2nd Chronicles 18:22
2nd Chronicles 18:18-22 (see also 2nd Kings 19:25)
Micaiah said, “Therefore, hear the word of the Lord. I saw the Lord sitting on His throne, and all the host of heaven standing on His right and on His left. The Lord said, ‘Who will entice Ahab king of Israel to go up and fall at Ramoth-gilead?’ And one said this while another said that. Then a spirit came forward and stood before the Lord and said, ‘I will entice him.’ And the Lord said to him, ‘How?’ He said, ‘I will go and be a deceiving spirit in the mouth of all his prophets.’ Then He said, ‘You are to entice him and prevail also. Go and do so.’ Now therefore, behold, the Lord has put a deceiving spirit in the mouth of these your prophets, for the Lord has proclaimed disaster against you.”
One Calvinist explains: “The question at issue is whether Arminian theism can extricate itself from what it faults in Calvinism. In 1 Kgs 22:19-23, we have a case of divine entrapment. A set-up, where God entices Ahab through a false prophecy. That’s a far cry from ‘passive willing’ or merely ‘allowing’ it to happen. In this passage, God is a trickster who deceives Ahab by recruiting an evil spirit to do his bidding. Explain how that’s morally superior to what you find objectionable in Calvinism.” (Is God the Author of Sin?, emphasis mine)
In other words, make God look as bad as possible, in order to lessen the reprehensible nature of Calvinism by comparison. However, if this was “divine entrapment,” then why, please explain, does God reveal to Ahab exactly what was going on behind the scenes? Ahab chronically disobeyed God, and so God was giving him what he wanted. Micaiah originally, and likely sarcastically, agreed with the other prophets that there would be a glorious victory by going into battle. But when Ahab detected his sarcasm, he said to Micaiah: “How many times must I adjure you to speak to me nothing but the truth in the name of the LORD?” (2nd Chronicles 18:15) Then when King Ahab heard the truth, he exclaimed to Jehoshaphat: “Did I not tell you that he would not prophesy good concerning me, but evil?” However, even after hearing the truth, through a prophet of the Lord, King Ahab still went into battle anyway, and of course, was killed by a random arrow that, very likely, was guided by the hand of the Lord. (2nd Chronicles 18:33-34) So the Calvinist attempt to paint God in a negative light, fails.
Imagine a drug deal going on, with both sides having armed
guards with pointed automatic weapons. However, during the
negotiations, the buyer’s prisoner is summoned before all sides
for interrogation, and the prisoner states: “Sure, go ahead and
make the deal. What could possibly go wrong? Good luck!”
But the buyer, being somewhat suspicious, in detecting the
sarcasm, presses further to force the truth out of the prisoner
until the prisoner finally states: “Ok, fine. This is all going to
going to end poorly for you. The DEA is monitoring the
whole situation. In fact, the reason why the seller has such a
large quantity is because the DEA supplied it for him! I know
this because I myself am a DEA agent, and I was ordered to
tell you this very thing!” Now in any sense of entrapment,
when would law enforcement intentionally try to blow their
own case? Yet, God allows His own case to be blown, in
order to give Ahab every possible last chance to abandon his
false prophets. However, Ahab being so hardened, has no
intention of listening to the true prophet, because it has taken
him years of proud, rebellious choices to finally arrive at such
a hardened state, having never really experienced the
consequences of his choices, all the while thinking that he was
standing up to God, until now.
One non-Calvinist responds: “That Ahab is listening to those prophets rests the blame completely on his own shoulders. God sends a spirit to entice him further, not to do more evil than he is already doing in consulting his false prophets. Furthermore, God also sends the the king a real prophet who tells him the truth. Ahab knew which prophet spoke God’s word, but he denied that prophet because the prophet spoke evil of him. This text is anything but divine entrapment as you called it. My distinctions between God’s permitting and use of evil beings in the world are clear and upheld. Even if I didn’t recognize the fact of these distinctions, it would not follow that God is to be blamed for providing means that would deceive an evil man into judgment/defeat and demise. Think some more, why didn’t the text say God spoke to the king in a vision? God would not lie and God did not force the king into believing. God knew the king would listen to the false prophets; however, God did not force him nor did God leave the king without a truthful witness who spoke the truth. You, on the other hand, use this particular king of Israel as an example for your argument as if he is some innocent guy who was minding his own business until God came along to tempt him into ruin. Your example is defeated as it doesn’t hold any parallels to what you are really saying in general, which is that God really wants these people to be evil although he hates evil.” (Is God the Author of Sin?, emphasis mine)
4-Point Calvinist, Ron Rhodes: “In 2 Chronicles 18:20-21, God does permit the activity of a ‘lying spirit.’ However, what God causes and what He allows are not the same. For example, God allowed Adam’s sin in the Garden of Eden, but He did not cause it. God allowed Lucifer’s rebellion against Him, but He did not cause it.” (Commonly Misunderstood Bible Verses, p.75, emphasis mine)
Question: Is God tempting Ahab to sin?
Answer: Two things that we know about God is that He does not tempt anyone to sin, nor does God Himself commit sin. James 1:13 states: “Let no one say when he is tempted, ‘I am being tempted by God’; for God cannot be tempted by evil, and He Himself does not tempt anyone.” James 1:17 states: “Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow.” Ahab had witnessed the miracles of Elijah, and one in particular that involved God performing a miracle right in front of Ahab. See 1st Kings 18:36-39. How many kings in Israel were so privileged? Of all the chances that Ahab had, this was his last chance, in which Ahab would be forced to either listen to his favorite, pet False Prophets (with their erroneous message supplied by the Lord), or he can heed the truth spoken by the Lord’s prophet, Micaiah (also a message supplied by the Lord). It’s not like Ahab was given only a lie. The idea that Ahab was being duped by God is completely the opposite of what happened. The reality is that Ahab was given both testimonies, and was also told what was going on behind the scenes in Heaven, and he still rejected the true prophet.
Question: Does the fact that God predicted the success of the lying spirit, prove that God had determined Ahab to sin and rebel?
Answer: Calvinists insist that if God knows something, that He must have determined it to be so. According to the Calvinist line of reasoning, God knew what Ahab would choose, because God determined what He would choose, insomuch that God thought his thoughts for him, without which, God otherwise would have no idea what Ahab might think next. In other words, the text doesn’t say: “I decree that Ahab will [irresistibly] believe the false prophets.” Instead, a more reasonable conclusion of the text is a predictive assessment, since Scriptures state of God, “He knew all men.” (John 2:24) God made a predictive statement concerning Pharaoh, “I know that the king of Egypt will not permit you to go.” (Exodus 3:19-20) When God says that He knows that, either it is because, (A) God is secretly predetermining thoughts, as per Calvinistic Determinism, or (B) because God knows the heart of man, and is making an assessment of their spiritual state. What is more reasonable? The Bible warns, “Harden not your heart.” (Psalm 95:8) That means that you can harden your heart through a progressive series of poor choices. So what God said of Ahab may not have always been true of him throughout the course of his lifetime, but now was most certainly true, since Ahab effectively hardened his own heart, through a progressive series of rebellious choices, and brought himself to the point where choosing the false prophets over God’s prophet was the only consistent outcome of his hardened state.
Question: How would Ahab have a choice in the matter, if God had already declared the outcome?
Answer: There’s a big difference between declaring an outcome vs. deciding an outcome. The text doesn’t say that God decided the outcome. God is simply stating what He knows to be true about Ahab’s choices, without having to cause it. Moreover, since Ahab’s choices are self-determined, he had his chance and blew it.
Arminian, John Wesley: “See the power of Satan! One lying spirit can make four hundred lying prophets. And thus he frequently becomes a murderer by being a liar and destroys men by deceiving them.” (John Wesley’s Commentary on the Bible, p.244)
Calvininist, Matthew Henry: “He informed the king how it was that all his prophets encouraged him to proceed, that God permitted Satan by them to deceive him into his ruin, and he by vision knew of it; it was represented to him, and he represented it to Ahab, that the God of heaven had determined he should fall at Ramoth-Gilead (v. 19, v. 20), that the favour he had wickedly shown to Ben-hadad might be punished by him and his Syrians, and that he being in some doubt whether he should go to Ramoth-Gilead or no, and resolving to be advised by his prophets, they should persuade him to it and prevail (v. 21, v. 22); and hence it was that they encouraged him with so much assurance (v. 23); it was a lie from the father of lies, but by divine permission. This matter is here represented after the manner of men. We are not to imagine that God is ever put upon new counsels, or is ever at a loss for means whereby to effect his purposes, nor that he needs to consult with angels, or any creature, about the methods he should take, nor that he is the author of sin or the cause of any man’s either telling or believing a lie; but, besides what was intended by this with reference to Ahab himself, it is to teach us, (1.)” (Matthew Henry Commentary on the Whole Bible)
So, some Calvinists do agree with Arminians that God’s permission is involved here, though it remains unclear as to how such Calvinists logically square permission with their other doctrine of Determinism.
One member of The Society of Evangelical Arminians: “Henry is wrong if he is speaking as a Calvinist, because if all is predetermined, as Calvinism teaches, then God does not merely permit anything, but positively and actively ordains and ensures everything. Put another way, if everybody’s mind (men and angels, without exception) is being controlled by God, then God does not ‘permit’ anything. Permission only makes sense if the person permitted to do so, has libertarian free will. Permission makes no sense in a completely predetermined world.”
