Human Agency and Divine Will

The Book of Genesis

Charlotte Katzoff

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9781848935907
• eBook ISBN: 9781000089172
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Religion

This book explores the conjuncture of human agency and divine volition in the biblical narrative – sometimes referred to as "double causality." A commonly held view has it that the biblical narrative shows human action to be determined by divine will. Yet, when reading the biblical narrative we are inclined to hold the actors accountable for their deeds.

The book, then, challenges the common assumptions about the sweeping nature of divine causality in the biblical narrative and seeks to do justice to the roles played by the human actors in the drama. God's causing a person to act in a particular way, as He does when He hardens Pharaoh's heart, is the exception rather than the rule. On the whole, the biblical heroes act on their own; their personal initiatives and strivings are what move the story forward. How does it happen, then, that events, remarkably, conspire to realize God's plan?

The study enlists concepts and theories developed within the framework of contemporary analytic philosophy, featured against the background of classical and contemporary bible commentary. In addressing the biblical narrative through these perspectives, this book holds appeal for scholars of a variety of disciplines – bible studies, philosophy, religion and philosophical theology — as well as for those who simply delight in reading the Bible.

1
Temptation in the garden

The Garden of Eden was the handiwork of the Lord. He laid out the Garden with care, seeing to its being suitably stocked with trees “lovely to look at and good for food,” among them the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.¹ The placement of the latter two is a matter of note; they stand at the center of the garden.² The divine plan also provided for the population of the Garden. Adam did not simply stumble upon the Garden, nor is he there because he chose to make it his home. He is placed in the Garden by his Maker.

The creation of the world, we are told, proceeded by divine fiat. The successive days of creation saw the parts of the world coming into being at God’s command, except for man, who is not commanded into being but made by God in a singular act of creation. With deliberation and forethought, God created man in His own image.

With the creation of man, God puts an end to His own absolute rule. Adam may eat from the fruit of all the trees in the Garden, God declares, but He warns, “from the tree of knowledge, good and evil, you shall not eat, for on the day you eat from it, you are doomed to die” (Gen. 2:17).³ Adam has it within his power to abide by the command or to violate it. Thus, God cedes part of His control over the future course of His creation. How God’s plan will unfold will from now on depend, in part, on what Adam will do.

Adam’s choice will not be made in a void, however. The Garden, as we noted, was planted by design. The presence of the forbidden tree in the Garden provides Adam with the opportunity to sin. The Tree’s location at the center of the Garden points up its distinctiveness. Moreover, Adam will not be alone in the Garden. He eats the forbidden fruit only after Eve, the helpmate God provides for him, offers it to him. And Eve eats the forbidden fruit only after the serpent, the most cunning of the beasts God created, beguiles her.

The Garden of Eden narrative displays in high relief the interplay between human action and the divine plan. It reveals the limitations of human freedom in a world in which God’s hand steers the course of events. On my reading, the dynamics in the Garden also give us insight into the limits of God’s intervention, so that human freedom is accommodated within the compass of His design.

I focus here on the theme we are exploring throughout various episodes in the Book of Genesis—the convergence of human action with God’s design. In the Garden, God’s hand is very visible; He has a plan for humanity. Adam and Eve, as I and many other readers maintain, are destined to eat from the Tree of Knowledge, but they fulfill their destiny by their own doing. God does not force their hand. When they eat from the Tree of Knowledge they are acting for their own reasons, on their own desire for the fruit.⁴ The serpent must try and try again to beguile Eve because Eve has it within her power to turn her back on him and the Tree; Adam could have turned down Eve’s offer of the forbidden fruit. Their choices are their own. This tension is at the heart of the drama.

God’s hand is generally less visible in the other parts of the Genesis narratives. What defines the plot throughout the narratives, however, is that a path has been marked out along which events will unfold. In these stories the characters exercise their freedom in a world not of their making, over which they have limited control. On my reading, the Garden story, in presenting a poignant picture of human beings in just such a world, invites us to ponder the consequences of this predicament.

Interpretations of the Garden of Eden narrative are many, and some of them have become staples of our theological and anthropological traditions. If there is any consensus about how to read the narrative, it seems to be that it eludes a unified, comprehensive interpretation. The plot, from its very beginning, seems to lead in different directions, pointing to different and often conflicting conclusions. Readings of any text are by their nature selective—focusing on one theme or motif around which to organize the rest, relegating some of the details to the margins, or simply disregarding them. This is even more the case when reading the complicated narrative before us.

The reading I offer is no different. In the course of my exposition I will note some of the consequences of interpretive choices I make. I will point to questions my reading leaves unanswered and try to account for some of these lacunae. I will try to show how my account nevertheless provides a good key for unlocking the meaning of the details of the story. I further recommend my account as offering a perspective through which to follow the motif of human-divine interaction as it runs through the entirety of the Genesis narratives.

I begin the discussion of the narrative here at the point at which God forbids the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. God tells Adam what the penalty will be for violating the prohibition but does not reveal His reason for prohibiting the fruit. Why does God forbid Adam to eat of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge? Speculation on this point opens different avenues of interpretation and raises issues which I think are critical to how one understands the story. I shall survey some of the answers which suggest themselves and then present my own account of the prohibition.

A jealous God

We start from the natural assumption that God forbade Adam and, as we are to assume, Eve, from eating from the Tree because of the unwelcome results which He foresaw from their doing so. We might expect that God was concerned about the danger to Adam and Eve from eating the fruit. The serpent readily explains to Eve what it is that God is afraid of, however: “For God knows that on the day you eat of [the Tree of Knowledge] your eyes will be opened, and you will become like gods knowing good and evil” (Gen. 3:5). The reason for the prohibition, then, is that God wants to preserve His unrivaled epistemic status.

Is the serpent a reliable source of information? Before insinuating that God is acting out of petty jealousy, the serpent had challenged God’s veracity, telling Eve that, contrary to God’s threat, she would not be doomed to die if she ate from the Tree of Knowledge. It indeed turns out that Adam and Eve do not die on that day, which seems to uphold the serpent’s credibility.

Matters may not be as they seem, however. On a common reading, God’s threat to Adam was not that he would die on the day he ate from the Tree but rather that on that day he would be doomed to die.⁵ A plausible rendering of the latter would be that on the day he ate the fruit Adam would be sentenced to mortality, which is what took place when God blocked his access to the Tree of Life. On this interpretation, God spoke the truth. The serpent’s allegations, then, should not necessarily be taken at face value.

Let us then turn a suspicious eye to the serpent’s account of God’s motive for the prohibition. Here, also, it may seem that the serpent is right. After they eat from the Tree, God declares that now they have become like the gods knowing good and evil, which seems to prompt the worry that they may “reach out and take as well from the Tree of Life and live forever” (Gen. 3:22). Does this mean that God’s reason for putting the Tree of Life out of reach is the fear lest man become like Him? If so, is this also His reason for forbidding the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge?

Is immortality a mark of divinity? Indeed, the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge are mentioned together when we first learn of their presence in the Garden. Unlike the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, however, the fruit of the Tree of Life was not forbidden to Adam and Eve in the Garden. We assume that they ate from it.⁶ If they did, then, although Adam had been formed out of dust, signaling his transient nature, so long as they were in the Garden, Adam and Eve were immortal. Their immortality was a special privilege granted to them so long as they resided in the Garden.

There is no denying, however, that in their being immortal Adam and Eve were like God. Plausibly, so long as they were not party to His knowledge of Good and Evil, God could abide their immortality. What God would not countenance, however, was their being like Him both in their knowledge and their immortality. Since they had already eaten from the Tree of Knowledge, the results of which were presumably irreversible, God wanted to prevent them from eating from the Tree of Life. On this reading, in the phrase, “Now that the human has become like one of us,” God is explaining why He is now denying them the Tree of Life. If so, then it would seem that He forbade the Tree of Knowledge for the same reason. This would be in keeping with the serpent’s claim.

Another possibility, however, is that the phrase, “Now that the human has become like one of us,” comes to explain what the human’s having gained knowledge of good and evil entails—becoming like God. That their newly gained knowledge has this feature is not necessarily what moves God to sentence them to mortality. Rather, it is that they have sinned. Due to their sinning, they forfeit the special privilege they enjoyed in the Garden. They become the temporal beings ordained by their creaturely origins—“for dust you are and to dust shall you return” (Gen. 3:19). Their reverting to their former status—mortal beings—is part of the penalty exacted from them for having disobeyed God.

Like God’s threat of death to Adam if he eats from the Tree of Knowledge, God’s reason for barring the way to the Tree of Life is open to different interpretations. Both these puzzles bear upon the question of the serpent’s veracity—did he deceive Eve or merely seduce her? By contrast, the question of why God prohibited the Tree of Knowledge has more far-reaching implications for our investigation. Was the serpent right on that score?⁷

Aside from the textual details, which admittedly are not unequivocal, I want to point to a logical difficulty with the serpent’s allegation, which, to my mind, counts heavily against it. If, indeed, God wanted Adam to remain ignorant of good and evil, if He really wanted Adam and Eve not to eat from the Tree of Knowledge, did not God have more effective ways of preventing it? By simply not creating the Tree? Or, by planting it outside the Garden and concealing its location or the very fact of its existence from Adam? Yet God placed the Tree within Adam’s easy sight and reach.

There is more to this line of argument. When God forbade Adam and Eve to eat from the Tree, He did not know in advance what Eve would do. At first, it seems, Adam and Eve were successful in abiding by God’s prohibition. And then the serpent appears. It had to be clear to God that the more severe the pressure on her to eat the fruit, the more likely it would be that Eve would yield. Why had God created so cunning a creature? Had He simply given the serpent free reign in the Garden? Had God no inkling of what the serpent might do?

My reading assumes a less than fully omniscient God—specifically, a God who does not know the future actions of human beings. Perhaps the serpent in the Garden was also endowed with free will. Conceivably, God did not know in advance what havoc he would create.⁸ Knowing of his cunning, however, might not God have anticipated trouble from him? Did the serpent carry off his scheme without God’s knowing about it until it was too late to stop him?

I want to propose that God, who planted the Garden, who carefully laid out the trees inside it, placed Adam within it and saw to his well-being there, kept close watch over the Garden. Indeed, when Adam and Eve hide from God in the Garden, God calls out to Adam, “Where are you?” (Gen. 3:9). Did God really not know where they were? Or is this God’s way of confronting Adam? Adam needs only to explain that they are hiding because they are naked, and God immediately surmises what has transpired. “From the tree I commanded you not to eat, have you eaten” (Gen. 3:11)? Moreover, God does not seem caught by surprise. He straightaway spells out in detail what they will suffer as a consequence of what they did.⁹

The idea that God was unaware of the serpent lurking near the Tree of Knowledge or that God had no idea of the serpent’s plan seems to me at odds with the picture of God in these narratives. Nor do I think God was indifferent to Eve’s fate at the serpent’s hands. God knew what the serpent was up to, and, I propose, it is very plausible that He did not stop the serpent because He Himself had sent the serpent as His agent on a mission of beguilement. It was part of God’s plan that Adam and Eve eat from the Tree. God had the serpent on hand to assure its happening. Indeed, the serpent is punished along with Adam and Eve,¹⁰ but he would not be the only agent in the Bible who serves as an instrument which furthers God’s plan and is then punished.¹¹

A test

Contrary to our earlier understanding, we now propose that God did not want Adam and Eve to refrain from eating from the Tree. Why then did He prohibit it? Let us take another look at the scene in the Garden. Confronting Adam at the heart of the garden is a tree bearing enticing fruit. The Tree’s name proclaims the special benefit that comes from eating its fruit. Its location in the center of the Garden commands his attention. The fruit of this tree is den...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication Page
• Contents
• Preface
• Introduction
• 1 Temptation in the garden
• 2 Matriarchal knowledge
• 3 Abraham: a God-fearing man
• 4 Isaac: a tale of deception and self-deception
• 5 Jacob seeks atonement
• 6 Who sold Joseph into Egypt?
• 7 Changes of heart
• Bibliography
• Index