Samson Agonistes

The decisions Samson must make during the dramatic poem are complex because it is unclear whether he has failed God, or whether his suffering is part of the path God has intended for him.

Samson believes he is “a person separate to God / Design’d for great exploits (Lines 31-32)—that God “separated” him out from the general population, giving him gifts and a “great” destiny. However, Samson clearly believes in free will, and does not ascribe his entire life to predestination. Samson regularly blames himself for his humiliating punishments, telling his father, “I my self have brought them on” (Line 375). Samson accepts that he has agency, and thus responsibility, for the choices he has made. He turned himself into “a blab” (Line 495), not God.

However, the philosophical discussion is complicated by the omnipotence of the Abrahamic God: A deity who is all-powerful and all-knowing must have foreseen Samson’s fate. The Chorus suggests that Samson’s self-destructive choices are thus a part of God’s plan, which is mostly inscrutable but definite and reasoned: “Just are the ways of God, / And justifiable to Men” (Lines 293-94). Samson’s decision to deflect human intervention—he doesn’t want his father to free him, and he doesn’t go with Dalila—is shown as acceptance of God’s plan for him.