An Agency Most Free: Through a Biblical Lens

It's been said that the driving motivation for Leonardo da Vinci was his love for God and desire to better know Him. It seems that for Leonardo, the path of one's love of God is traveled through a thirst to better understand His creation-that a perfect knowledge of creation would give expression to a prefect love of God.

Created to bear His image, God made us to be exclusive among the rest of the created world in which we live. Moreover, among these variations of life, humanity stands radically unique in the possession of our own personal agency, our own free will with the power to intentionally affect our surroundings. Therefore, He created us with the ability to be responsible, through which we inherently receive the consequence of accountability. In short, our choice matters. Indeed, this short volume is but an introduction toward what is hoped will become a much larger discussion about how our agency ties us back to our Maker and our relationship with Him.

The Bible was written through the life and blood history of God's chosen people Israel, a history which records God's direct revelation to humanity. They alone were given the very oracles of God (Rom. 3:1-2; Deut. 4:33-35) and were commanded to apply them as illustration of our great need for God's atoning grace (Rom. 3:19-20).

Yet the good news of the Bible is that it is "profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness" (2 Tim. 3:16), that through us, His good purposes might be made manifest (Rom. 8:28). However, in this kind of relationship, proper choices must be made and the right lens employed for such a godly aim.

So as God's direct revelation to us, the Bible is not only the best but the only proper lens through which we rightly perceive our way. This is important for the journey has only just begun and will last an eternity. Yet as a Dutch proverb encourages us, "He who stands outside the door has already a good part of his journey behind him."

Such a topic is indeed a lofty aim for such a small book. Nevertheless, our prayer is that God may bless each step.

The book "An Agency Most Free" is an in-depth perspective on our human quality of being free agents, and does so in light of biblical truth and God's moral standard. If the reader wants a book that's both spiritually and intellectually challenging, this one is for you. He expresses theological themes from new and insightful perspectives which compel the reader to look up his scripture references in their context in order to examine the point he is making. He also quotes deep thinkers like St. Augustine, C.S. Lewis, and G.K. Chesterton, yet has new and unique thoughts of his own that are important to consider. The further one reads into the book, the better it gets.

--Stephen Martin, M.Div.