The Bible often ascribes conative states to God, i.e., often represents God as possessing and being motivated by volitional states such as desires and intentions. But is this way of talking about God simply imaginative? Is the Christian conception of God one of God as an agent, engaging in practical reasoning, having genuine options and making genuine decisions?
In thinking about this, consider the following passages of Scripture.
"God is not human, that he should lie, not a human being, that he should change his mind. Does he speak and then not act? Does he promise and not fulfill?" (Num. 23:19)
"He who is the Glory of Israel does not lie or change his mind; for he is not a human being, that he should change his mind.” (1 Sam. 15:29)
"The Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time. The Lord regretted that he had made human beings on the earth, and his heart was deeply troubled." (Gen. 6:5-6)
"The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective. Elijah was a human being, even as we are. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years. Again he prayed, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth produced its crops." (James 5:16-18)
"'I have seen these people,' the Lord said to Moses, 'and they are a stiff-necked people. Now leave me alone so that my anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them. Then I will make you into a great nation.' But Moses sought the favor of the Lord his God. 'Lord,' he said, 'why should your anger burn against your people, whom you brought out of Egypt with great power and a mighty hand? Why should the Egyptians say, ‘It was with evil intent that he brought them out, to kill them in the mountains and to wipe them off the face of the earth’? Turn from your fierce anger; relent and do not bring disaster on your people. Remember your servants Abraham, Isaac and Israel, to whom you swore by your own self: ‘I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and I will give your descendants all this land I promised them, and it will be their inheritance forever.'" Then the Lord relented and did not bring on his people the disaster he had threatened." (Ex. 32:9-14)
Can we reinterpret the above passages to block the conclusion that God is an agent without seriously disrupting the integrity of the text? If so, how? If not, what are the theoretical implications of the concept of God as an agent, and are these acceptable?
Tomis Kapitan argues in his paper "Agency and Omniscience" that the property of agency is incompatible with another property commonly held to be essential to God's nature, namely omniscience (see http://www.niu.edu/phil/~kapitan/Agency%20and%20Omniscience.pdf). In other words, argues Kapitan, omniscience precludes genuine agency. If this is right, then we would be forced to reject the Christian conception of God as internally inconsistent.
Spinoza also argues famously that the concept of God as an agent is incoherent. According to Spinoza, "neither intellect nor will [properly] pertain to God's nature...For if God had decreed, concerning Nature and its order, something different than what he did decree, that is, had willed and conceived something else concerning Nature, he would necessarily have had an intellect other than he now has, and a will other than he now has. And if it is permitted to attribute to God another intellect and another will, without any change of his essence and of his perfection, why can he not now change his decrees concerning created things, and nevertheless remain equally perfect? For his intellect and will concerning created things and their order are the same in respect to his essence and his perfection, however his will and intellect may be conceived...And therefore...if things had been produced by God otherwise than they now are, God's intellect and his will, that is (as is conceded), his essence, would have to be difference. And this is absurd" (Ethics, 14, 24; see also pp. 13-15).
Both Spinoza and Kapitan, then, have found serious difficulties with the concept of God as an agent. But what problems derive from denying God's agency? Spinoza's radical reconception of God earned him the title of heretic and got him excommunicated from the church. His ideas of God diverge enough from our own that we label him today as a deist, or even an atheist. Clearly, then, there are significant costs associated with taking either side in this debate. But which costs do you find more problematic? Can you be satisfied with a conception of God that excludes the property of genuine agency (as traditionally conceived)? Can you defend the consistency of a conception of God that preserves it? What are your thoughts concerning the agency of God?
