The concept of agency was introduced to the West by Aristotle (as ‘entelechy’) around 350 BCE [1]. This conception of agency was oriented around a drive that guides one’s development and pushes one towards voluntary actions in the direction of a telos. Aristotle understood that everything has a cause and formulated the concept of the need for a first mover, or an unmoved mover to initiate the universe. This means his conception of agency was largely compatible with determinism.
In 1689 CE, John Locke published “Essay Concerning Human Understanding” with over 400 pages largely focused on explicating the relationship between agency and free will [2]. John Locke’s central message was that traditional conceptions of free will were absurd, but a compatibilist notion of free will (free agency) was the coherent way to approach the topic. His conception of liberty or free agency was able to provide moral responsibility while not contradicting determinism.
In June 1830 CE, Joseph Smith initiated a fresh translation of the Bible into English with the purpose of reinstating "many important points touching the salvation of men, [that] had been taken from the Bible, or lost before it was compiled." The sections constituting the Book of Moses were initially released in the church publications Evening and Morning Star and Times and Seasons during the 1830s and 1840s [3].
Interestingly enough, the Book of Moses discusses the concept of agency in a pre-Earth context, in the context of Adam and Eve, and in a context of discussion between God and Enoch. Despite the Bible and Book of Mormon never addressing the concept of agency, suddenly Joseph Smith’s corrections to the Bible add in agency with little to no philosophical explanation. It is often theologically presumed that agency is equivalent to free will.
How did this concept of agency get into the Book of Moses? Is agency a type of lost knowledge that Joseph Smith had to restore? Or is agency a concept that philosophers of Joseph’s Day were developing, and Joseph just anachronistically interpolated modern philosophic ideas into his artificial rewriting of ancient texts?
It seems quite convenient that agency is never properly explained. If it was derived by divine wisdom, then there should be a superbly enlightening explanation available. If it was just ripped off from other thinkers, then it makes sense that Joseph isn’t prepared to explicate the topic.
It seems rather convenient that Joseph’s conception of agency seems to address the question of free will, as John Locke’s position did 150 years earlier. Only John Locke was sophisticated enough to explain its compatibility with determinism, and Joseph or God were not.
If all of this is not enough, then it may be of interest to you that not only does it seem like Joseph stole the concept of agency from John Locke, but it seems like he also stole from him the concept of intelligences as a source of spirit – “We have the ideas but of three sorts of substances; 1. God. 2. Finite intelligences. 3. Bodies” [2].
1. Sachs, Joe. Aristotle's Physics: A Guided Study. Rutgers University Press, 1995.
2. Locke, John. An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. Dover Publications, 1996.
3. Joseph Smith (Joseph Fielding Smith ed.), Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, 16 February 1832, pp. 10–11.
Locke_Free_Agent_book.pdf - Google Drive
