Total Depravity and the Doctrine of Judicial Hardening

How does the Biblical doctrine of Hardening relate to the Calvinistic teachings of Total Depravity?

According to scripture only those in a hardened state are unable to see, hear, understand and believe (Acts 28:26-28: John 12:39-40). And this is not a condition from birth, but a condition one grows into after much rebellion.  However, it appears that Calvinism’s doctrine of Total Depravity teaches that everyone is essentially born in this condition due to the Fall of Man.  John Piper, a highly regarded Calvinistic pastor, explains it this way:

"...we were incapable of any life with God. Our hearts were like a stone toward God. Our hearts were blind and incapable of seeing the glory of God in Christ. We were totally unable to reform ourselves."  -John Piper

So, this begs the question: Is all mankind born unable to see (blind/hardened) or do we 'become hardened,' as the Jews did after a time of rebelling against God's revelation?

Now, I believe the doctrine of Original Sin can clearly be seen in the scripture, but the Calvinistic teaching of Total Depravity appears to take this foundational truth one step further by suggesting that God decreed that all mankind (as a result of the Fall) would be born unable to see, hear, understand and thus willingly respond to the gospel appeal.  In essence, Calvinism's view of Total Depravity suggests that all mankind is born Judicially Hardened...unable to willingly respond.  Yet God, according to Calvinism, still holds men responsible for that response.  How can it be?  The Calvinist isn't saying that mankind is merely held responsible for sin (or the Fall), but responsible for his RESPONSE to the gospel appeal.  How does this view measure up to the biblical view of justice as it relates to judicial hardening?

The Biblical doctrines of Judicial Hardening, which is not to be confused with "self-hardening," are both explained in detail below:

1. Self-Hardening of the heart goes beyond the tragic obtuseness of our inherited condition in the Fall of man. Working on the fertile soul of our innately immoral hearts, the act of sinning hardens the heart into a stubborn rebellion against all that is good. So, people may harden their own hearts, in sinful rebellion, in bitterness, or in sheer self-will. (Ex. 9:34-35; 2 Chron. 36:13; Zech. 7:12; Dan. 5:20; Eph. 4:18; Heb. 3:12-15)

This type of self-hardening is most clearly seen in Zech. 7:11-13: 

"Your ancestors would not listen to this message. They turned stubbornly away and put their fingers in their ears to keep from hearing. They made their hearts as hard as stone, so they could not hear the law or the messages that the LORD Almighty had sent them by his Spirit through the earlier prophets. That is why the LORD Almighty was so angry with them. ‘Since they refused to listen when I called to them, I would not listen when they called to me,’ says the LORD Almighty.”

2. Judicial Hardening -- In a few instances such as Pharaoh and the Egyptians (Ex. 7:3; 9:12), Sihon, king of Heshbon (Deut. 2:30), and the Hivites living in Gibeon (John 11:19-20), it is said that God hardened their hearts. Apparently these people were so irremediable in their rebellion against God that God entered into the hardening process so that he could accomplish his purposes in spite of, and yet in and through, that hardenness. It is God's prerogative, as God, to do this (Rom. 9:18-21). That they are morally responsible for their condition is a theological given, and we are warned not to harden our hearts as they did, a command that would make no sense if hardening were simply God's act (1 Sam. 6:6).

Israel's hardening as a nation was an act of self-hardening followed by God’s act of judicial hardening as clearly portrayed in the scripture (Matt. 23:37; Rom. 10-11). 

God tells Isaiah that Israel, with its calloused heart, will reject him as God's messenger when he goes to them (Isa. 6:9-10). The event was taken as prophetic by Jesus (Matt. 13:14-15) and Paul (Acts 28:25-27) as referring to Israel's rejection of Jesus as God's Messiah. For Paul, Israel's hardening paved the way to a ministry of ingrafting the Gentiles (Rom. 10-11; Acts 28:28) and was not intended by God to be final, but only until the fullness of the Gentile’s ingrafting was accomplished.

Only the Word of God has the power to pierce a hardened heart (Heb. 4:12) and he has given that word through his Son, the Apostles, the scriptures and by his Spirit; all of which can be resisted and ignored (as seen throughout the Bible) and the hardenness and callousness of the heart only grows thicker with each act of rebellion.

More later....