I think the texts concerning Pharaoh are saying something like “it’s out of our hands.” I mean whether God hardens the heart or the individual hardens his heart, it’s out of my hands once that heart is hardened up. But Paul is an advocate for grace – an aspect of mercy and softness of heart. So that ‘grace’, the ‘out of our hands’ part which Pharaoh is denying to the fleeing slaves, is not earned by observance to the ‘law’ but complementary to observance of the law, and not necessarily dependent on it. So the two views, that is law and grace, do not oppose or contradict but complement. Grace intervenes where the law alone fails.
Similarly, the grace to not faint in doing good is ‘in’ the irrevocable calling of God. The human image reflects God’s irrevocable calling – in doing good. The image intervenes. I see it as the same complementary relationship. Sometimes we just need a little encouragement.
As a non-beleiver I regard your comments and reasoning as beyond my ability to critique. I simply point out that as a non-believer I aam comfortable with the idea that the ancients like Paul and Ezekiel were able to hold what for me would be two incompatible thoughts without feeling the need to harmonize them. Your attempts to harmonize them demonstrate that you are a modern thinker and not an ancient one.
Well, good reply; thanks for bothering. I will put that under my hat as I push forward. I was trying to see it from a rational point of view that a Greek background might put on Paul’s ‘theory’. So I will just leave it at that. But right now I’m considering the differences in the Greek resuscitation of the spirit against the resuscitation of the whole man which could also be projected into the gospels and where the idea of a capture of the spirit into the heavens comes from. But that’s just me. And God knows I’m no scholar.
BDEhrman
FreedomBen
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Robert