Joshua 11:20
Joshua 11:18-20 (see also Jeremiah 18:1-13)
Joshua waged war a long time with all these kings. There was not a city which made peace with the sons of Israel except the Hivites living in Gibeon; they took them all in battle. For it was of the LORD to harden their hearts, to meet Israel in battle in order that he might utterly destroy them, that they might receive no mercy, but that he might destroy them, just as the LORD had commanded Moses.
John Calvin: “We do not make the minds of men to be impelled by force external to them so that they rage furiously; nor do we transfer to God the cause of hardening, in such a way that they did not voluntarily and by their own wickedness and hardness of heart spur themselves on to obstinacy. What we say is that men act perversely not without God’s ordination that it be done, as Scripture teaches. Similarly it is said elsewhere that the fact that the inhabitants of Gibeon opposed Israel was ordained by God who made their heart obstinate (Josh 11.20).” (Concerning the Eternal Predestination of God, pp.174-175, emphasis mine)
Calvinist, James White: “God hardening hearts to destroy a people? What of their libertarian free will?” (Debating Calvinism, p.359, emphasis mine)
God’s will to “harden their hearts,” show them “no mercy” and “destroy them” would be consequent to their own evil deeds, which was perhaps necessary so that they would not corrupt Israel with their idolatry. For God’s part, He would prefer that they would have repented and be spared, even as evident from the Book of Jonah. God decreed the destruction of Nineveh, and directed Jonah to deliver the message. The king rightly inferred that God would relent from His judgment if they repented, and the result was that they were spared. So when we see examples from Scripture in which God determined to destroy and judge a nation, it was always with the caveat that God would relent if they sincerely repented. God states: “At one moment I might speak concerning a nation or concerning a kingdom to uproot, to pull down, or to destroy it; if that nation against which I have spoken turns from its evil, I will relent concerning the calamity I planned to bring on it.” (Jeremiah 18:7-8)
It would seem that the objective of the Calvinist is to find places in Scripture where God may be portrayed in a negative light, in order to then ask: How is that morally superior to what you deem objectionable in Calvinism? The primary goal of the Calvinist is to defend absolute determinism. The existence of sin complicates things, and so Calvinists resolve the complication by showing that sin has a place in the overall plan and purpose of God. This way, no one can object to absolute determinism on the grounds that God would never ordain sin. The counter-argument to absolute determinism operates by highlighting conditionality in Scripture, whereby sin is not an ordination of God, but rather something that God permits and judges accordingly.
