Veritatis Gaudium: Multidisciplinary Journal of Postgraduate Studies

This study seeks to clarify the nature and boundaries of human agency within biblical anthropology. It examines how the imago Dei and the communication of certain divine attributes ground the human capacity for genuine moral choice, while simultaneously establishing why finite agents cannot determine the severity, scope, or ultimate outcomes of those choices. Human agency, remains structurally incapable of determining, controlling, or foreseeing the ultimate magnitude, severity, and scope of their actions' consequences (Jere 4:18;17:10; Ezek 36:19). The argument proceeds through close theological and exegetical analysis of primary biblical texts (Genesis 1–4; Deuteronomy 30:19; selected wisdom, prophetic, and New Testament passages), integrated with classical Christian sources (Augustine, Aquinas, Calvin) and standard systematic distinctions between communicable and incommunicable attributes (Berkhof, Grudem, Horton, Hoekema, Erickson). Contemporary philosophical accounts of agency and free will are engaged only insofar as they illuminate or corroborate the biblical-theological claims. The study establishes that human agency is grounded in the imago Dei through the impartation of divine communicable attributes—such as rationality, moral discernment, and volition—which distinguish humans from other earthly creatures as accountable moral agents. However, this capacity for choice is bounded by five structural limits of finite creaturehood: epistemic finitude, systemic complexity and interdependencies, the postlapsarian disordering of the will, the overriding nature of divine providence, and the intrinsic moral structure of creation. Consequently, an asymmetrical relationship exists between an agent’s ability to initiate a choice and their inability to control or master its downstream results. The capacity for choice is a genuine gift of the imago Dei; sovereignty over outcomes belongs exclusively to the Creator. This asymmetry is not a defect but a constitutive feature of creaturely existence. It preserves both authentic human responsibility and the integrity of divine governance, calling agents to exercise freedom with humility, urgency, and trust rather than presumptuous control. However, the paper argues that the inability to determine outcomes is not a defect or failure of the created order, but a constitutive feature of finite creaturehood under sovereign divine providence. This structural asymmetry properly maintains human moral responsibility without encroaching upon divine governance, demonstrating that human agency is real and morally weighty, yet strictly non-sovereign.

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