Does the soul or material nature act?

A friend of mine sent me this interesting philosophical question. Here it is with some thoughts I had on it below.

Question:

SB 10.87.25 Purport (Part)

Śrīla Vyāsadeva refutes this idea in the section of the Vedānta-sūtra (2.3.31-39) that begins, kartā śāstrārtha-vattvāt: "The jīva soul must be a performer of actions, because the injunctions of scripture must have some purpose." Ācārya Baladeva Vidyābhūṣaṇa, in his Govinda-bhāṣya, explains: "The jīva, not the modes of nature, is the doer. Why? Because the injunctions of scripture must have some purpose (śāstrārtha-vattvāt). For example, such scriptural injunctions as svarga-kāmo yajeta ('One who desires to attain to heaven should perform ritual sacrifice') and ātmānam eva lokam upāsīta (Bṛhad-āraṇyaka Upaniṣad 1.4.15: 'One should worship with the aim of attaining the spiritual kingdom') are meaningful only if a conscious doer exists. If the modes of nature were the doer, these statements would serve no purpose. After all, scriptural injunctions engage the living entity in performing prescribed actions by convincing him that he can act to bring about certain enjoyable results. Such a mentality cannot be aroused in the inert modes of nature."

How does this relate to “Prakrteh kriyamanani gunaih karmani sarvasah” Bg. In SB purport above it states that the soul is the doer whereas the Bg states that soul is not the doer but the 3 modes of Material nature are the doers?
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Answer:

In Hrdayananda Maharaja's purport to the verse above, it is stated:
"Although the soul is in truth both conscious and active, the proponents of Sankhya philosophy wrongly separate these two functions of the living force (ätmani ye ca bhidäm), ascribing consciousness to the soul (purusa) and activity to material nature (prakrti)."

This is the point that Vyasadeva is refuting, namely the atheistic Sankhya philosophy's proposition that the soul is only conscious, but is not active; or in other words that it does not have desire and is simply a passive witness to the desires of the subtle material body.

This leads to the erroneous conclusion that the soul is basically impersonal, and perfection is attained in a sort of impersonal non-desire state where is the soul is inactive but conscious.

Thus the Vaisnava acaryas reject this philosophy of the soul being inactive, because they are experiencing the spiritual activity of the soul, in loving, perfect, service to the Supreme Soul, independant of gross and subtle matter.

The Bhagavad gita verse prakrteh kriyamananai etc, is making a different point, namely that the souls are not actually the controllers of material nature, it is the modes themselves that are making the world work, not us. However, by the influence of false ego or identity, we identify our soul with the actions of the world. Thus Krishna is explaining that to think that we are the doer is false ego and foolish.

So in prakrteh kriyamanani, Krishna is pointing out that we act out of a false sense of self, not that our self has no propensity to act, as the atheistic sankhyaites are saying.

B.g. 13.21 nicely reconciles this point, "Nature is said to be the cause of all material causes and effects, whereas the living entity is the cause of the various sufferings and enjoyments in this world."
And in the purport Srila prabhupada explains: "According to one's desires and activities, material nature places one in various residential quarters. The being himself is the cause of his attaining such residential quarters and his attendant enjoyment or suffering. Once placed in some particular kind of body, he comes under the control of nature because the body, being matter, acts according to the laws of nature. At that time, the living entity has no power to change that law. Suppose an entity is put into the body of a dog. As soon as he is put into the body of a dog, he must act like a dog. He cannot act otherwise."

So the prakrteh verse is stating that the material nature is the cause of the various interactions, but it is the soul itself who is the cause of his own sufferings, because it is his desire to be here, and it is his desire alone which will make him decide to want to get out from this encagement, after hearing from the scriptures.

In other words, the soul does not directly affect the workings of the modes, they act under the laws of nature, but the soul does have the ability to desire to situate himself in a certain situation within the modes, or beyond the modes, and work towards that situation under guidance of scripture, as stated by our acharyas in the Bhagavatam verse you have quoted above.