Vanhoozer has been attempting to solve the problems that result from “the ‘primary causality’ model of divine action.” (RT, 308) It is the model of impersonal, monological, causal divine action. I contend this model is no different than Vanhoozer’s Reformed Calvinist determinist theology. He is inclined to admit this, and that’s why he is in search of a remedy. He states that “it fails to explain the nature of the “causal joint” between the primary and secondary causes (i.e., author and character).” (RT, 308) Here he introduces the analogy of author and text as a possible way of remedying the problems in his theology. This “causal joint” is the question of how God relates to persons and the world. But for the Calvinist the answer to that is clear. There is one “causal joint” described as follows in the Westminster Confession.
“God from all eternity did, by the most wise and holy counsel of his own will, freely and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass.”[1]
Vanhoozer employs the analogy of an author and his text in the hope of personalizing this “causal joint.” Moreover, he admits that “primary causality concerns the problem of evil: if Shakespeare determines all that happens in the world of the text, is he not responsible, not only for Duncan’s death, but for all the murders, rapes, and pillaging in the story?” (RT, 308) It is to be noted here that we have Vanhoozer affirming his deterministic theology when he talks about Shakespeare, that is God, determining all that happens in the world of the text, that is, the world. Hence, God (“Shakespeare”) determines all that happens in the world (“the text”). Note also that he affirms his theology’s pressing logical and moral problem. That is, in non-literary terms, “if God determines all that happens in the world…, is he not responsible for all the murders, rapes, and pillaging throughout history?” I would say “Yes.” This is precisely the problem generated by Vanhoozer’s Calvinist determinism. And integral to that determinism is the “effectual call.” In section X of the Westminster Confession titled “On Effectual Calling” we read,
“1. All those whom God hath predestinated unto life, and those only, he is pleased, in his appointed and accepted time, effectually to call, by his word and Spirit, out of that state of sin and death in which they are by nature, to grace and salvation by Jesus Christ; enlightening their minds spiritually and savingly to understand the things of God; taking away their heart of stone and giving them a heart of flesh; renewing their wills, and by his almighty power determining them to that which is good; and effectually drawing them to Jesus Christ; yet so as they come most freely, being made willing by his grace.”[2]
Vanhoozer’s universal divine causal determinism is the context in which the “effectual call” is born and is sustained. And the “effectual call” presupposes an unconditional election which is also based in an eternal divine decree that has ordained “whatsoever comes to pass.” We are back to “primary causality” as the only causality.
Vanhoozer states that there is a “primary” cause and “secondary causes.” But within the reality of a universal divine causal determinism, in which God is the sole cause of all that happens, how are there two types of causes? As I have argued elsewhere, these “secondary causes” are not causes at all. They are the actions of persons being effectually and irresistibly acted upon by the primary and only cause of all things – God. Human beings are merely instrumental “causes” who are moved by God within his predetermined world.
Vanhoozer discusses the view of Dorothy Sayers who “acknowledges the author’s power to intervene at any moment in the development of his or her stories…” Certainly, the Author can write themselves into the plot, but I do not see how the literary analogy can escape being deterministic. If theistic determinism is not true, which I believe to be the case, then the Author can very well intervene in a genuine sense because things are unfolding in a world characterized by real human freedom, decision, contingency, possibility, along with forces for good and forces for evil. The Author may certainly intervene when and how he sees fit to accomplish his ultimate plans and purposes. But on theistic determinism (i.e., the literary analogy), the Author creates the characters and writes the plot, and the characters perform in the plot as it is written. The character’s lives and eternal destinies are predetermined by the Author. Sayers identifies the problem of attempting to apply the Authorial analogy to the real world. She raises doubt that this analogy can accurately describe the Creator God’s relationship to his human creatures. She states that if all the characters express the mind of the maker…
“…in an identical way, the work as a whole becomes dull, mechanical, and untrue. At this point we begin to see faintly the necessity for some kind of free will among the creatures of a perfect creation, but our metaphor now becomes very difficult to apply, since it appears obvious that the characters invented by a human writer are his helpless puppets, bound to obey his will at every point, whether for good or evil.”[3]
The point is that if the biblical worldview paradigm is a theistic determinism, what would it mean for God to intervene in the world or the story? He wouldn’t be “intervening” but simply playing his part in what he has written, that is, what he has predetermined.
So just as Vanhoozer, as a Calvinist, cannot help himself to words like “persuade” or “enable,” neither can he use the word or the concept of intervention, for it has no meaning on his theistic determinism. God cannot be described as intervening in his world when he has predetermined “whatsoever comes to pass.” He may play a part in what he has predetermined, but I cannot see how he would be genuinely intervening in what is happening.
Sayers suggests that the analogy of procreation is more helpful than the author/text analogy. Sayers continues,
“The analogy of procreation is more helpful to us here than that of artistic creation. While the parent is wholly responsible for calling the children into being, and can exercise a partial control over their minds and actions, he cannot but recognize the essential independence of the entity that he has procreated. The child’s will is perfectly free; if he obeys his father, he does so through love or fear or respect, but not as an automaton, and the good parent would not wish it otherwise.”[4]
Hence, I do not think Vanhoozer’s “authorial” literary analogy of the God/man relationship can ultimately save his theology from its problems of being monological, causal, impersonal, etc. It certainly cannot accurately incorporate and reflect the more biblical analogy of the parent child relationship. The Bible speaks of God as Father, the free will dynamic of faith, and that those who receive Jesus as becoming the children of God. This analogy speaks of a very different personal and relational dynamic than the “authorial” analogy can provide. The “authorial” analogy serves Vanhoozer’s purposes as a theistic determinist, but it does not fully account for how the Scripture speaks about the God/man relationship as a parent/child relationship. Here too Vanhoozer’s theology is biblically insufficient and even resistant to biblical concepts.
So Vanhoozer viewed Sayers as holding back from the Tolstoyan model that upholds “God’s authorial transcendence.” (R, 309) But Vanhoozer too attempts to distance himself from the Tolstoyan view of “monologic divine authorship” for he states that,
“…the main problem with this view of divine monologic authorship, more serious than the complaints about deterministic divine interventions, is that it fails to account for the dialogical interaction of God and human beings depicted in the Bible, or for that matter, the Bible’s diverse human authorial voices.” (RT, 309)
Precisely. But this is what Vanhoozer’s theology does. “It fails to account for the dialogical interaction of God and human beings depicted in the Bible, or for that matter, the Bible’s diverse human authorial voices.” Vanhoozer tries to get around his theistic determinism while still holding to the fundamental cause of his problems – his theistic determinism. Therefore, he is unsuccessful, and always will be. Here is a quote in context in which we see how he struggles to free himself from his “monologic divine authorship.” You be the judge as to whether his argument using the Author, plot, character, etc. paradigm is successful. Vanhoozer writes,
“Bakhtin himself, however, does not think that it necessarily follows from a character’s freedom from monological determination (i.e., coercion) that this same character simply falls out of the author’s design: “No, this independence and freedom of a character is precisely what is incorporated into the author’s design. This design, as it were, predestines the character for freedom (a relative freedom, of course).” The Bible maintains, of course, that something conclusive has taken place in our world, that the author’s design has been realized, that the ultimate word of the world has been spoken, and that this Word has a name: “Jesus Christ” (Heb. 1:2). Jesus Christ is the voice-person, the definitive divine word-idea who’s address to us, together with our response, dialogically consummates everyone who comes into the world. The same word of God that came to Abraham, Moses, and David comes to, addresses, and consummates us as it solicits the obedience of faith.
Our freedom is our answerability. In the words of Karl Barth: “the being of man is an answer, or more precisely, a being lived in the act of answering the Word of God”[5] The word of the Lord came to Abraham and he believed it (Gen. 15:6). It came to David and he was thankful (2 Sam. 7:18-29). When the word of the Lord came to Jonah, however, he ran away (Jon. 1:1-3). He was “free” to reject it just as Mary was free to accept it (Lk. 1:38, “let it be unto me according to your word”). So it is with every human being: the Author addresses each person and each freely responds and, in so doing, freely realizes the voice-idea of the Author.
God is thus the ultimate Author of our existence, “idea,” and situation, though this fact alone provides no one with an “alibi for being.” The Author conceives the voice-idea, but the hero freely embodies it… the plot that is our story is not our fate – our coerced destiny – but rather a series of situations in which dialogues take place through which a character is consummated. Within the confines of the story, the hero preserves his or her integrity as a voice-idea…
The divine Author is committed to the integrity of the world he has made and the characters he has placed there: “God’s sovereign plan includes a covenant commitment to every creature, to fulfill the role of that creature.”[6] God as Author is not a coercive cause pushing against our freedom in a manner that interferes with (or intervenes in) our heroic integrity. On the contrary, the divine Author is an interlocutor who interrogated and tests our freedom, consummating our existence in the process. My capacity for self-determination therefore has its ground not in my own (monological) existence but rather in the potentially infinite dialogue with the Author God who alone calls me into being and who consummated my life and gives it meaning. It is in response to the dialogical situations that comprise my life, especially my dialogical relation to God, that I exercise the freedom to realize my own voice-idea.
There is thus no contradiction between Authorial determination of a character’s “idea” and the character’s own self-determination.” (RT, 335-336)
The first paragraph reads more like a typical statement of non-Calvinist theology. There is nothing there that I disagree with as a non-Calvinist. But that means what Vanhoozer says there is incompatible with his fundamental Calvinist theology. What this shows us is that Calvinist’s feel very free to employ double-speak in their attempts to soften their determinism or make appear as what it is not and only later tell people about its TULIP doctrines. Note that in the next paragraphs he uses a combination of “speech-act” literary terminology and the Authorial analogy (all of which only confuses most readers), to begin to introduce his theistic determinism again while attempting to hold onto some of the non-deterministic elements he wrote about. In other words, in typical Calvinist compatibilist fashion he feels no qualms about embracing two incompatible theological positions. He can play both sides as need be. The clearest compatibilist statement is now given. Vanhoozer continues,
“Freedom as the power of the hero’s self-determination should by no means be confused with the power of self-authoring, however. It is one thing to realize one’s essential nature, quite another to make oneself over into something essentially different. Heroes act according to their natures, freely pursuing what they desire, but they lack the ability to reorient themselves that they can change their natures and desire something entirely different. From a theological point of view, then, the freedom of self-determination falls short of genuine Christian freedom, namely, the freedom to say “Yes” to the divine call. It is for this latter freedom that the Som and Spirit set us free, enabling us to correspond to the Author’s own voice-idea for humanity revealed, and incarnated, in Jesus Christ.” (RT, 336-337)
Let’s examine what has been said here by first identifying the meaning of the terminology. “The Author” is God. The “author’s design” is “God’s larger sovereign plan or plot.” “The characters” or “heroes” are people, including us. A “voice-idea” is a God-conceived plan or purpose and plot or role for individual people. “Dialogues” are interactions of God’s word with a person. “Consummated” seems to mean that God’s conceived plan and purpose or plot and role for an individual is realized or brought to completion.
The clearest deterministic statement above is, “God is thus the ultimate Author of our existence, “idea,” and situation…” As such, these paragraphs are nothing but an explanation of Calvinist compatibilism dressed in very sophisticated and somewhat obscure linguistic garb. Vanhoozer is attempting to get us to believe that determinism is compatible with human freedom. But note one’s inability to “make oneself over into something essentially different.” This is a reference to the doctrine of total inability. This total inability is characteristic of your “essential nature.” Even though you have “self-determination” this “falls short” of “the freedom to say “Yes” to the divine call.” You cannot believe so as to become saved. That takes “genuine Christian freedom” which presumable comes when the elect receive their “effectual call.” People need a change in “their natures” so that they “desire something entirely different.” This refers to the pre-faith regeneration of the elect. God changes their desires, and as long as they are acting according to their desires, they are considered by the Calvinist to be acting freely. Vanhoozer therefore describes human freedom “as the power of the hero’s self-determination,” and yet that “capacity” for “self-determination” should not be confused with “self-authoring.” So, it seems that people have a degree of freedom (contrary to theistic determinism), but they need a complete change or “authoring” which cannot be done by themselves.
Vanhoozer writes, “My capacity for self-determination therefore has its ground not in my own (monological) existence but rather in the potentially infinite dialogue with the Author God who alone calls me into being and who consummated my life and gives it meaning.” The “self-determination” language here is deceptive (not purposefully, but only as forced by his attempt to create a semblance of coherence between his theistic determinism and human self-determinism (i.e., freedom and free will). Vanhoozer has already established that “God is thus the ultimate Author of our existence, “idea,” and situation…” How then does “self-determination” exist or function in such a deterministic paradigm? These are contradictory. The contradiction lies between God’s determination of our “voice-idea” which constitutes the whole of our “role” in the “Author’s” plot, and talk of the character’s “self-determination.” The way Vanhoozer goes on to qualify this “self-determination” as “potentially infinite dialogue with the Author God who alo“self ne calls me into being and who consummated my life and gives it meaning” is counter to “self-determination.” What he has laid out about God as the Author of our “idea” and “situation” contradicts the meaning of “self-determination.” The phrase -determination” only makes sense within a libertarian free-will theology.
All of this boils down to certain key Calvinist doctrines as well as Calvinist compatibilism being described in “speech-act” and literary terminology. It’s an attempt to convince us that theistic determinism is compatible with human freedom. But compatibilism hinges upon God deterministically changing the desires of the elect to support the claim that as long as a person can act according to their desires, they can be considered to be acting freely. Hence, the reconciliation between divine determinism and human freedom. But we see that this is just the same theistic determinism kicked further down the road of desires. Everyone’s desires are also determined by God. So, on Calvinism, doing what you desire cannot be defined as doing what you do freely. It makes no sense. So, we are back to an impregnable universal divine causal determinism and the eradication of any meaningful definition of the term “self-determination.”
The contradiction lies between “God is thus the ultimate Author of our existence, “idea,” and situation” and also stating, “I exercise the freedom to realize my own voice-idea” and “but the hero freely embodies it” (i.e., the “voice-idea”). If everyone ultimately realizes the voice idea that is determined by and comes from the Author (i.e., “the author’s design”) then there is nothing that we can genuinely describe as “independence and freedom of character” or that the “word of God consummates us as it solicits the obedience of faith.”
Therefore, all of this talk about “our freedom is our answerability,” and that the Author’s “design, as it were, predestines the character for freedom (a relative freedom, of course), and Jonah being ““free” to reject it (i.e., the address of the Author or “the Word of the Lord”) while Mary was free to accept it, and that “the hero freely embodies” the voice-idea, are just ways of speaking that make it sound as if Calvinism can incorporate human freedom. But again, we have already been told that “God is thus the ultimate Author of our existence, “idea,” and situation…” (RT, 335) All this literary language is at bottom is telling us that God effectually and irresistibly does in each person according to his predetermined plan for them. He has good in store for his elect and eternal condemnation in store for the non-elect. It is as the Westminster Confession states.
“As God hath appointed the elect unto glory, so hath he, by the eternal and most free purpose of his will, foreordained all the means thereunto. Wherefore they who are elected being fallen in Adam are redeemed by Christ, are effectually called unto faith in Christ by his Spirit working in due season; are justified, adopted, sanctified, and kept by his power through faith unto salvation. Neither are any other redeemed by Christ, effectually called, justified, adopted, sanctified, and saved, but the elect only.”[7]
And Calvin defines predestination as follows.
“We call predestination God’s eternal decree, by which he compacted with himself what he willed to become of each man. For all are not created in equal condition; rather, eternal life is foreordained for some, eternal damnation for others. Therefore, as any man has been created to one or the other of these ends, we speak of him as predestined to life or to death.”[8]
For example, in the quote above from RT 335-6, note carefully how Vanhoozer puts the word free in quotes when talking about Jonah’s freedom. This is to say Jonah was predetermined to reject his “voice-idea.” Vanhoozer acknowledges Joanah wasn’t actually free, hence the quotation marks. “Voice-ideas” (i.e., what God plans, purposes, and causes persons to do in their lives) come from the “Author” (i.e., God). Therefore, Jonah was given a “reject my word” “voice-idea” by God. So, what do we have here. We have God giving Jonah “the word of the Lord,” telling him to go to Nineveh, and at yet we also have God having given Jonah the “voice-idea” to reject “the word of the Lord” and not go to Ninevah. This is to interpret the Bible as contradictory. To accept this interpretation is to accept a hermeneutic of incoherence.
Ultimately the Author (i.e., God) determines not only our existence but our “voice-idea” yet Vanhoozer can at the same time claim that this “voice-idea” is freely embodied by “the hero” (i.e., us) How so? Vanhoozer insists that this is not “our fate” or “coerced destiny” but “rather a series of situations in which dialogues take place through which a character is consummated.” What “dialogues take place” and what is this “series of situations?” I would think it would include hearing the “good news” of one’s salvation in Jesus Christ which requires a response of faith characterized by obedience to the word. Hasn’t Vanhoozer told us about this when he writes,
“The Bible maintains, of course, that something conclusive has taken place in our world, that the author’s design has been realized, that the ultimate word of the world has been spoken, and that this Word has a name: “Jesus Christ” (Heb. 1:2). Jesus Christ is the voice-person, the definitive divine word-idea who’s address to us, together with our response, dialogically consummates everyone who comes into the world. The same word of God that came to Abraham, Moses, and David comes to, addresses, and consummates us as it solicits the obedience of faith.” (RT, 335)
But all this “good news” to all sinners gets swallowed up in the exclusivity of the Calvinist doctrine of an “effectual call” that only comes to the elect which is based in an unconditional election and God’s eternal decree that has preordained “whatsoever comes to pass.” Fate or no fate, coercion or no coercion, there is no “good news” in Calvinism, at least the “good news” the Bible speaks of.
So, I submit that Vanhoozer’s “authorial divine discourse” and “God-in-communicative-act” cannot “account for the dialogical interaction of God and human beings depicted in the Bible.” That fundamental “dialogical interaction” is the proclamation of the gospel, which speaks “good news” to every individual, and as such it applies to every individual. But not so on Calvinism. There is no such thing as “dialogical interaction,” as least none that has genuine meaning. Vanhoozer’s theistic determinism has led him down contemporary literary pathways in search of a way to free his determinism from its negative and unbiblical implications. But he cannot shake loose of his determinism nor its entailments. Vanhoozer’s “speech-act” theology and literary “authorial divine discourse” along with his doctrine of an “effectual call” amount to nothing more than the “monological divine authorship” and “’primary causality’ model of divine action” he attempts to rid himself of. But he cannot free himself from the negative and unbiblical implications of his universal divine causal determinism. It even has negative effects on prayer, especially petitionary prayer, for again, both the prayer and the answers are predetermined.
Back to “The Vanhoozer Essays”
[1] G.I Williamson, The Westminster Confession of Faith for Study Classes, (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed Pub. Co., 1978), 31.
[2] Ibid., 88.
[3] Dorothy Sayers, The Mind of the Maker, (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1979), 63.
[4] Ibid., 63.
[5] Cf. Barth: “The man Jesus…is the sum of the divine address, the Word of God, to the created cosmos” (Church Dogmatics III/2, p. 147).
[6] Frame, Doctrine of God, p.152.
[7] G. I. Williamson, The Westminster Confession of Faith for Study Classes (Phillipsburg: Puritan and Reformed Publishing Co., 1978), 35.
[8] John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. John T. McNeill, (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1960), 926.
The Truth of the Gospel 