God & Judas - Sovereignty & Responsibility

We're studying the 12 disciples in Sunday School. Judas is up for discussion next week with one of homework questions being:

"How was Judas responsible for his actions when the betrayal was predetermined by God?"

Great question, isn't it?

Coming to grips with God's sovereignty and man's responsibility is something that every believer needs to work through IMO. In many situations, there's a temptation among Christians to get God off the hook. Man's "free" will and the plans of Satan suddenly become omnipotent in order to place the blame anywhere other than God. But when we consider Jesus' death on the cross, do we want to get God off the hook for that? What do we do with the verses that clearly declare this was God's intention from the beginning? (Isaiah 53:10; Zech, 11:12; Acts 2:23, 4:28)

From Calvin:

[I]n regard to the treachery of Judas, there is just as little ground to throw the blame of the crime upon God, because He was both pleased that his Son should be delivered up to death, and did deliver him, as to ascribe to Judas the praise of our redemption. Hence Augustine, in another place, truly observes, that when God makes his scrutiny, he looks not to what men could do, or to what they did, but to what they wished to do, thus taking account of their will and purpose.  Institutes of the Christian Religion 1.18.4, John Calvin, translated by Henry Beveridge, Hendrickson, pg. 140. (emphasis mine)

From  The Sovereignty of God by A.W. Pink:

But it might be objected that, if God had decreed that Judas should betray Christ, and that the Jews and Gentiles should crucify Him, they could not do otherwise, and therefore, they were not responsible for their intentions. The answer is, God had decreed that they should perform the acts they did, but in the actual perpetration of these deeds they were justly guilty, because their own purposes in the doing of them was evil only. Let it be emphatically said that God does not produce the sinful dispositions of any of His creatures, though He does restrain and direct them to the accomplishing of His own purposes. Hence He is neither the Author nor the Approver of sin. This distinction was expressed thus by Augustine: "That men sin proceeds from themselves; that in sinning they perform this or that action, is from the power of God who divideth the darkness according to His pleasure." Thus it is written, "A man’s heart deviseth his way: but the Lord directeth his steps" (Prov. 16:9). What we would here insist upon is, that God’s decrees are not the necessitating cause of the sins of men, but the fore-determined and prescribed boundings and directings of men’s sinful acts. In connection with the betrayal of Christ, God did not decree that He should be sold by one of His creatures and then take up a good man, instill an evil desire into his heart and thus force him to perform the terrible deed in order to execute His decree. No; not so do the Scriptures represent it. Instead, God decreed the act and selected the one who was to perform the act, but He did not make him evil in order that he should perform the deed; on the contrary, the betrayer was a "devil" at the time the Lord Jesus chose him as one of the twelve (John 6:70), and in the exercise and manifestation of his own devilry God simply directed his actions, actions which were perfectly agreeable to his own vile heart, and performed with the most wicked intentions. Thus it was with the Crucifixion.

If Pink and Calvin are right, and I think they are, this will impact our view of "free will" and the will of God because it's dependent on our understanding of God's sovereignty.  The Sunday school discussion may prove to be very interesting.