Glorious and Depraved (18): Human Agency

Human beings have agency, that is, they are responsible for their decisions and actions, being determined by their reasoning and active power. They are and can be held accountable for their choices and behavior. However, there are two factors that determine the certainty of the kinds of decisions they/we will make.

The first factor is the foreknowledge and foreordination of God concerning all things. The nature of God’s knowledge is that He knows all things that will happen, and, we must argue, determines all things that will happen. Scripture is replete with these assertions:

I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come. I say, ‘My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please.’ (Isaiah 46:10)

Before a word is on my tongue you, Yahweh, know it completely. (Psalm 139:4)

Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And yet not one of them will fall upon the ground apart from your Father. (Matthew 10:29)

The king’s heart is a stream of water in the hand of Yahweh; he turns it wherever he will. (Proverbs 21:1)

For God to know everything we are going to do renders all our actions and decisions certain, without, of course, removing our agency or accountability. The second factor determining the certainty of the kinds of decisions we will make is inherited sin. Unbelievers are incapable of choosing God and submitting to Him, are incapable of acting any way outside of their fallen nature.

Jesus said, “No one is able to come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up on the last day” (John 6:44). There are three certainties stated here. One, no unbeliever is able to come to (equivalent to “believe in”) Jesus. Two, God draws certain unbelievers to Christ so that they believe. And three, those the Father draws to Jesus will certainly be raised or resurrected by Jesus on the last day. This does not render the unbeliever’s choice to reject Jesus as unaccountable (the unbeliever will be judged for it). And it does not render the believer’s choice to come to Jesus unaccountable (the believer will be rewarded for it).

The apostle Paul makes clear these two realities, that God determines all things and that human beings are nevertheless accountable for their decisions:

You will say to me: “Why does God still find fault; for who has resisted His will?” Rather, who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Doesn’t the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable? (Romans 9:19-21)

The questioner assumes Paul is arguing two propositions: 1) God finds fault with bad human decisions, and 2) no one resists God’s will that determined their decisions. Paul does not counter the questioner’s assumption. That is exactly what Paul is asserting. But the questioner is calling into question the fairness of this. Paul says God has the right, as the divine Potter, to do whatever He will and still hold people accountable for the decisions He determined they would make. The holding of humans accountable for decisions God determined with certainty they would make, is fair.

Certainty of decision does not cancel agency. God has agency, yet it is certain that He will only do righteousness. The newborn has agency thought it is certain he or she will sin. When believers are resurrected and become perfect in the kingdom, they will not lose agency even though they will only be able to choose righteousness.

We may not be able to harmonize the reality of God’s determination of all things and the fairness of holding humans accountable, but both must be held as true. Just as light must be viewed as both waves and particles, a seeming contradiction of physics, so divine sovereignty and human responsibility must both be viewed as true.

For further study see: Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God, J. I. Packer