The Greek myth of Procrustes is rife with application from the perspective of modern Arminian Evangelical theology regarding Man’s Free Will and the foreshortening of man’s will that is part and parcel to the Calvinist theological perspective.

Isaiah 45:7-9

⁷I form light and create darkness;
I make well-being and create calamity;
I am the Lord, who does all these things.

⁸“Shower, O heavens, from above,
    and let the clouds rain down righteousness;
let the earth open, that salvation and righteousness may bear fruit;
    let the earth cause them both to sprout;
    I the Lord have created it.

⁹“Woe to him who strives with him who formed him,
a pot among earthen pots!
Does the clay say to him who forms it, ‘What are you making?’
or ‘Your work has no handles’?

First, to the myth.

There are several versions, but all seem to hinge around certain details that are in agreement: Procrustes, the antagonist, runs a Greek inn, specializing in service to lone travelers. Procrustes seeks to make each guest of his inn to fit within his predetermined boundaries for human existence, these boundaries are symbolized by an iron bed that ironically does not fit anyone. If the guest exceeds the bed’s dimensions, his offending limbs and/or head are lopped-off in order to make him fit, and if he is too short, his body is brutalized with a hammer and rack to elongate him. Unfortunately, both such attempts at conforming the inn’s guests to Procrustes’ ideal dimensions always result in the death of the guest.

Often times the Procrustean Bed is used as a literary device to describe false dilemmas that are caused by the arbitrary assignment of conditions that are neither necessary nor even sufficient in defining the dilemma at hand. However, when it comes to the dilemma of sovereign free will, by it’s very definition, such does not allow us to falsely assume it is but a mere trifling false dilemma. Sovereignty must be resolved as ultimately applicable to only one person. Thus, either man or God must be made to lay down upon that bed, and thus have their free will conditionally modified to a superior, and thus ultimately-sovereign will of the other.