Here the word epistemologically, or epistemic, simply refers to knowing something with assurance. That is, to know that you know. The essential epistemic problem of the doctrine of an “effectual call” is that it places any assurance of God’s kind and loving salvific disposition towards us as individuals beyond our knowing. It does so because it has as its presupposition the Calvinist doctrine of unconditional election. Vanhoozer asks,
“How can beings in time participate in eternity? What must we do, in time, to be saved?” (RT, 272)[1]
The answer of course, in light of an “effectual call” is, “Nothing.” An “effectual call” is incoherent with the suggestion that there is anything we must do to be saved. In light of an unconditional election and an “effectual call” we simply carry on as human beings, waiting that perhaps something will inform us or confirm to us that we are among those God has chosen to save; that we may experience his regenerating “call.” Granted, the Calvinist will say that evidence has to do with Jesus and Jesus alone. Rightly so, they are not religious relativists that say “all roads lead to God.” Nevertheless, the theology of an unconditional election and an “effectual call” contradicts the answer Paul gave to the question posed by the Philippian jailer, “What must I do to be saved?” Paul made it clear that salvation is granted on the condition of believing, the possibility of which is unrestricted. He answered, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.” (Acts 16:30-31) Paul was not in doubt as to God’s salvific will for this Philippian jailer. He did not speak a soteriology that introduces exclusivity, unconditionality and doubt as to God’s salvific intention towards him. Neither would he have this as his foundational theology lest he speak disingenuously to the jailer. Can the Philippian jailer be saved? According to Vanhoozer and Reformed Calvinists the honest answer that is coherent with their theology of an eternal decree, unconditional election and an “effectual call” must be “I don’t know.” Note that this was not Paul’s answer and is not at all the “good news.” Paul gave him the assurance of salvation based on the jailer’s response of faith. So, Calvinists have an epistemological problem of proclaiming God’s love and salvation in Christ to all. Most Calvinists will say they can confidently proclaim God’s love and salvation in Christ to all. How do Calvinists deal with this problem? They hide behind the claim that they are ignorant of who are the elect and who are not. They will say that “for all I know this person may be among the elect, so I preach to them as if they are.” That is the epistemological problem of lack of knowledge and assurance for both the preacher and the hearer. But this answer of epistemic ignorance on the preacher’s part misses the more fundamental point. Note that the real issue is ontological – that is, what is the actual salvific status of the hearer? They are either elect or they are not elect. The preacher has the responsibility of preaching what is true about the hearer. The preacher cannot just simply ignore the fact that the hearer may not be elect and never will be elect. Therefore, to speak to them as if they may be elect is to ignore the actual status of that person if they are not among the elect. And that is what matters most – that is what determines their eternal destiny. The Calvinist preacher can never know whether they are preaching what is true or what is false to a person.
These Calvinist problems are hardly consonant with Paul’s gospel that God has surely provided salvation in Christ for the Philippian jailer and his household which they can and must appropriate for themselves by faith. Essential to the content of the Christian gospel message is the assurance that God is kindly disposed towards each of us as individual persons. Fatal to Christianity is any suggestion that God is not. To the degree that a theology introduces doubt as to this assurance, or is destructive of it, it is non-Christian and antithetical to the gospel.
Christian theologians have stressed the fundamental importance of the necessity of cultivating right thoughts about God. A. W. Tozer states, “What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.”[2] He also observes, “That our idea of God correspond as nearly as possible to the true being of God is of immense importance to us.”[3] Yet, the realization of these truths rest upon a necessary corollary. It is that we also must have right thoughts about what God thinks of us. Indeed, the former – what we think about God – is both founded upon and only as meaningful as the later – what God thinks about us. This knowledge is both primary and possible because Christianity is a revelatory religion. Therefore, a moment’s reflection tells us that the very essence of the meaning and purpose of our lives, our hope or despair, joy or anguish, and how we will respond in turn to God, has to do, first and foremost, with the question, “What does God think about me?” In other words, “What are the content of God’s thoughts about me that reveal the nature of God’s relationship and intentions towards me?” We can bring to bear upon this epistemological / ontological problem within Calvinism a crucial biblical truth and a theological reflection, both of which speak against the exclusivity and banishment by God of certain people from salvation that is inherent in the doctrine of an “effectual call.” That crucial biblical truth is that the salvific will of God for each individual is completely revealed in Jesus Christ. Christ is the sufficient revelation of God’s universal saving disposition. Nothing pertaining to what God has planned and purposed regarding the salvation of any individual is hidden from them in the secret, eternal counsels of God. Secondly, the theological reflection involves the biblical truths that since God made man in his own image for fellowship with himself, he therefore desires that fellowship with all persons without exclusion, and has placed in all persons an innate longing for the “consummation” of that fellowship. C. S. Lewis stated it well – we all long to be at last “summoned inside” and to be an “ingredient” in God’s pleasure.[4] If such a longing is within us all, then we were made for the fulfillment of that longing. As far as God is concerned he has made that a possibility in Jesus Christ. Essential to the biblical gospel message is that God has made this salvation a real possibility for all persons.
Back to “The Vanhoozer Essays”
[1] If Vanhoozer is making a distinction here between what happens “in time” to present our actions and our decisions as if they stem from and involve our “free will” with respect to our salvation to avoid an impersonal determinism working in the heavenly, eternal realm, this would be a meaningless and disingenuous distinction. If he is isolating the “field of vision” to what goes on “in time,” that is, from our human perspective, from God’s perspective of his eternal predestination of certain people to salvation, to free his theology from this determinism, this of course is artificial and unconvincing. Contradiction doesn’t become coherent just because we distinguish the viewpoints “from time” and “from eternity.” Behind the earthly, temporal scenes we know the nature of the eternal determinism which is really at work. With the phrase, “What must we do…” Vanhoozer introduces a thought that is anathema to Reformed Calvinism. So he isolates our perspective to “in time” so he can have God predestine those whom he will “effectually call” but also point to its working out “in time” to maintain the claim of human freedom. By artificial divisions between time and eternity, the human perspective and God’s perspective he is able, unsuccessfully, to add an element of “human freedom” to a deterministic process of salvation.
[2] A. W. Tozer, The Knowledge of the Holy, (New York: Harper & Row, 1978), 9.
[3] Ibid. 10.
[4] See C. S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses, (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1949), 1-15.
The Truth of the Gospel 