External Causes of Sin

In no way whatever, directly or indirectly, is God the cause of any sin.

God supports his creatures in being and existence. God therefore supports man’s free will, even while man is abusing free will by sinning. God causes the man who sins, and causes his will, and enables or causes it to act. But, though God is the cause of the act which free will makes sinful, he is in no way the cause of the sin as such.

God is called the cause of spiritual blindness and of hardness of heart, in the sense that he withdraws or withholds his grace from those in whom he finds an obstacle or block to the entry and effectiveness of such grace.

Spiritual blindness and hardness of heart indicate aman’s determined abandonment of God, and, consequently, his abandonment of the hope of heaven. Sometimes, however, a temporary spiritual blindness may work towards a man’s good by warning him; just so a temporary blindness of the bodily eyes may warn a man to avoid strain and unsuitable light which could permanently injure or destroy his vision.