I have argued that God’s sovereignty as an absolute determinism of “whatsoever comes to pass” is incoherent with a whole host of divine and human interactions. It is the comprehensive scope of this definition of “sovereignty” that cannot be coherently reconciled with the biblical witness to the God/man relationship. Especially problematic is the application of such a proposition to individual salvation. The serious doctrinal difficulties it generates in this regard are substantial proofs that it provides an unbiblical perspective of the nature of God, the nature of man and the content of the gospel as “good news.” But again, this becomes a concern only when one acknowledges that rational and moral coherence are essential to validating one’s biblical interpretations. I have argued that Calvinists do not acknowledge this as integral to their hermeneutic while non-Calvinists do acknowledge this.
Vanhoozer embraces this unsustainable exhaustive determinism via his doctrine of an “effectual call.” Vanhoozer’s claim that “…God’s effectual call is not a causal but a communicative act” (FT, 118) strains language and thought and is ultimately a distinction without a difference. This “communicative act” must be the cause of a person coming to Christ, for that is the meaning of this “call” being “effectual.” Moreover, according to Vanhoozer, God’s effectual call cannot be resisted. Therefore, it is certainly causal. It causes the person to do whatever God wills that person to do.
We are not here debating whether or not God’s will is best. It is. That is why we should do his will. That is why God encourages us to do his will. But even to think of his will as best it to admit that his will is not always done and therefore Calvinism fails.
We are wrestling with the Calvinist contention that the Bible teaches God’s will is always being done via his eternal decree. If anything is obvious from Scripture, it’s the fact that God’s will is not always done. Be careful here. God can use the sinful actions of his creatures to bring about what he wills to come to pass. But that is very different than God willing, decreeing, and causing those sinful actions. In contrast to John Piper, we need not propose that there are two wills in God. We do not feel compelled to protect God from an embarrassment of the Calvinist’s own making, which is that God might lose control over his universe due to rampant human free-will decisions. Piper must have God determining all those decisions. But that presents a problem. Now we have God determining and causing us to do all those things he commands we avoid doing. Piper’s solution? Create another will in God. Piper proceeds to divide God’s will up into his decretive and prescriptive will. But how does this help Piper. It does not. It only lands Piper in greater incoherence. Now Piper has God’s decretive will being the cause of all the sin and evil in the world. But we can see that this is in contradiction, not only with the nature of God, but with God’s prescriptive will for us to behave in certain ways, that is, not to do sin or evil, and yet it is God who has decreed and is causing us to do this sin and evil! So, Piper teaches that God commands us to do good, love God and our neighbors, do justice, love mercy, etc., and yet our sin and evil acts (i.e., “whatsoever comes to pass”), have been ordained by this same God is logically and morally incoherent. We have a God speaking double-talk and working against himself in the historical reality he designed, created, and sustains.
The fear that if God’s sovereignty is not defined as an absolute predetermination of all things then he might not retain control over his creation seems puerile and is biblically unwarranted. We do not doubt that God can implement his will when he chooses to do so despite our desires, wills and actions. There are certainly biblical examples of this. God’s accomplishment of his redemptive plan is the best example of his determinative activity in the world. And perhaps the degree of strict sovereign determination we observe there, in contrast to other historical divine/human interactions, serves to highlight the fact that there is a spectrum of causality in God’s activity in relation to his human creatures. And perhaps such diversity of actions speak against a monological theology of a communicative type and highlight a non-monological theology of a communicative type that can incorporate the intentionality and graciousness of God’s sovereign love and the fact that he wishes for us to look to his saving work in Christ and freely love him in return. My point is that in attempting a reconciliation between Vanhoozer’s determinism and human freedom, the “God-in-communicative-act” paradigm does not achieve this reconciliation when we pay attention to the logical and moral incoherence generated. In contrast, I can use the word communicative and retain libertarian freedom while not generating logical and moral incoherence. So, the question becomes a hermeneutical one, that is, can we discern which theological perspective is the teaching of Scriptire on the basis of its coherence, consistency, and non-contradiction, or lack thereof as the case may be? I contend that once we admit that God works “communicatively” it is incoherent with our logical reasoning and moral intuitions to maintain that the monological theistic determinism of Calvinism is biblical. It is not biblical because this determinism cannot be reconciled with the libertarian freedom testified to throughout Scripture. Being “communicative” or involved in “communication” is, by definition, a free will endeavor. It is compatible with libertarian freedom, not with theistic determinism. The biblical witness to the nature of the interaction between God and human beings certainly is “communicative,” and as such it is an interaction that presupposes and explicitly confirms libertarian human freedom.
The Truth of the Gospel 