The bible has passages that challenge the notion of free will.

This reflects a genuine and longstanding intramural debate within historic Christian orthodoxy — Augustinian/Reformed compatibilism, Arminian libertarianism, and Molinism (middle knowledge) all remain live, textually-argued positions, not evidence of scriptural incoherence. On the specific texts: the Exodus narrative displays reciprocal causation — Pharaoh hardens his own heart repeatedly (Exod 8:15, 8:32) well before the text says God hardens it, an ANE narrative convention (John Currid notes parallels in Egyptian royal ideology) that ascribes ultimate causality to the primary agent as a ratification of an already-settled moral trajectory, not an arbitrary override of a previously compliant will. Romans 9 is principally about God's sovereign freedom in choosing the corporate, redemptive-historical role of nations/lines (Jacob/Esau as representative of Israel/Edom, quoting Genesis and Malachi in a national context) within Paul's larger argument (Rom 9-11) wrestling with Israel's unbelief and culminating in the hope that 'all Israel will be saved' (Rom 11:26) — a framework of covenantal election-to-purpose, not a flat assertion that individuals have no responsiveness to grace. Even robust Reformed compatibilism (Jonathan Edwards, *Freedom of the Will*) affirms genuine secondary agency and responsibility: freedom is defined as unhindered voluntary action in accordance with one's own desires, which is compatible with those desires being part of a providentially ordered whole.

Classical theism's doctrine of primary and secondary causality (Aquinas, concurrentism) explains how God's sovereign causality operates at the level of being itself while genuine creaturely freedom operates at the level of secondary causes — they are not two competing forces on the same plane fighting over the same causal 'slot,' so affirming both is not a contradiction but a recognition of different orders of causation.