Does God Make People Spiritually Blind? Two Readings of Romans 11:8 and Related Passages

The author begins with the frustration of sharing the good news that God loves people and wants to share his life with them, only to get no response, as if those listening were asleep. The post then turns to Romans 11:8, which speaks of God giving people a “spirit of stupor,” and to John 12:39–40, which seems to say God blinded their eyes. Since these verses can sound as if God himself keeps people from seeing, the author proposes looking at how the same prophecy from Isaiah appears elsewhere.

Next, the author points to Jesus’s words in Matthew 13, where the people themselves close their eyes, and to Paul’s quotation of Isaiah in Acts 28, which says the same. The author argues there is no contradiction. When Jesus and Paul in Acts speak of people shutting their eyes, they describe people who turn away from God’s goodness and become hardened. When John and Paul in Romans speak of God blinding them, the author reads this as saying that God has built a world in which unbelief carries real consequences. Those who refuse God’s goodness become captive to their appetites, and God allows this so that they may come to their senses and recognize their need for a Deliverer.

Finally, the post contrasts God with the devil. The devil does not physically blind anyone, but he works to keep people in the dark. God, by contrast, does not blind or put people to sleep. He calls them out of darkness so that they may open the eyes of others, as the post illustrates with Paul’s commission in Acts 26.

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