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Unconditional Reprobation: Calvinist Biblical Prooftexts

Unconditional Reprobation: Calvinist Biblical Prooftexts

Last updated on: January 26, 2026 at 8:18 pm by Dave Armstrong

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Unconditional Reprobation: Calvinist Biblical Prooftexts 2026-01-26T20:18:27-04:00 Dave Armstrong

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I’ve already written a long article on Romans 9: the very favorite prooftext of Calvinists. I got the rest of these passages (the ones posted in blue font) from Calvinists themselves, writing on the topic, as seen in my recent article, Renowned Calvinists On Unconditional Reprobation (Calvin, Beza, Turretin, Charles Hodge, Shedd, Warfield, Bavinck, Berkhof, Sproul, Grudem, Beeke, Horton).

*****

Using excerpts from two writers, from the “Renowned Calvinists . . .” article above, let’s briefly review what Calvinism teaches about reprobation, and what I am vigorously opposing:

Francois Turretin: The decree itself, [is] sanctioned from eternity and described as the eternal, unchangeable and most free purpose of God by which he decreed not to pity some certain men lying in exactly equal corruption and guilt with others, but to damn eternally those left in sin (on account of it) in order to demonstrate his glorious justice, liberty and power. . . .

But when it is asked why he reprobated this rather than that one (while both were equally sinners and therefore deserving reprobation), here sin cannot be alleged because it is common to both, and common things do not make a difference. No cause can be given but the mere good pleasure of God, i.e., because it so pleased him.

W. G. T. Shedd: God does not leave a sinner in his own voluntary and loved sin because he is in sin. He has some other reason why he makes this discrimination between two persons, both of whom are in sin, neither of whom has any claim upon his mercy, and neither of whom is more deserving of election and regeneration than the other. God’s reason, in this case, we know must be a good one. But it is a secret with himself.

The Westminster Assembly did not qualify the words, “pass by,” by the proposed clause, “for their sins,” but left “passing by,” or “foreordination to everlasting death,” to be a purely sovereign act according to “the good pleasure” of God.

*****

1) Exodus 9:16 (RSV) but for this purpose have I let you live, to show you my power, so that my name may be declared throughout all the earth.

The context is God speaking to Pharaoh through Moses. God exercises His extraordinary providence and power to make things come out as He wills and ordains, all the time. And that’s what is going on here. Catholics have no disagreement with God’s providence and sovereignty. We’re in total agreement with Calvinists about that. They don’t have a monopoly on awestruck wonder at God’s greatness and extraordinary abilities and attributes.

In this instance, God used Pharaoh — knowing how he would react to Moses and the plagues — for His purposes. Consequently, the story was recorded for posterity and has brought God glory ever since. So there’s really nothing in dispute here, unless and until the Calvinist starts implying that God damned Pharaoh to hell from all eternity, no matter what he did. Calvinists will point to passages about God “hardening” Pharaoh’s heart, as partial proof that he cast him into the category of reprobate / damned. Pharaoh’s behavior, so they tell us, had — ultimately — nothing to do with his reprobation (per the Turretin and Shedd quotes above, which is standard Calvinist thought). I wrote about God hardening hearts (alluded to by St. Paul in Romans 9:18) years ago:

Reply to a Calvinist: Hardening of Pharaoh’s Heart (vs. Colin Smith) [10-14-06]

God “Hardening Hearts”: How Do We Interpret That? [12-18-08; expanded on 1-4-17]

What Calvinists typically don’t inform their readers about, as regards the Pharaoh of Moses’ time, is that the Bible says several times that he hardened his own heart. Here they are:

Exodus 8:15 But when Pharaoh saw that there was a respite, he hardened his heart, . . . (cf. 8:19)

Exodus 8:32 But Pharaoh hardened his heart this time also, and did not let the people go.

Exodus 9:34 But when Pharaoh saw that the rain and the hail and the thunder had ceased, he sinned yet again, and hardened his heart, he and his servants. (cf. 9:7, 35)

See the second article above for many more examples of people hardening their own hearts. Therefore, when it says that God did so, I think it’s reasonable and plausible to interpret it as meaning that it was in the sense of His permitting it for His providential purposes, or “giving [gave] them up” as the Bible sometimes puts it — not in the sense of sole cause, let alone from all eternity (otherwise, the Bible contradict itself). St. Paul wrote:

Romans 1:24, 26, 28 . . . God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity . . . [26] For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. . . . [28] And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a base mind and to improper conduct.

Compare:

Psalm 81:8, 11-13 Hear, O my people, while I admonish you! O Israel, if you would but listen to me! . . . [11] “But my people did not listen to my voice; Israel would have none of me. [12] So I gave them over to their stubborn hearts, to follow their own counsels. [13] O that my people would listen to me, that Israel would walk in my ways!

Acts 7:39-42 Our fathers refused to obey him, but thrust him aside, and in their hearts they turned to Egypt, [40] saying to Aaron, `Make for us gods to go before us; as for this Moses who led us out from the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.’ [41] And they made a calf in those days, and offered a sacrifice to the idol and rejoiced in the works of their hands. [42] But God turned and gave them over to worship the host of heaven,

This is what happened with Pharaoh. He initiated the process of rebellion and hardened his own heart. It wasn’t God’s foreordained decree from all eternity. But of course, God knew what would happen, in His omniscience, and He “used” it for His purposes. Whether Pharaoh himself was damned or not, I don’t think the Bible ever indicates.

2) Exodus 33:19 . . . I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy. (cited by Paul in Rom 9:15, with the word “mercy” and “compassion” in RSV)

First, let’s look at the larger context:

Exodus 33:11-19 Thus the LORD used to speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend. . . . [12] Moses said to the LORD, “See, thou sayest to me, `Bring up this people’; but thou hast not let me know whom thou wilt send with me. Yet thou hast said, `I know you by name, and you have also found favor in my sight.’ [13] Now therefore, I pray thee, if I have found favor in thy sight, show me now thy ways, that I may know thee and find favor in thy sight. Consider too that this nation is thy people.” [14] And he said, “My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.” [15] And he said to him, “If thy presence will not go with me, do not carry us up from here. [16] For how shall it be known that I have found favor in thy sight, I and thy people? Is it not in thy going with us, so that we are distinct, I and thy people, from all other people that are upon the face of the earth?” [17] And the LORD said to Moses, “This very thing that you have spoken I will do; for you have found favor in my sight, and I know you by name.” [18] Moses said, “I pray thee, show me thy glory.” [19] And he said, “I will make all my goodness pass before you, and will proclaim before you my name `The LORD’; and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy.

This doesn’t prove what Calvinists think it proves, at all. God is simply showing Moses that he found favor in His sight, and would be mightily used for His purposes, and that the chosen people were also favored. Thus, it’s stated that God was gracious to them and that they were specially recipients of His mercy. No one denies that God shows grace and mercy and that He does it as He wills (of course), and this includes giving more or less of it to individuals. That’s not at issue between Catholics and Calvinists. What is at issue is this notion of one particular “theory” as to how God exercises and applies His judgment in relation to the reprobate (the four citations at the top summarize it).

Both sides already agree that God predestines the elect who go to heaven. So we need not wrangle about that. How and why He chooses and selects those whom He elects for glory and those elected to doom, is the difficulty and mystery to figure out. And neither side probably will ever do so (judging by the last 500 years). But the question at hand is whether Exodus 33:19 supports the Calvinist view of unconditional positive reprobation.

The Calvinist says there is no reason we can discern as to why God causes some to be reprobate and damned; that it’s a mystery and is according to His good pleasure alone, for inscrutable reasons. Catholics and non-Calvinist Protestants (the vast majority) say that reprobation involves God’s consideration of how a person reacts to His free offer of grace and salvation, and what they do and what is in their heart. This passage (Ex 33:19) doesn’t solve that question. It doesn’t really address it at all.

God was simply saying that He was being particularly gracious to Moses and the Hebrews, who were His chosen people. That says nothing whatsoever about who is damned, or why, or how God determines it in His infinite love and wisdom and His just nature. I submit that Calvinists simply project their existing theological framework and system onto the passage, when it is not at all clear that this is proper to do. The text doesn’t have that much information in it. God’s attributes are revealed in near-context, just ten verses later:

Exodus 34:6-7 The LORD passed before him, and proclaimed, “The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, [7] keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.” (cf. 20:5-6: “visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, [6] but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.”)

The judgment portions of these two passages are vastly misunderstood. I have offered what I think is a reasonable explanation:

Does God Punish to the Fourth Generation? [National Catholic Register, 10-1-18]

Writing about the parallel passage in Romans 9:15, Scott Hahn and Curtis Mitch in The Ignatius Catholic Study Bible (2024), state:

From Ex 33:19 he shows that God’s justice is matched by an abundance of mercy . . . as seen when he robed the children of Israel in mercy right after they abandoned him for the golden calf (Ex 32:1-6). . . . In effect, Paul is defending God’s freedom to be patient and merciful toward sinners, not his freedom to punish sinners.

Dom Bernard Orchard, in his Catholic Commentary on Holy Scripture (1953) states at Exodus 33:19:

[It] means that man has no claim to the gratuitous gifts of God, such as the favors accorded to Moses and the forgiveness accorded to the people, which he gives to whom he wills. St. Paul cites this text to prove that the Jewish nation had no claim to the gratuitous gift of an efficacious call to the faith of Christ (Rom 9:15).

And here are two classic Protestant commentaries:

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges: All that is said here is that God is gracious to those to whom He is gracious: on the motives which may prompt Him to be gracious, the passage is silent.

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: The reason why Moses’ request was granted . . . [was] that it was an act of unconditional grace and compassion on the part of God, to which no man, not even Moses, could lay any just claim. The apostle Paul uses the words in the same sense in Romans 9:15, for the purpose of overthrowing the claims of self-righteous Jews to participate in the Messianic salvation.

3) 1 Samuel 2:25 If a man sins against a man, God will mediate for him; but if a man sins against the LORD, who can intercede for him?” But they would not listen to the voice of their father; for it was the will of the LORD to slay them.

This is easily disposed of. The passage is about the sons of Eli, who “were worthless men; they had no regard for the LORD” (2:12). The text also says that “the sin of the young men was very great in the sight of the LORD; for the men treated the offering of the LORD with contempt” (2:17) and that they “lay with the women who served at the entrance to the tent of meeting” (2:22). Clearly, then, they had no regard for the Mosaic Law, then in full force. That law has several capital punishments for disobedience, and so it was God’s will that they were to be so judged. This says nothing about their eternal destiny, let alone how God decided it. But it does show that they were judged because they chose to disobey God and His laws.

4) Psalm 33:15 he who fashions the hearts of them all, and observes all their deeds.

Of course He does. God “searches all hearts, and understands every plan and thought” (1 Chr 28:9). It doesn’t follow that He predetermines what will be in those hearts; what kind of people they will choose to be, let alone whether they are to be damned by His good pleasure, no matter what they do or don’t do. They indeed decide which way they will go, according to the Bible. God judges them based on what they do, and what is in their hearts:

I Kings 8:39 then hear thou in heaven thy dwelling place, and forgive, and act, and render to each whose heart thou knowest, according to all his ways (for thou, thou only, knowest the hearts of all the children of men);

Jeremiah 4:4 Circumcise yourselves to the LORD, remove the foreskin of your hearts, O men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem; lest my wrath go forth like fire, and burn with none to quench it, because of the evil of your doings.”

Jeremiah 7:23-24, 26, 28-30 But this command I gave them, `Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people; and walk in all the way that I command you, that it may be well with you.’ [24] But they did not obey or incline their ear, but walked in their own counsels and the stubbornness of their evil hearts, and went backward and not forward. . . . [26] . . . they did not listen to me, or incline their ear, but stiffened their neck. . . . [28] And you shall say to them, `This is the nation that did not obey the voice of the LORD their God, and did not accept discipline; truth has perished; . . . [29] . . . the LORD has rejected and forsaken the generation of his wrath.’ [30] “For the sons of Judah have done evil in my sight, says the LORD; . . . (cf. 9:14; Zech 7:12)

And men are good — to the extent that they are — due to God’s enabling grace that allows them to freely cooperate with God and be righteous:

1 Kings 8:58 that he may incline our hearts to him, to walk in all his ways, and to keep his commandments, his statutes, and his ordinances, which he commanded our fathers. (cf. Jer 31:33; 32:40; Mal 4:6)

1 Kings 18:37 . . . thou hast turned their hearts back.

1 Chronicles 29:18 O LORD, . . . keep for ever such purposes and thoughts in the hearts of thy people, and direct their hearts toward thee.

5) Proverbs 16:4 The LORD has made everything for its purpose, even the wicked for the day of trouble.

Hahn and Mitch (ibid.) comment: “A day of divine judgment when hardship or death befalls the wicked man and the justice of God is made manifest in history (11:4; Rom 3:5-6).” It doesn’t follow from the fact that God made the wicked (as with all things) that He has foreordained the destiny of those who end up in hell, without taking any account whatsoever, what they do or believe about Him. Again, that’s reading into the passage what isn’t there, which is eisegesis.

Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers: The Lord hath made all things for himself—i.e., to serve His own purposes, that His wisdom, goodness, &c, may be thereby revealed. . . . The assertion that “He has made the wicked for the day of evil,” does not mean that He created any one for punishment—i.e., predestined him for destruction. It only teaches that even the wicked are subservient to God’s eternal purposes; . . .

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges: It is not said that God makes a man wicked, for He “made man upright” (Ecclesiastes 7:29. Comp. Genesis 1:26-27; Genesis 1:31), but that being wicked by his own choice he comes under the irrevocable law which dooms him to “the day of evil,” of calamity and punishment.

Pulpit Commentary: This clause has been perverted to support the terrible doctrine of reprobation – that God, whose will must be always efficacious, has willed the damnation of some; whereas we are taught that God’s will is that “all men should be saved, and come unto the knowledge of the truth,” and that “God sent his Son not to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved” (1 Timothy 2:4; John 3:17; comp. Ezekiel 33:11). Man, having freewill, can reject this gracious purpose of God, and render the means of salvation nugatory; but this does not make God the cause of man’s destruction, but man himself. In saying that God “made the wicked,” the writer does not mean that God made him as such, but made him as he made all other things, giving him powers and capacities which he might have used to good, but which, as a fact, he uses to evil.

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: A praedestinatio ad malum, and that in the supralapsarian sense, cannot be here taught, for this horrible dogma (horribile quidem decretrum, fateor, says Calvin himself) makes God the author of evil, and a ruler according to His sovereign caprice, and thus destroys all pure conceptions of God. What Paul, Romans 9, with reference to Exodus 9:16, wishes to say is this, that it was not Pharaoh’s conduct that determined the will of God, but that the will of God is always the antecedens: nothing happens to God through the obstinacy and rebellion of man which determines Him to an action not already embraced in the eternal plan, but also such an one must against his will be subservient to the display of God’s glory. The apostle adds Romans 9:22, and shows that he recognised the factor of human self-determination, but also as one comprehended in God’s plan. The free actions of men create no situation by which God would be surprised and compelled to something which was not originally intended by Himself. That is what the above proverb says: the wicked also has his place in God’s order of the world.

6) Isaiah 29:15-16 Woe to those who hide deep from the LORD their counsel, whose deeds are in the dark, and who say, “Who sees us? Who knows us?” [16] You turn things upside down! Shall the potter be regarded as the clay; that the thing made should say of its maker, “He did not make me”; or the thing formed say of him who formed it, “He has no understanding”?

Calvinists love this passage because Paul cites it (or other passages like it, about the “potter and the clay”) in their favorite alleged “pro-Calvinist” passage, Romans chapter 9. But it’s simply saying that God is in control of His creation, and that we creatures are presumptuous to imagine that we can fully understand His omnipotent and omniscient ways, so high above ours. Accordingly, in 29:14 God declares: “the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the discernment of their discerning men shall be hid” and then He predicts what He will bring about, in contrast, in 29:24: “those who err in spirit will come to understanding, and those who murmur will accept instruction.”

It’s all about knowledge and obeying or disobeying and not trusting God, the all-powerful and all-knowing Creator, not about the eternal destiny of souls. Dom Bernard Orchard writes about it: “These unwise counsellors plan in secret and imagine that Yahweh does not know. They forget their dependence on him.” And so God reminds them of Who He is and what He has done.

The same thing appears again in chapter 45, where God says (45:9): “Woe to him who strives with his Maker, an earthen vessel with the potter! Does the clay say to him who fashions it, `What are you making’?” God speaks throughout as He did in the book of Job, about His marvelous and inscrutable characteristics: “I am the LORD, and there is no other” (45:5), “I form light and create darkness” (45:7), “I made the earth, and created man upon it; it was my hands that stretched out the heavens, and I commanded all their host” (45:12).

The related passage in Jeremiah chapter 18 is more so about God’s providential plans for Israel, His chosen people (not about the destiny of individual souls):

Jeremiah 18:5-12 Then the word of the LORD came to me: [6] “O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter has done? says the LORD. Behold, like the clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel. [7] If at any time I declare concerning a nation or a kingdom, that I will pluck up and break down and destroy it, [8] and if that nation, concerning which I have spoken, turns from its evil, I will repent of the evil that I intended to do to it. [9] And if at any time I declare concerning a nation or a kingdom that I will build and plant it, [10] and if it does evil in my sight, not listening to my voice, then I will repent of the good which I had intended to do to it. [11] Now, therefore, say to the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem: `Thus says the LORD, Behold, I am shaping evil against you and devising a plan against you. Return, every one from his evil way, and amend your ways and your doings.’ [12] “But they say, `That is in vain! We will follow our own plans, and will every one act according to the stubbornness of his evil heart.’

Again, this has nothing to do with God supposedly consigning reprobate persons to hell from all eternity wholly because of His “good pleasure” and nothing whatsoever that they did.

7) Isaiah 54:16 Behold, I have created the smith who blows the fire of coals, and produces a weapon for its purpose. I have also created the ravager to destroy;

The entire chapter is a virtual “love song” to God’s people, Israel, and by extension, anyone who follows Him. Immediately after this is the famous line, “no weapon that is fashioned against you shall prosper.” God would protect them, and so passages in the the preceding context read, “you shall be far from oppression, for you shall not fear; and from terror, for it shall not come near you. . . . whoever stirs up strife with you shall fall because of you” (54:15-16). Does this have some profound implications for predestined unconditional reprobation, because God “created the ravager to destroy”? I don’t see how. Classic Protestant commentaries explain it as follows:

Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers: The “axe,” the “hammer,” the “sword,” of the great ravagers of the earth are formed by the great Work-Master, and He would fashion no such weapon against the new Jerusalem.

Barnes’ Notes on the Bible: The sense here is, that as God had all such conquerors under his control, they could accomplish no more than he permitted them to do.

Matthew Poole’s Commentary: Both the smith that maketh all warlike instruments, and the soldier that useth them, are my creatures, and totally at my command, and therefore they cannot hurt you without my leave.

Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible: These are said to be “created” by the Lord, not only because they are his creatures, the work of his hands, but because they are raised up by his providence, according to his secret purpose, as Pharaoh was, to show his power in them; and are permitted by him to continue for awhile to fulfil his will, being entirely dependent upon him, and subject to his influence, direction, and overruling providence; and therefore his people had no reason to be afraid of them.

8) Matthew 7:23 And then will I declare to them, `I never knew you; depart from me, you evildoers.’

These people are either among the non-elect, or they repent later. In any event, it’s no proof of how they came to that place or of God’s relation to it.

9) Matthew 25:41 Then he will say to those at his left hand, “Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels”;

Some people go to hell! This doesn’t say that God predestined them to go there, in the dreadful Calvinist sense. The context shows that they were damned “for” they didn’t do various good works. In other words, it was their own choice and fault.

10) Luke 2:22 “For the Son of man goes as it has been determined; but woe to that man by whom he is betrayed!”

The foreordained plan, decreed from all eternity, in response to the fall of man, was that Jesus Christ was to die for our sins and so save anyone who will accept the free offer of salvation by His blood and by grace. No one disagrees with that, and it’s no issue between Calvinists and Catholics. The fact that this was God’s plan has no bearing on the individual fate of souls.

11) John 12:39-40 Therefore they could not believe. For Isaiah again said, [40] “He has blinded their eyes and hardened their heart, lest they should see with their eyes and perceive with their heart, and turn for me to heal them.”

God “gives people over to” (i.e., allows or permits them to) sin when its clear that they have chosen to reject Him and disobey His moral laws. See the analysis of this scriptural motif under #1 above. It’s a figure of speech referring to God’s sovereignty. Protestant scholar E. W. Bullinger, in his 1104-page masterwork, Figures of Speech Used in the Bible (1898), classifies this literary form as “Metonymy of the Subject”:

Where the action is put for the declaration concerning it: or where what is said to be done is put for what is declared, or permitted, or foretold as to be done: or where an action, said to be done, is put for the giving occasion for such action. (p. 570)

Here are a few of many examples that he provides:

Isa. vi. 10. — ” Make the heart of this people fat” : i.e., declare that it shall become so. (Isaiah could not make it fat, etc.) So Matt. xiii. 14. Mark iv. 12. Luke viii. 10, John xii. 40. Acts xxviii. 26, 27. Rom. xi. 8.

Jer. i. 10. — ” I have this day set thee over the nations and over the kingdoms, to root out (i.e., to declare that they shall be rooted out), and to pull down (i.e., to prophesy that they shall be pulled down), and to destroy (i.e., to declare that they shall be destroyed), and to throw down (i.e., to foretell that they shall be thrown down),” etc.

Jer. iv. 10. — “Then said I, Ah, Lord God (Adonai-Jehovah) ! surely thou hast vehemently (or verily) deceived this people (i.e., prophesied that this People shall be deceived), saying, Ye shall have peace ; whereas the sword reacheth unto the soul.”

The people deceived themselves, assuring themselves that they should have peace (see chap. v. 12). The Lord had declared by his prophet that they would so deceive themselves, and so it came to pass that they were permitted to be deceived by their false prophets.

Jer. xxxviii. 23.- — “Thou shalt burn this city with fire ” : i.e., thou shalt declare that it shalt be burnt. A.V. renders it cause it to be burnt, as though it were the Metonymy of the effect. It is clearly the Metonymy of the subject: for Zedekiah was not personally to set light to the city! (p. 571; my bolding)

12) Acts 2:23 this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.

13) Acts 4:27- 28 for truly in this city there were gathered together against thy holy servant Jesus, whom thou didst anoint, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, [28] to do whatever thy hand and thy plan had predestined to take place.

See my commentary on #10 above.

14) Acts 7:51 “You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit. As your fathers did, so do you.”

This is a statement of fact, not a declaration that God from all eternity had decreed it to be so; and it’s about an entire people, anyway, not individuals.

15) Romans 11:7-8 What then? Israel failed to obtain what it sought. The elect obtained it, but the rest were hardened, [8] as it is written, “God gave them a spirit of stupor, eyes that should not see and ears that should not hear, down to this very day.”

This is the same figure of speech, again, that I discussed in #11, and Bullinger lists it in the same place where he lists John 12:40, as an example of “Metonymy of the Subject” (see my added bolding, to locate it in context). In other words, in ordinary English, this isn’t an eternal decree of God. It’s not meant to be taken literally in the first place. This is God “giving over” people (see #1) to their own sinful, rebellious designs and desires; not ordaining it from all eternity. I also explained “hardening” in #1. Calvinists have massively misunderstood some things of this nature in the Bible, and have built their system (i.e., insofar as it contains falsehood) on top of such false premises.

16) 1 Thessalonians 5:9 For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ,

This refers to the predestination of the elect, that Catholics fully agree with, and so it has no relevance to our topic: the reprobate.

17) 1 Peter 2:8 and “A stone that will make men stumble, a rock that will make them fall”; for they stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do.

This at least carries some force in argument, and is not immediately dismissible, as so many so-called “prooftexts” above are. The Catholic Navarre Commentary observes:

“As they were destined to do”: this does not mean that God predestined some to damnation. God wants all men to be saved (cf. 1 Tim 2:4), and that was why Jesus Christ became man; but for someone to be saved, his free response is necessary, and man can oppose God’s salvific plan and reject grace. It should be remembered that in the language of the Bible, particularly the Old Testament, sometimes no distinction is made between what God orders or wills and what he simply allows to happen (cf. Rom 9:14–33 and notes on same).

So let’s cite some of its excellent related commentary on Romans 9 as well, since it cross-references it:

God ordains from all eternity that rational creatures shall attain eternal bliss with the help of grace and with their own free cooperation. The essence of the mystery of predestination lies in the fact that our limited minds cannot fully understand how the inevitability of the success of God’s plan fits in with human freedom. Human freedom must play its part “because the beverage of man’s salvation certainly contains the power to benefit all, but if one does not drink it, one is not healed” (Council of Quierzy, A.D. 853, Doctrina de libero arbitrio hominis et de praedestinatione, chap. 4). Nor is it possible for us to understand the mystery of how God can allow some people to be rejected despite his desire that all should be saved.

Because we are free agents, we might think that salvation or repudiation is entirely dependent on ourselves; on the other hand, if God’s will really is infallible, then salvation or rejection seems to depend entirely on his choice. In the process of dealing with these two erroneous positions, the Church has, over the centuries, spelt out its teaching in greater detail. Against those who overemphasize the part played by human freedom, the Magisterium has stated that “the free will of man was made so weak and unsteady through the sin of the first man that, after the Fall, no one could love God as was required, or believe in God, or perform good works for God unless the grace of divine mercy anticipated him” (Second Council of Orange, De gratia, conclusion). Quoting St. Augustine, that Council went on to say that when men freely follow the will of God, even when they do what they do voluntarily, their will nevertheless is the will of Him who is disposing and ordaining what they desire (cf. ibid., can. 23; In Ioann. Evang., 19, 19). To put it more graphically: loving God is a gift of God.

“Almighty God desires that all men without exception be saved (cf. 1 Tim 2:4), though not all may be saved. That some are saved is due to the gift given by Him who saves; that some perish, however, is because they deserved to perish” (Council of Quierzy, Doctrina de libero arbitrio, chap. 3). Elsewhere the Magisterium teaches: “We confidently believe that the elect are predestined to life and the reprobate to death; but in this election of those to be saved, the mercy of God is prior to merit; whereas in those who will perish, the punishment they deserve [for their sins] precedes the just judgment of God…. But that some are predestined to evil by God, that is, as if they could do nothing else, not only do we not believe, but if there are any who do hold that opinion, we, with the Council of Orange, heartily shun them” (Third Council of Valence, De praedestinatione, can. 3).

The mystery of predestination reveals three very encouraging truths. Firstly, the absolute freedom and generosity of God in granting us his grace without any merit on our part: all men are sinners against him (cf. 3:9ff), yet out of his goodness and mercy he offers them his love and justifies them (vv. 15–16). Secondly, God’s salvific will extends to all mankind: “he desires all men to be saved” (1 Tim 2:4), and Christ, sent by the Father to effect our Redemption, died on the Cross for all mankind. Thirdly, God, in the work of our salvation, counts on our free cooperation and inspires us, through his grace, to cooperate. This means that man can always resist the grace God gives him. The work of our redemption, therefore, is a continuous interplay between divine grace, which takes the initiative, and man’s response, with man’s free decision being prepared by God. . . .

Only in the sense that he allows it to happen can one say that God is the cause of resistance to grace; strictly speaking, the sinner is entirely responsible for his hardness of heart. St. Thomas Aquinas uses this comparison to explain the matter: “Although the sun, for its part, enlightens all bodies, if it encounters an obstacle in a body it leaves the body in darkness, as happens to a house whose window-shutters are closed. Clearly, the sun is not the cause of the house being darkened, since it does not act of its own accord in failing to light up the interior of the house; the cause of the darkness is the person who closed the shutters. So God chooses not to give [the light of] grace to those who put an obstacle in its way” (Summa theologiae, I-II, q. 79, a.3).

We could also examine the Greek word for “destined” in this verse. It’s tithémi: Strong’s Greek word #5087. This is what it means in 1 Peter 2:8, according to the famous Baptist linguist A. T. Robertson in his Word Pictures of the New Testament:

Whereunto also they were appointed (εις ο κα ετεθησαν). First aorist passive indicative of τιθημ. See this idiom in 1 Timothy 2:7. “Their disobedience is not ordained, the penalty of their disobedience is” (Bigg). They rebelled against God and paid the penalty.

Wesleyan pastor Johnathan Arnold, in his article, “Predestined to Disobey? (1 Peter 2:8)” [11-14-25] observed:

Peter’s point is that it is a divinely ordained irony that after rejecting Christ as the Rock of Salvation, the disobedient are destroyed by Christ as the Rock of Stumbling. God does not wish for any to perish (2 Pet. 3:9), and often desired to gather the Jews as a hen gathers her brood under her wings (Mt. 22:37). However, when people are “not willing” (Mt. 22:37) because they “always resist the Holy Spirit” (Acts 7:51), it pleases God for them to stumble over the very same Rock whom they have rejected.

This brings us to the verse in question: . . . In context, Peter does not mean that the disobedient were destined to disobey, or that their disobedience was inevitable because it was God’s will. Rather, Peter means that the disobedient were destined to stumble (over Christ), because God ordained that Christ would be the Rock of stumbling for whoever disobeys. . . .

In the context of 1 Peter 2, where the emphasis is on God’s plan for Christ to be a rock of security to whoever believes in him, and to be a rock of stumbling to whoever rejects him, Peter seems to be saying that what God has destined is that those who are disobedient would stumble over Christ.

18) 2 Peter 2:4 . . . God did not spare the angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to pits of nether gloom to be kept until the judgment;

The fallen angels are a special case, and not analogous to the fate of sinning and/or reprobate human beings. Nor does this text doesn’t claim that it was God’s will for all eternity for them to fall and be condemned. So it’s no prooftext for Calvinist unconditional reprobation, on both grounds.

19) Jude 4 For admission has been secretly gained by some who long ago were designated for this condemnation, ungodly persons who pervert the grace of our God into licentiousness and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.

Here, different translations make it more clear that this is not referencing predestined reprobation:

NIV . . . whose condemnation was written about long ago . . .

ASV . . . who were of old written of beforehand unto this condemnation . . .

Amplified . . . whose condemnation was predicted long ago, . . .

CEV . . . long ago the Scriptures warned that these godless people were doomed.

Good News . . . Long ago the Scriptures predicted the condemnation they have received.

Young’s Literal Translation . . . long ago having been written beforehand to this judgment . . .

The word “designated” in RSV is the Greek prographó (προγράφω) [Strong’s word #4270]. Thayer’s Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament defines it for this verse as “of old set forth or designated beforehand (in the Scriptures of the O. T. and the prophecies of Enoch) unto this condemnation.”

Protestant commentators agree:

Barnes’ Notes on the Bible: The word here rendered “before ordained’ – προγεγραμμένοι progegrammenoi, from προγράφω prographō – occurs in the New Testament only here and in the following places: Romans 15:4, twice, “Whatsoever things were written aforetime, were written for our learning;” Galatians 3:1, “Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth;” and Ephesians 3:3. “As I wrote afore in few words.” Compare the notes, Galatians 3:1. In these places there is evidently no idea implied of “ordaining, or pre-ordaining,” in the sense in which those words are now commonly understood. To that word there is usually attached the idea of designating or appointing as by an arbitrary decree; but no such meaning enters into the word here used. The Greek word properly means, “to write before;” then “to have written before;” and then, with reference to time future, “to post up beforehand in writing; to announce by posting up on a written tablet,” as of some ordinance, law, or requirement; as descriptive of what will be, or what should be.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary: before … ordained—Greek, “forewritten,” namely, in Peter’s prophecy Jude 17, 18; and in Paul’s before that, 1 Ti 4:1; 2 Ti 3:1; and by implication in the judgments which overtook the apostate angels. The disobedient Israelites, Sodom and Gomorrah, Balaam and Core, and which are written “for an example” (Jude 7, and Jude 5, 6, 11).

Bengel’s Gnomen: . . . who were of old forewritten for this judgment) For their coming was predicted, Jude 1:17; and that they should undergo the judgment, which he is about to describe, is evident from the examples of punishments inflicted upon others of similar impurity—examples which have long been written. There is no reference to predestination; . . . Πάλαι, of old, in the time of Enoch, Jude 1:14; and since he himself only spake it, and did not also write it, it must be regarded as an abbreviated expression, in this sense: They were long ago foretold by Enoch, and afterwards marked out by the written word.

Vincent’s Word Studies: Ordained (προγεγραμμένοι). The meaning is in dispute. The word occurs four times in New Testament. In two of these instances πρό has clearly the temporal sense before (Romans 15:4; Ephesians 3:3). . . . It seems better, on the whole, to take it here in the temporal sense, and to render written of beforehand, i.e., in prophecy as referred to in Jde 1:14, Jde 1:15.

In conclusion, I find no compelling evidence in any of these passages in favor of the Calvinist doctrine of unconditional reprobation.

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Summary: I examine nineteen proposed prooftexts used by Calvinist theologians to support unconditional predestined reprobation apart from any human sinful actions whatever.

Calvinism & General Protestantism

Hell & Satan & Last Things

Calvinism

double predestination

John Calvin

Predestination to Hell

supralapsarianism

Unconditional Reprobation

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January 25, 2026

Renowned Calvinists On Unconditional Reprobation