Joshua 11:20 - God hardens hearts

"[20] For it was the LORD's doing to harden their hearts that they should come against Israel in battle, in order that they should be devoted to destruction and should receive no mercy but be destroyed, just as the LORD commanded Moses."
(Joshua 11:20 ESV)

A friend brought this text up to me as somewhat troubling. At first glance, it is. It seems as though YHWH is hardening hearts in order to destroy them. That is, God is making them worthy of His judgment, and enacting that judgment. In fact, I think this is exactly what God is doing. The challenge then is this: how is this just? How can we affirm that God does this, and yet simultaneously "does not tempt" according to James 1? I will pose a Biblical solution here-yet be aware that this solution does not solve all the mysteries of God's divine determination of all things. Rather, the solution will suffice to show that God can bring about the damnable state of a people in order to judge them without impugning His character. First, we need to take a look at Romans 2 and Romans 1.

Romans 2

[14] For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. [15] They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them [16] on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus. (Romans 2:14-16 ESV)

Note that verse 15 states that the work of the law (i.e the standards to which God holds humanity) is written on our hearts. For those who don't know the Gospel, they will be condemned when their conscience testifies against them. If we consider that the wages of sin are death (Romans 6:23), this means that any sustaining activity on God's part after this is pure grace. Grace is unmerited, undeserved favor. God has no obligation to give it to us. Hence, even the law God impresses on our hearts He does so by what theologians call common grace (the grace God gives to all people everywhere). If God impresses His law on us by grace, that means that God is free to revoke that grace at any time; He has no obligation to anyone to act graciously at all times. With this in mind, how does God harden hearts? 

Romans 1

"Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen. For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error."

(Romans 1:24-27 ESV)

Here, Paul says that God gives people over to sinful corruption since they refused to worship the Creator. God gave them over to sinful desires present in their hearts (i.e the lusts of their hearts). Hence, God hardens hearts by giving us over to our own inherent sinfulness (and to see the truth that we are in fact inherently sinful, completely unable to please God, see Romans 8:1-9). Thus, God doesn't have to create sinful desires in us; He simply has to give us over to our own free will. Since we suck so much, we will not choose anything but sin. God, then, gives people over to their sinfulness at certain moments-and that's how He hardens hearts. He doesn't tempt people or move people to do evil against their will; rather, He simply gives people over to the natural flow of their hearts. God revokes the common grace of conscience and ceases to restrain the evil on our hearts. He isn't unjust to do this since He doesn't owe us grace in the first place. Humans therefore cannot make demands on how God ought to restrain our hearts; He ought to crush us in His holy wrath. Thus, God can give people over to sin at certain times, therein hardening their hearts, and yet still be completely just.

The Emotional Objection

Something in us still doesn't sit right with this, however. Logically, it makes perfect sense. God hasn't actually done anything to contradict His non-tempting character. I am convinced that the reason people abhor this is God's underlying motivation. According to Romans 9, God hardens some so as to display the glory of His justice. He demonstrates the worth of His justice. Against the backdrop of the vessels of wrath He prepares for destruction, His mercy shines that much brighter as God's people realize, "THAT is what we deserved." God's ultimate aim in creation is to glorify Himself. He demonstrates the depths of His holiness by displaying the depths to which He abhors sin, and opposes evil. He gives people over to evil so as to display the worth of His goodness as the One who opposes all evil, and so as to display His mercy and love in that He spares His people of the same wrath, and in fact takes their judgment on Himself. We, as the sinful human beings we are, desire to make God our butler. We dare object, "God! How dare you glorify yourself?! You're supposed to be OUR butler, pampering US! WE are supposed to be the center of your universe, not you!" I think if we honestly analyze the impulse behind our discomfort, we will see it in light of how petty it is. And we will see the glory of God's God-centeredness even more.

To help you along in seeing this, I made a video onwhy God's God-centeredness is actually ridiculously loving years ago, see here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SA9hokDLPo

Soli Deo Gloria!