Vanhoozer expresses a desire to engage in dialogue at the hermeneutical level. For instance, Vanhoozer sees the need for “honest conversation.” Like Grant Osborne,[1] he rightly stresses the need for humble discourse among theological camps. To “acknowledge the need for dialogue” reveals a posture of “provisionality of one’s own monological musings.” I agree. Yet, the nature of the Calvinist’s theological difficulties, and whether or not Vanhoozer’s theological view of “God-in-communicative-action” is sufficient to relieve those difficulties, involves a careful assessment that requires “Calvinists and non-Calvinists-in-communicative-action.” This is something Vanhoozer rightly challenges us to engage in. [2] It is something this non-Calvinist would welcome. I agree with what Vanhoozer says about our need for open, honest dialogue. Especially honest dialogue. Vanhoozer writes,
“Self-inspection is nowhere near as effective, however, as exposing oneself to the rigors of honest conversation. The shortest route to dishonesty is that which avoids dialogue…Can this divinity professor be honest?…one tell tale sign of dishonest theology is an incapacity for conversation. Conversely, to admit the provisionality of one’s own monological musings is to acknowledge the need for dialogue, and for keeping silent in order to hear what is being said.”[3]
But, at bottom, can there be honest dialogue from a Calvinist? Speaking as a non-Calvinist who believes, and I think I’ve convincingly shown, that the Calvinist arguments in defense of their theology are at times rationally and biblically torturous and many of them amount to implausible rationalizations, I have not seen the Calvinist maintain honesty when confronted with the contradictions and incoherencies in their theology. They never seem to admit to the provisionality of their own monological musings when those “musings” are shown to be contradictory and inconsistent. Honesty demands such an admission, but instead we get disingenuousness, obfuscation and rationalizations. I submit to you that the Calvinist is not honest with himself in his own “monological musings” let alone in dialogue about those “musings.” There is on the part of Calvinists an unwillingness to accept the obvious incoherence within Calvinism. So, I must honestly say that I have trouble with Vanhoozer’s Calvinist soteriology as being an honest theological expression. The logical, moral, and epistemological inconsistencies I have pointed out on this website raise real issues regarding the integrity and sincerity, the genuineness and forthrightness, that is, the honesty of Calvinist speech. It is, in enough respects, disingenuous and hypocritical. Vanhoozer’s call for “honest conversation” as one way to prevent “dishonest theology.” Again, I agree. But this needs to be acknowledged by the Calvinist. They must come to grips with their problem of incoherence. But they will not. Therefore, such a call for “honest conversation” rings hollow. His call for “honest conversation” should seek a remedy for those serious problems inherent in his theology. But that does not happen. Calvinists ultimately avoid the problematic nature of their theology. There is a lack of coherence and logical consistency in Vanhoozer’s Calvinist theology. I have proved that over and over on this site. So even in the light of centuries of dialogue, the Calvinist refuses to consider that the incoherence and contradictions within his theology are symptomatic of the “provisionality” of his own “monological musings.”
As I reflect upon Vanhoozer’s comments here several things come to mind. First, it has been my personal experience that an “incapacity for conversation” is more prevalent among Calvinists than non-Calvinists. Regarding conversation itself, it has been my personal experience that overtures made towards Calvinists to discuss these matters have been met with indifference and silence. The Calvinist feels no need to defend their theological beliefs against criticism. I guess that if the Calvinist is acting consistent with their beliefs, it would be the case that God has predestined each person to hold the position that they do, and so it is logically futile to engage on these matters. It is God who would have to make any “change” according to his predetermined plans, that is if such “change” has even been preordained for them. Indeed, if you challenge a Calvinist regarding their theology, you may never hear from them again.
Granted, most Christians of whatever stripe, shy away from discussing the doctrines of election, predestination, and human freedom, let alone anything that has to do with the Bible and their faith. There is a general indifference and lack of enthusiasm among Christians today regarding their faith, doctrine, and theology. Perhaps we have been dulled by the world’s business and attractions. That aside, many non-Calvinist evangelicals avoid dialogue on these topics because they dislike confrontation and do not want to be party to the possibility of “congregational division.” Others have simply been persuaded by Calvinists that sovereignty and free will cannot be meaningfully comprehended or reconciled and have given up on the whole matter. They live very happily not concerning themselves with learning what these doctrines could possibly mean. And yet it is very interesting that those on each side in going about their daily lives think and act as though human freedom and responsibility is the truth about life as opposed to an exhaustive divine determinism as we have in Calvinism. Therefore, most Christians secretly reject Calvinism on the basis of practical reality. It’s enough to know that a theology you can’t live by must be false. But these people never take a stand against Calvinism so as not to cause division. But this is just to adopt and promote theological relativism in the evangelical church. Anyway, I have found repeatedly, in various contexts where dialogue was perfectly appropriate, contexts of teaching, preaching or casual conversation, via methods both verbal and written, where these subjects were being directly addressed or were relevant, that interaction with Calvinists who are quite theologically informed and could be conversant regarding their beliefs, simply refuse to engage those who, without undue offense, question or critique their theology. Attempts to broach concerns about the biblical accuracy and logical consistency of statements made by Reformed Calvinist pastors and teachers under whose ministry I have sat, or simply to converse with Calvinist friends and family are usually met with indifference. I submit that this indifference is generally characteristic of the Calvinist because the logical and moral challenges brought against their theology cannot be defeated by them. Thus, the Calvinist lives in a thought-world of his own making. He ultimately either ignores or rationalizes away the problematic nature of his theology. Moreover, I submit that indifference is characteristic of the Calvinist because ultimately such indifference is characteristic of the Calvinist ‘god’ they worship, despite their statements to the contrary.[4] For instance, Vanhoozer writes,
“The opposite of love, it has been said, is not hate but indifference. The God of the Christian gospel is anything but indifferent toward humanity.”[5]
Now, let’s examine this claim that “the God of the Christian gospel is anything but indifferent toward humanity.” Given Vanhoozer’s Calvinism this statement is astounding to me. I submit to you that God, as Calvinist’s perceive of his will and ways with “humanity,” is not only indifferent, but as also hateful, for this “humanity” includes a myriad number of persons that this God alone has willed they not be able to participate in his salvation plan. God has made it so that there is no possibility of salvation for these people. So here I believe we have a prime example of how the Calvinist cannot and will not incorporate coherence and consistency into his theology so as to reflect the criteria of valid interpretation that scholars like Grant Osborne have delineated. There is little openness to entertaining that coherence and consistency are reliable determiners of valid interpretations and therefore should serve to shape and form one’s present theological stance. Vanhoozer attempts to employ speech act and literary theory in a “God-in-communicative-action” theological perspective to explain God’s actions in history and with human persons. But here, I believe, we have an example of Calvinist incoherence – a disconnect between word and theology.
First, what Vanhoozer writes here definitely implies that God loves everybody (“humanity”). I think the word “humanity” as used by a Calvinist in the context of God’s love and his claim that God is “anything but indifferent toward humanity” would obviously engender some level of reflection and discussion by anyone familiar with Calvinism as to its coherence with the Calvinist doctrine of unconditional election. In other words, this statement should trouble us and cause us to ask some questions. So, given Calvinist unconditional election, does God love everybody? I think the honest answer must be, “No, God does not love everybody.” What does Vanhoozer mean by the word “humanity?” Why does he use that word? Moreover, what does Vanhoozer mean by “the Christian gospel?” What is his message of “good news” that would be consistent with his Calvinist soteriological doctrines? How are these statements coherent with his universal divine causal determinism?
One thing a non-Calvinist would ask Vanhoozer is to coherently explain in light of the above statements how God is not indifferent to the non-elect portion of “humanity,” that is, in what possible sense can it be said that He is “anything but indifferent to humanity” as it includes the non-elect? The claim that God is not indifferent toward “humanity” is in conflict with Calvinist predestination that divides this “humanity” into the elect and non-elect, each having an unalterable, preordained eternal destiny in heaven or hell. How does the God-ordained destiny of the non-elect who will be separated from God and all good for all eternity fit coherently with Vanhoozer’s claim here? In the context of making the point that the opposite of love is indifference, God certainly is, to say the least, indifferent to a large portion of “humanity.” Surely Vanhoozer doesn’t mean to say that God is not indifferent to the non-elect because he actively assigns them to eternal damnation! I guess that could be considered anything but indifferent, but it is certainly not and expression of God’s love for them.
Thus, coming from a Calvinist, the non-Calvinist believes this statement is not as honest, accurate, and theologically coherent as it could and should be. “Humanity” is too broad and nebulous a term when what Vanhoozer really believes is that “The God of the Christian gospel is anything but indifferent toward the elect.” This would be more theologically coherent and honest. Indeed, given our inaccessibility to God’s eternal decree regarding each person’s eternal destiny, we can also ask whether this “God of the Christian gospel” is not “indifferent” to you and me personally and individually. Given the doctrines of unconditional election and an effectual call, such indifference is a real possibility. Whether God loves us in actual reality as an individual, not just as a collective “humanity,” whether we are predestined to salvation or damnation, is beyond our knowing. That you or I may be predestined to eternal damnation is a real possibility on Vanhoozer’s Calvinist theology.
Given the doctrine of unconditional election we are left perplexed. We would expect, if we value coherence, that if God is not indifferent to humanity, as Vanhoozer claims, we can presuppose that this means God is loving towards humanity, that is, towards all of us – you, me, and every individual sinner. After all, we are all human and we are all sinners. Vanhoozer believes people fall into two classes – the elect and the non-elect. Since this is what he believes, what sense could there possibly be in his assertion that, “The God of the Christian gospel is anything but indifferent toward humanity.” Isn’t this statement in direct conflict with his doctrine of unconditional election? It appears that given Vanhoozer’s mass of non-elect persons not only is God indifferent to them, for that is certainly included, but it can be truly said that God hates them judged by both his disposition and his actions towards them. Certainly, God loves those he predestined to salvation and therefore he is not indifferent to them, but those who are predestined to damnation God has certainly treated, not only with indifference, but with hate. This is precisely the conclusion that Vanhoozer’s theology requires. Again, would Vanhoozer seriously maintain that God is not indifferent to those he predestined to damnation? I don’t think so. But then what is Vanhoozer trying to communicate to us? Yet again, if we value coherence, comprehensiveness, and consistency, to say “the God of the Christian gospel is anything but indifferent toward humanity,” meaning that he loves all his human creatures, then the idea of a non-elect population predestined to hell becomes logically and morally incoherent. Given the consequence of the Calvinist doctrine of predestination that there is a mass of humanity God does not desire or will to be saved (i.e., the reprobate), any claim that “the God of the Christian gospel is anything but indifferent toward humanity” rings hollow and is of no consequence to the non-elect. Whether the opposite of love is hate or indifference is of no consequence to the non-elect. The point is that whatever the opposite of love is, God is that towards the non-elect.
The biblical and theological incoherence of this predetermined division of humanity into the saved and the damned deepens when we read in 1 Jn, 4:8-16 that “God is love,” and that love was made manifest in the sending of his Son to be the propitiation for our sins for the very purpose that we might live through him. The love and good intention of God as universal, that is, “toward humanity,” is inherent in this passage. Furthermore, the apostle bases a universal ethical imperative (v. 11) and an epistemological assurance (v. 16) on these same theological truths. In verse 11 we read, “Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought to love one another.” (ESV) And in verse 16 we read, “So we have come to know and to believe the love God has for us.” (ESV) Now, the troubling thing is that Vanhoozer knows these verses throughout the Bible and yet they do not alter his Calvinist doctrines which place in doubt God’s love for “us” (“humanity”) and leave “us” with a lack of assurance despite the words of John that he truly knows that God loves him and “us.” John also affirms this in the passage of Scripture that contains the most known verse in the Bible. In John 3:14-18 John tells us plainly that God loves “the world” (i.e., humanity) which means every individual person who has ever lived, past, present and future. John also expresses the universal nature of salvation (“whosoever believes”), and provides the reason as to why a person remains under condemnation. It is not due to any divine predestination but to their own refusal to believe in Jesus.
Furthermore, we want to know from Vanhoozer what is the precise content and definition of his “Christian gospel?” If he agrees that the biblical definition is “good news,” how then is it “good news” to the non-elect given his soteriological doctrines that teach God has unconditionally and unalterably fix each person’s eternal destiny before we were even born, indeed, before the creation of the world? How is it that the gospel as “good news” or God’s love for “humanity” can be said to have any truth correspondence or truth value with respect to the non-elect? With respect to the gospel proclamation, can Vanhoozer coherently claim that his Calvinist “God of the Christian gospel” is “anything but indifferent toward a large segment of humanity?” I maintain that we would be hard pressed to find a better example of indifference than a “God” who has unconditionally predestined countless numbers of his human creatures to eternal damnation before they even came into existence.[6] Vanhoozer’s claim that this “God” is the God of the Bible, a “God-in-communicative-act” who desires communion with his human creatures, is simply not true. The words and the underlying theology are incoherent. We can see that even defining “honest conversation” must be addressed. Observe how we cannot escape coherence and consistency as fundamental to rational discourse. And the question he asked of himself in the quote above applies. “Can this divinity professor be honest?”
Now the point we need to press home is whether this problem of incoherence matters in deciding the validity of the Reformed Calvinist deterministic interpretations and doctrinal propositions (e.g., sovereignty, effectual calling, unconditional election, etc.) I believe it does. I believe that ultimately the issue of being honest and defining “honest conversation” – which just is to avoid incoherence, inconsistency, and contradiction in thought and speech – must be addressed. It is integral to recognizing the differences between the Calvinist’s and non-Calvinist’s hermeneutic. The fundament difference here is in the weight put upon rational coherence as an indicator of valid biblical interpretive conclusions and the credibility of the theological propositions developed from those interpretative conclusions. It is the opinion of many non-Calvinists that Calvinist thought and speech is not honest and forthright, that it contains double-talk, and that elements of Calvinist theology make God out to be disingenuous. Honest conversation must be rationally coherent conversation. If there can be no agreement as to what is rationally, morally and epistemologically coherent and consistent, and allow coherence to guide the validity of one’s interpretation and theological talk, then there can be no “honest” conversation. Creative rationalizations will know no bounds. Indifference to rational coherence can become entrenched in a theological position. Honest discourse presupposes a certain consensus as to what is rationally coherent with respect to logic, morality, epistemology and textual interpretations. Where do the boundaries to rational thought and the coherent use of language lie? Simply put, so much of what makes sense to the Calvinist is utter nonsense to the non-Calvinist. We must ask why this is? The essential Calvinist/non-Calvinist divide lies at the point of the nature of reasoning about the biblical text. The divide is not inherent within the text itself.
Whether “this divinity professor” can be honest, whoever he is, will be revealed against a standard of honesty which must include rational thought and speech that proves coherent, consistent, and non-contradictory and exhibits a confidence in moral intuitions, not simply by the fact that he is willing to dialogue. It is my experience and the experience of many non-Calvinists who attend to Calvinist writing and speech, that the issues of logical and moral coherence are too cavalierly dismissed as irrelevant to understanding God’s ways and God’s Word – which amounts to their interpretation of God’s way and God’s Word. The flight to “high mystery,” “apparent contradiction,” the incomprehensibility of “spiritual things,” “tension,” “antinomy,” and “the Bible teaches both” are rationalizations employed to divert our thinking away from the incoherence in their theology. Furthermore, the assertion that to disagree with the Calvinist’s deterministic view of God’s sovereignty is evidence of spiritual pride and a proud desire for human autonomy that refuses to submit to God’s authority smacks of an intimidating way to divert attention away from the difficulties in Calvinism and avoid sustained inquiry about those issues in a rationally coherent manner. It is also a way of shaming one into accepting the God of its deterministic theology. Being “honest,” if it doesn’t include being rationally and morally coherent, is merely to be sincere, which in matters that involve a search for the truth is simply not enough. I will seek to demonstrate these problematic issues in Reformed Calvinist theology through an examination of Kevin Vanhoozer’s books First Theology and Remythologizing Theology.
Back to “The Vanhoozer Essays”
[1] See the section on “Grant Osborne” in “Chapter 12 – A Hermeneutic of Coherence: Principles and Issues in Exegesis and Interpretation.” Recommended reading – Grant Osborne, The Hermeneutical Spiral: A Comprehensive Introduction to Biblical Interpretation, (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1991).
[2] Kevin J. Vanhoozer, Remythologizing Theology: Divine Action, Passion, and Authorship, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), xv-xvii.
[3] Ibid., xvi.
[4] An indifference to dialogue is also characteristic of an evangelical culture that for various reasons has little interest in or tolerance for theology or hermeneutics as disciplined studies.
[5] Kevin J. Vanhoozer, First Theology: God, Scripture & Hermeneutics, (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2002), 71.
[6] These statements are not intended to be gratuitously inflammatory. They are my honest perspective honestly stated. As such, they reveal the difficult nature of what Vanhoozer is encouraging us to involve ourselves in when he speaks of “honest conversation.” I cannot read Vanhoozer without asking what I believe to be obvious, pertinent, honest and yet challenging questions for Reformed Calvinists. I believe this can be done without either side being overly defensive or gratuitously offensive. Yet, as far as the non-Calvinist is concerned, these questions must be answered satisfactorily, that is, coherently, for Calvinism to be thought of as a credible biblical theology. They cannot simply be evaded. Many of us are very interested in having this honest dialogue.
The Truth of the Gospel 