefore, they must be born with stone cold hearts bent towards sin, already hardened against God, against moral good, being born also with a darkened understanding, incapable of perceiving the good of God or even wanting God. That is essentially what Total Depravity entails.

However, this is a very unfeasible position to maintain, especially since the Bible mentions how people’s hearts become hardened over time through sin and rebellion. But if they become hardened over time, wouldn’t it be redundant and useless to even mention the hardening if they were in fact born that way? How does a hardened heart against God become hardened? It cannot. For something to become something else, it must exist in a state other than that thing it would become. Otherwise, there is no becoming, there is only a continuing to be what it is already. For example, we could turn vanilla ice-cream into chocolate by adding chocolate syrup but we cannot turn chocolate ice-cream into chocolate ice-cream since it already is chocolate. Its substantive flavor remains the same. The same is true for a heart that becomes hardened. It has to begin not hardened in order for it to become hardened. Otherwise, it does not become anything. It just is. Therefore, the Calvinists have to maintain this irrationality to keep their TULIP doctrine.

But if humanity is totally depraved, why does Romans 2:14-15 say, “For when Gentiles who do not have the Law do instinctively the things of the Law, these, not having the Law, are a law to themselves, in that they show the work of the Law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness and their thoughts alternately accusing or else defending them”? So they have a conscience, the law is written on their hearts, and they instinctively obey the law. But how could they possibly do anything instinctively good if all of their senses are totally depraved? It would not be possible, would it?

How also do we come to terms with Romans 1:19 where it says that the truth of God and the knowledge of God “is evident within them”? But if their senses were totally depraved, the truth would not be evident within them, would it? It could not be. It would have to be only outside of themselves, for anything inside would not be able to be perceived with darkened hearts. But it is for the very reason that it is evident to their senses and apparent to them that they are then able to suppress that truth. But is it even possible to suppress something that someone does not see or notice? No, it is not, for there is nothing to suppress at that point. Does a man who is born blind, suppress himself from seeing the light and colors of the world? Of course not. That is ridiculous. He is simply not able to see those things and so there is nothing to be suppressed. But if a man who has sight closes his eyes off to the world, turns his face or eyes away, or crosses his eyeballs, then he could legitimately be suppressing to see what is right in front of him. And so it is a similar case spoken of here in Romans 1 that men suppress the truth not because they were born spiritually blind, unable to perceive the spiritual things of God and the truth about God, but they consciously chose to suppress the truth because they want to live in their ungodliness. The truth was evident to their own hearts, to their eyes of the created world around them, and to their consciences and the law written on their hearts also giving proof that morality and the standards of right and wrong could not have originated from random chance or spontaneous development.

Paul further goes on to say that the reality of God has “been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse” (v. 20). But can someone understand something that they cannot understand? No, they cannot. But it is by their ability to understand that is the very reason for which they are “without excuse.” But if they were incapable of understanding and perceiving God, then they would certainly have an excuse, would they not? Surely, that would be a legitimate excuse to present to God on judgement day saying, “God, you made me incapable of understanding spiritual things and incapable of perceiving my need of your grace and incapable of coming to you in faith, and for this reason, it is not my fault.”

But this is not the reality. The reality is that they were truly capable of understanding spiritual things and responding to God and for that reason they will be accountable before God on judgement day. The things that were made evident to them were truly evident to them, being truly understood, truly perceived, and truly suppressed, so that they are truly without excuse.

If we take a closer look into Romans 1, we will see that people were not born with hardened hearts against God but their hardening began once they started to suppress the truth in their own unrighteousness. After this, their heart becomes darkened even further by not honoring God or giving thanks, as it says, “their foolish heart was darkened” (v. 21). Then they move to idol worship (v. 22-23). After this, they progress even further into depravity to the lusts of their heart and flesh as it says three times “God gave them over.” Each time God gives them over to their sin, it becomes progressively worse and their heart becomes even more hard until they reach the point of “a depraved mind.” This is the progression of sin, unbelief, and its consequences but people don’t start out depraved. They were not born that way. This is developed behavior and thought patterns over time.

Someone might point to Romans 3 which gives a very bleak description of mankind in how no one understands, seeks for God, or who does good, and their throats are like an open grave, and the poison of vipers is under their lips, and they are quick to murder people. But does that description fit better with the starting point of mankind’s condition when they were born? Or does it fit better with this understanding of mankind’s condition after they have hardened their hearts in rebellion against God and have pursued all kinds of evils with a depraved mind? Certainly, it would fit the latter description better.

Or would you find it more reasonable to believe that your two-year old son would kill you if he had the chance or that all your unsaved friends would take pleasure in murdering you? Or that all the unsaved people you know only do evil and never do a good deed with right motives? All that seems quite unlikely, doesn’t it? Perhaps it would be more likely then that Paul is not describing every individual in existence but rather humanity in general and all types of evils that humanity is capable of and guilty before God in doing. That is indeed a more likely scenario, considering that Paul is quoting from the Psalms and Isaiah, which tends to be literature which is not of the super-literal sort in its very nature. We would be wise then to not apply the most literal hermeneutic and not force a philosophical framework into the text.

In Acts 28:26-28 Paul quotes Isaiah speaking of the developed condition of Israel that had hardened their hearts against the truth and says:

Go to this people and say,
“You will keep on hearing, but will not understand;
And you will keep on seeing, but will not perceive;
For the heart of this people has become dull,
And with their ears they scarcely hear,
And they have closed their eyes;
Otherwise they might see with their eyes,
And hear with their ears,
And understand with their heart and return,
And I would heal them.”’

Do you see that? The heart of this people had become dull. They did not start out dull. And the dullness was specific to “this people,” the Israelites. Then Paul says to the Jews who would not listen to him, “Therefore let it be known to you that this salvation of God has been sent to the Gentiles; they will also listen.” So although the Jews had hardened their hearts and their hearing had become dull, this was not the case with many of the Gentiles because they would listen. But neither of them were born with totally depraved and hardened hearts. They had their eyes opened at one time but then for the Jews, they closed their eyes. They were not born blind. Instead, they chose not to see.

In Ephesians 4:17-19 it says, “So this I say, and affirm together with the Lord, that you walk no longer just as the Gentiles also walk, in the futility of their mind, being darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of their heart; and they, having become callous, have given themselves over to sensuality for the practice of every kind of impurity with greediness.”

Before, we mentioned how the Gentiles would listen, and have the capability for understanding and perceiving the truth. But here, their understanding is darkened and they are ignorant. But why? Because of the hardness of heart they had developed, because they had become callous, and gave themselves over to sin. That sounds a lot like the progression we saw in Romans 1, doesn’t it?

In similar way, 1 Timothy 4:1-2 speaks about in the later days, “some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons, by means of the hypocrisy of liars seared in their own conscience as with a branding iron…” They were not born with seared consciences, completely insensitive to the spiritual and moral world, but their consciences became seared through listening to deceitful and demonic doctrines.

Multiple times in the book of Hebrews, the author’s readers are exhorted to not harden their own hearts (Heb 3:8, 15; 4:7), indicating that the hardening of one’s heart is the progression of spiritual and moral insensitivity and is within one’s control to not harden his or her own heart.

In conclusion, the Bible does not teach that people are born with hardened hearts, incapable of understanding, perceiving, or accepting spiritual truth. The Romans 1 & 3 characteristics of unsaved people are not descriptions of every person without exception, but rather, general descriptions of what unsaved people can become. Therefore, Romans 1, 3, and other passages do not support the Calvinistic doctrine of Total Depravity and total inability. Additionally, the rational implications of one’s ability to harden one’s own heart, close one’s own eyes, and choose to suppress the truth, would indicate that people are not by default completely incapable of responding to God. The knowledge about God being evident within oneself, and the truth of God being “clearly seen” and “understood” so that people are without excuse, also strongly implies that they are truly able to see and perceive and were not born spiritually blind but were rather born with spiritual sensitivities which are capable of responding to God. The Gentiles in Acts 28:28 are a prime example of this in comparison to the Jews as the Gentiles were capable of listening and responding to the gospel message while the Jews had hardened their hearts against it.

In the next article, we will review the hardening spoken of in Romans 9-11