I was talking with someone who was struggling to believe in the existence of God. His main arguments were regarding the sovereignty of God: “If God is an all-powerful, all-knowing God, then why didn’t He know that Satan, or Lucifer at that time, would rebel and cause so much trouble for Him? And why did He allow Satan to pull so many spirit beings down with him. And why did He allow him to deceive mankind and mess up God’s plan?”
The broad answer is critical to understanding both how God designed and rules His spiritual and physical domains, and how He plans to expand His family. It involves the concept of Free Moral Agency in regard to how His plan for the salvation of mankind actually works.
Free Moral Agency
God is in ultimate control of everything: “Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the Lord that will stand”(Proverbs 19:21 ESV). We can also state that humans have free will. But, just how much freedom do we really have?: “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers,…in…heavenly places” (Ephesians 6:12). What power do we have against that? 1 John 3:8 states the purpose of Jesus Christ was to destroy the works of the devil. Are we just a bunch of pawns in a big, massive spiritual chess game?
Let’s look at each of these words in Free Moral Agency to help us understand better what we’re talking about:
Free:
The word “Free” here, does not mean complete freedom from all boundaries. It’s actually in reference to how every human being functions that makes us different from the animal realm. God gives something to humans that the Bible calls the “spirit in man.” It is indeed a spiritual component that gives humans the power to think, to create, and to be self-determining.
The Bible tells us in Genesis that we were made in God’s image which includes the ability to be free in mind, to be self-determining, to make decisions. We have the ability to choose. Freedom simply means the ability to choose. It’s not only how we do something, but why we do something. However, these choices lie within certain boundaries.
Moral:
“Moral” refers to the “capacity” to understand right and wrong. Not to know what is right and wrong, but the capacity to be ethical or unjust. To know, and then do what is right, there has to be some kind of a law from which to instruct on how to conduct ourselves, what our behavior is to be.
The difference between “free” and “moral” is that while the freedom to choose is inherently given to a man, morality is not. Morality is something that must be taught to a man. And the problem of course in this age, is the rejection of God as the instructor. But that doesn’t change the fact that freedom has boundaries, despite what the current world culture pushes on people.
And likewise, spiritual laws are in place. God patterned the physical after the spiritual. It all has structure that the freedom to choose is bound within. He didn’t create law in one realm and then not in another. How could Satan have sinned unless he broke law? It may not have been codified in written form, but he sinned nonetheless. It was a matter of the thoughts and intents of his mind that went astray from a Godly mindset, away from God’s way of life, His way of love.
Our human capacity involves understanding how a decision affects other humans. If a human steals food, there’s so much more going on in the mind, and not just for the thief, but also for the rightful owner. Maybe it was driven by greed or perhaps even vengeance. But maybe it’s simply driven by hunger, a need for food. There are different factors to consider here, but it’s sin regardless, because God defines what sin is through the law.
So we were made as relational beings, and therefore many of our decisions we have affect our relationships greatly, both with God and our fellow man. We need God, we need one another, and that’s how God designed us.
Agency:
The word “agency” here simply means the ability to take action. To do something. So we take in the information, we make a decision, and then we follow through on that decision. Actions are not only allowed, but they’re expected. We should hopefully come to some conclusions about what actions we should take as we continue to progress spiritually.
Putting all this together, we see that “free moral agency” is just the freedom to know and then act within clearly defined and understood boundaries. Without it, there would be no capacity to choose based on spiritual law. And there’d be no ability to grow in character. There’d be no ability to willingly choose good or evil. If we didn’t have that privilege or the gift of free moral agency, there would be no capacity to choose to live God’s way of life. And that’s really the point, because it has to be a choice.
God is also the way He is because He chooses to be so. He still makes choices based on His free moral agency. He chooses to be faithful to us, even when we’re unfaithful to Him. He sets boundaries and He stays within them, And we are learning to be like Him. We must choose to love others every day, no matter what they do.
In Genesis 2:16-17, we have all these aspects of free moral agency laid out. We see that choice is being laid out. We see law and instruction, a defined range of choice, and we see action. Then we see consequences of choices made.
There was likely instruction from God to Adam for a significant amount of time regarding all kinds of subjects, both physical and spiritual in nature. Adam’s main job was to work and to take care of the garden. And then he could eat from it. He had to learn how to work the garden. So there was action involved, having to learn to care for it and to feed himself. And then there was the job of naming the animals.
And in this whole process, he’s making lots of decisions and choices. He had the freedom to choose. And also through that exercise, he learned that he was incomplete without a mate. God taught Adam everything he needed to know in order to make informed choices. He had been taught what obedience and disobedience to both physical and spiritual laws look like. He made correct decisions for who knows how long. Until the day he made a very wrong one (Genesis 3:1-24).
However, God didn’t unfairly dump him in the deep end of the pool without teaching him to swim. That’s not who God is. And He does the same for us. So that tells me that He must have done the same for Adam and others. He made sure that they had the information they needed.
But we can’t just live on physical food that comes from that Garden. There is a spiritual dimension, one from the right behavior based on the law of love that can only be taught by God, the law giver. Humans learn from both receiving instruction through reading and hearing, and the practicing of it or by experience.
A big problem comes along when we decide that we can learn the spiritual dimension just fine through our own experience without instruction from God. Adam and Eve had free moral agency, and made a wrong choice. They received instruction from two sources and ultimately chose to believe the false one (Genesis 3:6; 1 John 2:16-17).
At that point in the garden, Satan, the father of that false information, used his power to broadcast his nature to the minds that were now opened to his way of life. In other words, he took them captive and he blinded them from the truth, and God allowed it, and still allows it for His purpose. Humans seek things that are pleasant to the sight and desirable to make one wise. But it is chosen without the understanding of God’s will and law, not knowing that they’re really accepting Satan’s will instead (Jeremiah 17:9, 10:23; Proverbs 14:12, Romans 8:7).
Remember, God gives us the “capacity” to know the difference between right and wrong, and the ability to choose the two ways, but that doesn’t make us moral beings. He didn’t give us the ability to know right and wrong for ourselves. It’s a huge difference between having the capacity to know right and wrong and knowing what is right and wrong.
And the good news is that we can be freed from that captivity. Those who God calls and chooses now, to reveal the truth through the power of the Holy Spirit, have access once again to choose. To choose what? To choose from the Tree of Life.
That’s really what is meant when it’s stated that a true Christian has freedom. It’s the freedom to choose between the two trees once again. The inherent path of mankind since the Garden has been death. There’s no choice outside of accepting Jesus Christ as our savior that allows any escape from death. That once we have true freedom, it’s then a choice between eternal life and eternal death.
Something else that’s taught in God’s word regarding eternal life is that it’s not granted solely due to obedience, to making choices. We are to obey the law, and make good choices regarding it, but there’s more to it (Romans 10:1-10).
God knows whether our choices are based on outward appearance only, or whether they stem from a trusting heart that believes God fully and obeys because of that faith; A faith that involves action. It’s not just empty faith. The will and passions of the heart are to be converted by the power of the Holy Spirit working in that person. And that’s what leads to salvation.
And all of it was made possible only by Jesus Christ’s sacrifice which made the way of the Tree of Life available, to “eat” from. And of course, that’s all a process. It’s not just a one-time confession. It takes a long time to replace faulty character with Godly character (2 Corinthians 10:3-7). Jesus Christ living within us through the Holy Spirit is what provides the moral discernment, not anything inherent within us.
The nurturing of that relationship with Christ and the power behind it is something that each of us must decide to pursue. 1 John 2:17, begins to reveal what God’s perspective is on free moral agency. In other words, His will. His way of love is the boundary where our freedom must lie within. Otherwise, eternal life will not be granted.
Let’s consider a couple of other examples from the book of Genesis about some people who made some choices, except we’ll read about them from the book of Hebrews: We start off seeing that everything was created by a being that has immense power beyond our comprehension, has completely different ways of operating than we do, and with very different motives. And He used what is not visible to create everything that is visible.
And then we see, right after that, this example of Abel who listened to God’s instruction. He brought the right sacrifice, at the right time, for the right reason with a willing heart. That’s what God was looking for. Cain did not follow those instructions. God calls Abel righteous. Abel’s choices, and what the point is here, is that his choices still speaks; he is a witness to God’s way of life (Hebrews 11:3-4).
So what is God doing through our choices and experiences as well? He’s creating witnesses (Acts 1:8, Isaiah 43:10). Our job will be to teach people how to use free moral agency correctly. God gives us instruction and ample time in which to choose. We see God’s mind concerning this in key verses from Peter (2 Peter 3:8-9). So here’s God’s intent. Patiently working and waiting for everyone to learn, to make decisions to accept His instruction, to repent and turn from the direction they were going.
Through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ sin, or the wrong choice, can be forgiven, blotted out. That doesn’t mean that we can keep on sinning. We have got to continue to grow in character by making enough correct choices, until God knows that we can be trusted to live His way of life forever. But choice never goes away. Free Moral Agency doesn’t just suddenly go away once the last humans are gone. Free moral agency is what the spirit realm has already.
So yes, God is overall in control of His grand plan, but only so much as to what will be the most beneficial to the majority of mankind in their multi-age learning process of mastering their free moral agency.
We’re clearly told that followers of Christ are being trained for positions of authority. However, the purpose of all that is for the benefit of all mankind. It is for their conversion process. Not just a relatively few now. And judging by how God’s been working with His people now, we can ascertain that being a witness to mankind is probably going to be a far more powerful and effective means than even we can possibly imagine. And all of this should help answer the question that I asked earlier regarding whether or not God uses people against their will or violates their free moral agency.
Take a look at a perfect example of free moral agency. Jesus Christ is speaking: “Therefore My Father loves Me, because I lay down My life that I may take it again. 18 No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This command I have received from My Father” (John 10:17-18).
Did the Father force Jesus Christ, the other member of the God family, to do what He did? Did He “guilt” Jesus into it. No. Obviously they came up with a plan by which they could destroy the works of Satan and which provided the pathway so many more members could be added to God’s family.
Jesus says that He made this choice to lay down His life. He believed fully in the promise and power that His life would be restored. Both God the Father and Jesus Christ know exactly what they’re doing. We also have the power to lay down our life. We have free moral agency to choose to give up the carnal way of thinking and accept a new life within us.
So to be “Free” means mankind is capable of choosing. “Moral” means that through instruction and experience the right way must be taught. And “Agency” means the ability to act according to that instruction by willingly allowing God’s Spirit to change us.
I think if I had to answer that question again that the person asked at the beginning about allowing Satan to rebel, I would say that when it comes to the subject of free moral agency, God doesn’t know everything. Because He made a choice through His supreme sovereignty to be that way and to create through that method. He’s determined not to force a certain choice upon anyone. He could have created a whole realm of robots if He wanted to, but He didn’t.
When He created spirit beings, He didn’t know some would rebel. That’s ridiculous. Why would He have created them in that case? He created beings with the freedom to reason, and think, and choose, all of which are spiritual components that come from Him, and Him alone through His spirit. Free moral agency is indeed a very special gift from God to all mankind.
Tim Vail