Vanhoozer has been trying to show how an absolute determinism is qualitatively different from “impersonal causation” via “communicative agency” and “author/text analogy.” We can readily see how “communicative agency” is different than “impersonal causation,” but it is hard to see how an absolute determinism can be coherent with “communicative agency” and avoid “impersonal causation.” This is why Vanhoozer plays up God’s “communicative agency” with respect to its positive effect on the elect. But now, what about the non-elect? Vanhoozer must play down the negative implications of an “effectual call” for everyone that is not elect. The problem is that a call that is “effectual” and grace that is “irresistible” are deterministic. As such, they are mutually exclusive, that is, incoherent with “communicative agency.” Now apply this to the non-elect. If God is a “communicative agent” who is seeking “communion” and a “dialogical” relationship with his human creatures, then what is he lovingly, graciously, and personally communicating to those he predestined to an eternity in hell? Vanhoozer does not have an answer for this problem, but it shows up a serious issue in his hermeneutic. How so? He fails to incorporate problems like these into his hermeneutic as indicators of faulty interpretations.
If he does not apply the concept of mutual exclusivity, and if he does not attend to what constitutes rationally and morally coherent thought and speech, no progress can be made towards discerning the truth of these matters. If Vanhoozer is free to say God desires communion with human creatures and does so through communicating a message to them of “life, light and hope” and also claim God’s desire for communion only applies to those he predestined to salvation and that communication of “good news” only works on the basis of his “effectual call” in the predestined, something certainly has been distorted with respect to the rational coherence of the propositions and the definition of “communication” and “communion.” God expresses a desire for communion with his human creation and speaks a message of “light, life and hope” to them, applying it irresistibly in those he has chosen while he does not allow it to apply to a multitude of others of his human creatures who hear that same message. Vanhoozer’s “communicative agency” reduces to deterministic divine action that incorporates “communication” but prevents the self-originating reciprocity by the human creature required of meaningful, genuine communication. The “communication” is either irresistibly applied to the elect persons or it is completely ineffective. I see nothing real or genuine about such communication. Vanhoozer just uses the word “communicative” devoid of its actual meaning.
Vanhoozer may believe that as long as he can put a “communicative,” personal, relational face on his theistic determinism he has made it more palatable. Reformed deterministic sovereignty is saved from impersonal causality by asserting that God works in a personal “communicative” manner. But what according to Calvinism is God working to achieve? The answer from within Calvinism is that he is not working at all. All things fall out according to what he has ordained by his own will. Therefore, can a deterministic sovereignty ever be saved from the implication of comprehensive “primary causality?”
Therefore, round and round we go in a cycle of perplexing propositions that cannot be broken unless we accept rational and moral coherence as the hermeneutical indicator of the way out. By their comprehensive determinism, Calvinists create a theology destructive of the most essential elements of the Christian gospel. God’s eternal decree and its subsequent soteriology, as Reformed Calvinists define these, result in an impersonal indifference towards the non-elect, and although claiming to be “communicative,” a predetermined causation upon the elect. Both raise questions about the validity of the claim that such a God is in any real sense “communicative.” The elect can do nothing other than what has been predetermined for them and the non-elect are left completely outside any act of God that can coherently be called “communicative” or “relational,” let alone as a divine desire for “communion” or offering them a message of “light, life and hope.” The point is that to speak of God as a “communicative agent” who brings “light, life and hope” while maintaining an “effectual call” and an unconditional election, along with its dreadful corollary, is to speak incoherently about God. This forces us to face the fact that the issue is not whether God is “communicative” in his determinism but whether God is a deterministic God at all, and if so, then to decide whether to speak of him as “communicative” is at all coherent. Vanhoozer contends that it is coherent. But in what respect? How so? Why?
Vanhoozer does not seem to be willing or able from within his Calvinist perspective to incorporate and indeed empathize with its insistence that God has passed over “communicating” to a multitude of his human creation, indeed creating them for the very purpose of assigning them to eternal non-communication from himself and torment in hell. This is the kind of “sovereign God” Vanhoozer begins with as he attempts to convince us that this God is a “communicative agent,” what the purpose of this “communicative” agency is, and how it is “personal” in a world where he has predetermined “whatsoever comes to pass”, including each person’s eternal destiny. Vanhoozer’s “communicative” theology should be able to incorporate all that is implied in the nature of the “sovereignty” it also maintains. But we certainly can see that such a sovereignty in hardly compatible with the claim that God is “communicative” with respect to the non-elect;those who will not be effectually called. We can also cast doubt upon whether God is really “communicating” even with the elect in any other way than simply an instrumental sense. This will involve coming to a credible definition of human freedom. Yet Vanhoozer insists upon speaking about such a God as personal, dialogical, desiring communion with his creatures and that humans respond freely and willingly to him although it is God who irresistibly and effectual alters their desires and wills. Hence, the question of logical, moral and biblical coherence of the theology continually comes to the fore. I contend that the Calvinist has been trained to think about theology in a rationally dichotomous fashion. Words do not necessarily have to mean what is commonly understood by them and little concern is given to whether their interpretations exhibit the coherence, consistency, and non-contradiction that are integral to a sound hermeneutic. As far as I can see, it seems perfectly acceptable for the Reformed Calvinist to hold that inconsistency and contradiction are ultimately immaterial to biblical hermeneutics and theological construction.
The Truth of the Gospel 