A popular critique of Reformed theology is that it envisions a “puppet master” God, who endows his creatures with “agency” that is apparent rather than real. In reality, their choices, particularly concerning salvation, have already been made for them. God pulls at the strings and we, the marionettes, twirl and dance to his manipulations. The elect and the reprobate alike are simply going through the motions.
A more sophisticated (and frankly, more interesting) metaphor is available in Isaac Asimov’s celebrated science fiction series, Foundation. One of the novels features a mutant known only as the Mule, who possesses extraordinary psychic abilities allowing him to manipulate the emotions of others at will. The Mule can, and does, make people love him; that the “Converted,” as he calls these people, know themselves to be such does not dampen their devotion in the least.
Now, a number of theologians are concerned with portraying God as very much not like this. In their view, God does not override, overwhelm or overrule the freedom of his creatures; in other words, he does not compete with them. This “non-competitive agency” model of divine-human interaction posits that God and humanity are not fighting over a scarce resource in the world called freedom. God’s sovereignty is not limited or threatened by robust human agency, because God is not the supreme being in a collection of other beings; following Aquinas, he is in fact the ground and source of all being. Human freedom is participation in, not conflict with, divine freedom.
Non-competitive agency clears up the old (Protestant) problem of how God’s sovereignty and man’s responsibility interact, and no longer must we join Martin Luther in wishing that we were not born as human beings when we consider the doctrine of predestination. Nor are we as troubled by the age-old problem of evil. God has endowed us with both responsibilities and possibilities for the future, opening up the potential for genuine failure but also for real love.
But I, for one, just can’t get very excited about it. For starters, the writers of scripture don’t hesitate to portray God as hardening and softening hearts, filling unsuspecting kings with the Spirit, ensuring the national acceptance of one course of action rather than another, and knocking people off horses — all in a suspiciously competitive manner. The Bible clearly ascribes agency to human beings, but it also shows a God who is not too worried about impinging on it.
Frankly, I don’t mind the competition. The inviolability of human freedom seems a little less sacred when you’re downloading your third calorie-tracking app of the year, or when you’re yelling at your kids over some minor inconvenience twelve minutes before church. Or when you kind of know that this one last beer of the night isn’t really going to be your last. Or when that deliciously nasty comeback pops in your head and you simultaneously realize that it’s going to make things a thousand times worse, and that you’re going to say it anyway. Suddenly, the proposition that “God doesn’t compete with you” seems like pretty bad news. It would be nice if he did, actually.
Which is why, for all of his angst about predestination, Luther embraced passivity in his own salvation. During his years in the monastery, he discovered that he could not will a morally pure action meritorious in the eyes of God. Henry Ford once (allegedly) quipped that his customers could buy his cars in any color they liked, as long as that color was black; for Luther, the sinner can freely choose to do anything he wants, but all he wants is sin. His will is bound because his loves are disordered. Luther’s only hope for salvation was for God to “compete” with him, that is, to transform his will by changing his affections in an act of pure, unmerited grace. [1]
Going back to Asimov’s story, the Mule overrides people’s natural affections so that they love him. We rightly regard this as gross and immoral — but why, exactly? We might say it’s because the Mule eliminates the agency of others. But how much agency do we really have to begin with when it comes to who and what we love? To quote the great French essayist Michel de Montaigne, writing about his best friend: “If a man should implore me to give a reason why I loved him; I find it could not otherwise be expressed, then by making an answer: because it was he, because it was I.” Speaking of “freedom” or “choice” here seems like a category error.
The real difference between the Mule and God is that God is himself goodness, beauty, and truth. If God treats us as objects, so to speak, it is so that we will love the right things. Fundamentally, we are creatures of affect rather than volition. Under no circumstances are we our own masters, charting some objectively rational and prudent course for ourselves and then following it. The biblical metaphor for our condition is servanthood, and we are willing servants of whatever holds our hearts. A God who will compete for our affections (and win), is the God we need.
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