By Jimmy Stephens

John 12:37-41

3⁷ But though He had performed so many signs in their sight, they still were not believing in Him. ³⁸ This happened so that the word of Isaiah the prophet which he spoke would be fulfilled: “Lord, who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?” ³⁹ For this reason they could not believe, for Isaiah said again, ⁴⁰ “He has blinded their eyes and He hardened their heart, so that they will not see with their eyes and understand with their heart, and be converted, and so I will not heal them.” ⁴¹ These things Isaiah said because he saw His glory, and he spoke about Him. 

Mark 4:11-12

11 And He was saying to them, “To you has been given the mystery of the kingdom of God, but for those who are outside, everything comes in parables, 12 so that while seeing they may see, and not perceive, and while hearing, they may hear, and not understand, otherwise they might return and it would be forgiven them.”

Acts 28:23-28

²³ When they had set a day for ^[t]Paul, people came to him at his lodging in large numbers; and he was explaining to them by solemnly testifying about the kingdom of God and trying to persuade them concerning Jesus, from both the Law of Moses and from the Prophets, from morning until evening. ²⁴ Some were being persuaded by the things said by Paul, but others would not believe. ²⁵ And when they disagreed with one another, they began leaving after Paul said one parting statement: “The Holy Spirit rightly spoke through Isaiah the prophet to your fathers, ²⁶ saying,

‘Go to this people and say,
“You will keep on hearing, and will not understand;
And you will keep on seeing, and will not perceive;
²⁷ For the hearts of this people have become insensitive,
And with their ears they hardly 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.”’

²⁸ Therefore, let it be known to you that this salvation of God has been sent to the Gentiles; they will also listen.”

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1.) Incomplete Conditions

On Leighton’s reading, the passage does not make explicit the complete list of conditions for unbelief. Leighton claims that at least one necessary condition for unbelief is the unbeliever’s exercise of libertarian free will. However, that condition is not listed by Isaiah. So if Leighton’s hermeneutic permits him to qualify the Isaiah quote with conditions for unbelief or ignorance or hardening not listed by it, then so is the Calvinist, and that means total depravity is a prima facie candidate.

2.) Implicit Conditions

On Leighton’s representation of Calvinism, it is assumed (if the claim goes undefended) that John 12’s divine hardening is not the same event or reality as total depravity. He assumes, in other words, that for God to cause someone’s heart to harden has nothing to do with total depravity, and therefore cannot involve total depravity as an instrumental cause.

It is hard to see how this assumption can be motivated apart from begging the question in favor of libertarian free will. If libertarianism is true, and God’s agency is mutually exclusive with man’s agency, then for God to cause man to do something excludes any involvement of the creature’s agency. But remember, that’s not the case on compatibilism.

On compatibilism, God is able to cause human choices without overwriting, bypassing, or coercing human agency. A given affect of God’s determination and choices can be arrived at through human agency as a means, which is to say, instrumental cause. So if God determines a human’s heart to be hardened, God can cause that effect through the instrumental cause of that same human’s choices, which can then involve their origination in a totally depraved moral character. So on Calvinism, which is compatibilist, God can harden someone’s heart using total depravity, and the “hardening” Isaiah speaks of could at least possibly be referring to that instrumental case.

This means that Leighton and proponents of his argument have a huge onus to fulfill. His argument, after all, is that Calvinism renders John 12 overdetermined. His argument is that because total depravity and hardening are two separate, totally unrelated things, and either one is sufficient for the effect it explains, Calvinism makes hardening irrelevant. But you see, that first premise is conspicuous. Who says that total depravity and hardening are unrelated? Who says that Isaiah’s hardening does not implicitly involve total depravity?

Good luck to the Flowers crowed to demonstrate that premise.

3.) Incompatible Effects

Leighton accuses the Calvinist of making hardening redundant. Ironically, his own incompatibilism does just that.

In John 12, those hardened, as in v40, are held morally culpable for their state of ignorance. It is a case of obstinance, sin. However, v40 (and the surrounding passage) teaches that God brought this morally culpable state about. It is a divine act, result of God’s agency, a divine hardening.

Suppose that Leighton tries to interpret God’s hardening of the heart as some roundabout way of saying that the unbeliever hardened himself. That just makes the attribution to God redundant. It would be like saying of John Doe’s hardened heart that Larry, Shmoe, or Curly hardened his heart. Since John has already hardened himself, how would it be anything less than a false statement to say God or Curly hardened it too?

Remember, on compatibilism, it makes sense to say God and Pharaoh hardened Pharaoh’s heart. This is because on compatibilism God causes all of Pharaoh’s agency, so God hardens Pharaoh’s heart by causing Pharaoh to choose to harden his own heart. (Or at least, that’s a candidate reading.)

But on libertarianism, God’s agency and man’s agency are competitors in the space of decision making. One excludes the other. How then can God harden Jesus’ audience at all if they’re already self-hardened?

4.) Doxastic Voluntarism

Leighton’s reading results in something truly bizarre for psychology of beliefs. Observe that the Isaiah quote in John 12 mentions not mere unbelief or recalcitrance as the result of God’s hardening. It mentions ignorance: not seeing and not understanding.

Suppose again that Leighton attempts to construe the hardening in the passage as self-wrought to the exclusion of God. Those hardened brought it upon themselves without God causing anything by exercising their libertarian freedom. However, if that’s the case, that entails (at least some version of) what’s called doxastic voluntarism, the thesis that we choose our own beliefs.

This follows straightforwardly from this incompatibilist reading of the passage. If God did not cause the hardening, but man brought it about with libertarian free will, then God did not cause the ignorance, such as by speaking opaquely, but man freely chose not to comprehend what God was communicating. This would mean man has direct control over what beliefs he acquires from hearing or reading God’s word.

There are several problems with this, but it should be obvious to most people. Just introspect on yourself right now. You’ve been reading these words. At any point during this reading, did you ever have direct control over what ideas and beliefs and feelings you acquired as your eyes moved over my sentences? Did you think to yourself after you read the first heading, “I’m not in the mood to comprehend what this says as ‘incomplete conditions’; I think I’ll read that as ‘toast tastes good’ instead”?

Yet, this is the level of self-imposed arbitrariness Leighton’s view requires us to believe was going on in Jesus’ audience. In order to think they libertarianly hardened themselves and therefore libertarianly caused their own lack of comprehension, they would have to understand what interpretive options were available and intentionally choose the wrong one in the manner illustrated above.