Vanhoozer writes,
“Culture is both human achievement and divine gift.” (FT, 334)
What does Vanhoozer mean by “divine gift?” The cultural mandate of Gen. 1:26, 28 speaks against the Reformed Calvinist claim that God has ordained “whatsoever comes to pass.” God gives man authority and dominion to produce, make, and perform original actions over creation in a way that is incoherent if all things have been predetermined by God. God allows for Adam and Eve to make real decisions with real consequences without having to micro-manage his human creatures by a secret, effectual working in them so that they desire to do his will only and always. This freedom is part of what it means to be created “in the image of God.” The paradigm of human freedom, the nature of God’s relationship to such a personal creature and the display of God’s sovereignty are all enacted in the first three chapters of Genesis. The scope of human freedom within the context of God’s sovereign reign and responses is evident from both the cultural mandate and the account of the Fall. If we indeed let the “theodrama” composed of God’s “speech-acts” in Genesis 1-3 inform our theology, we have an account that can only be coherently understood and explained by libertarian freedom. The point here is that Vanhoozer, like most Calvinists, merely assert both sides of the divine determinism / human freedom issue as if to simply speak it as true makes it true.
The Truth of the Gospel 