Many Reformed commentaries simply ignore the stipulation in Exodus 9:34 that Pharaoh and his officials hardened their own hearts. If an explanation is attempted, Reformed theologians claim that Pharaoh’s sin is attributed to the removal of God’s restraint of sin in men so that, in the words of one author, “God gives them enough rope to hang themselves” (Sproul, Chosen By God, p. 145). Rather than attributing Pharaoh’s actions to his own free will, or at least saying that God hardened Pharaoh’s heart because of or in conjunction with Pharaoh’s free decision to harden his own heart, the Reformed view persists, perhaps inadvertently, to make God responsible for Pharaoh’s sin. For if God removes “restraint” arbitrarily from one individual but not another — a removal that is not contingent on the individual’s free choice or some other indication that he is moving away from God, then the Reformed view has not escaped the clutches of a determinism that makes God into a tyrant who arbitrarily imposes his will on his creatures. Conversely, we should not understand Paul’s statement in Rm 9:18-20 (“...he hardens whom he wants to harden...Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’”) as referring to an arbitrary imposition of God’s will on men irrespective of their free will, but precisely an imposition that takes into account or is the result of their free decisions. In this way, one cannot complain to God (i.e., “Then why does God still blame us? For who resists his will?”) because as men make decisions, God makes decisions, for he is not neutral with respect to the free acts of men. (Robert A. Sungenis, Not By Faith Alone: The Biblical Evidence for the Catholic Doctrine of Justification [2d ed.; State Line, Pa.: Catholic Apologetics International Publishing, Inc., 2009], 392 n. 493 [print ed.])
