Vanhoozer writes,
“”To live, says Bahktin, ‘means to participate in dialogue: to ask questions, to heed, to respond, to agree, and so forth.’..The God-world relation is similarly dialogical – a dialogical (i.e., covenantal) unity within an even greater dialogical difference (i.e., authorial outsideness).” (RT, 331)
“The author is thus an involved outsider, and interlocutor in a world that he himself has created.” (RT, 332)
“Authoring takes place “through” (dia) the “word” (logos), through the dialogical interaction of author and hero. In particular, a hero’s consummation takes place through dialogical interaction, for a person’s life only comes to be seen for what it is through a process of interlocution in which it both interrogates and is in turn interrogated: “Only in communion, in the interaction of one person with another, can the ‘man in man’ be revealed.” We become, and reveal, who and what we are through a pattern of verbal and non-verbal communicative acts. It is the author’s task to discern and name this pattern, thus aesthetically consummating a life. Such, according to the anologia auctoris, is the nature of God’s relation to the world as well…the dialogical author is ‘the paradigm of a new kind of agency,” one suited neither to examining dead things nor to manipulating objects but rather to engaging the living consciousness of human heroes…It follows that God’s dialogical authorship, though in asymmetrical relation to its hero-interlocutors, is an entirely appropriate way of engaging human persons according to their rational, volitional, and emotional natures…” (RT, 332, 333)
With these quotes a non-Calvinist may also agree because they talk about God’s relation to people as dynamic – involving the rational, volitional and emotional aspects of personhood. This is what we find in Scripture. If this is not to be interpreted merely as a theistic determinism with new labels (“authoring,” “asymmetrical relation,” “hero-interlocutors,” “engaging the living consciousness of human heroes,” etc.), it must include the real possibilities of personhood which are marked by the ability to hear and believe the author’s discourse or to hear and refuse to believe that same discourse. This is what “volitional” means. “Authoring” does take place through the logos but the resulting consummation cannot be predetermined otherwise concepts like “to heed, to respond, to agree” and words like “volitional” have no meaning. Vanhoozer is doing his best to shake the determinism from his Calvinist theology. But what is disturbing, and somewhat tricky, here is the obscure description of what seems to amount to that same determinism but only in different language. Vanhoozer writes,
“We become, and reveal, who and what we are through a pattern of verbal and non-verbal communicative acts. It is the author’s task to discern and name this pattern, thus aesthetically consummating a life.”
This is what Vanhoozer means by “consummating a life.” So, what we are being told here is that it is God’s (i.e., the author) “task do discern and name this pattern of verbal and non-verbal communicative acts” by which “we become, and reveal, who and what we are.” We know that on Calvinism one is either predestined to eternal salvation or eternal damnation. So, this means that it is God who determines who and what we are and who “consummates” our life (i.e., brings about our predetermined eternal destiny). Therefore, if everyone is simply “consummated” one way or the other, hearing the gospel and believing or hearing the gospel and disbelieving according to the author’s script for them, then we are back to a theistic (“authorial”) determinism.
Vanhoozer quotes Bahktin talking about what it is to “live,” which is to “participate” in “dialogue.” If “participate” is going to mean more than merely to “reflect what God predetermines that life to be” then “authoring” cannot refer to God “consummating” that life according to his predetermined script. But we cannot escape the conclusion that this is precisely what Vanhoozer means. Note again, to “live” is “to ask questions, to heed, to respond, to agree and so forth.” But if that is the case that to live must also mean to “to disagree,” “disobey,” “sin,” “murder,” “lie,” “cheat,” “steal,” etc. But Vanhoozer never discusses this. He fails to incorporate this side of reality because in Vanhoozer’s theology it is the same “Author” who determines this dark side of “dialogical interaction of author and hero.” It is this same “Author” who determines “what we become…who and what we are through a pattern of verbal and non-verbal communicative acts.” This, of course, must include the evil that people do.
One might think that with his talk of “dialogical interaction…of one person with another” and “engaging human persons according to their rational, volitional, and emotional natures” Vanhoozer is admitting that human persons are the sole authors of their actions and can make choices contrary to God’s “asymmetrical,” “dialogical authorship.” But Vanhoozer never makes this clear. What does he mean when he describes human persons as “volitional?” He writes that “…a person’s life only comes to be seen for what it is through a process of interlocution…” and we know from what Vanhoozer has said it is the “Author” that determines “what it is.” So Vanhoozer, as a Calvinist, must be saying that through a process of “communicative acts,” “interrogating” and “in communion” we become what we all were predestined to become. What we were predestined to become is simply “revealed” in this manner.
But note it is precisely this manner that points in a completely different direction than Vanhoozer’s Calvinist theistic determinism and predestination. This “manner” involves “dialogue,” “communion,” “engaging human persons,” “volition,” etc. But, again, these are only coherent concepts in a non-deterministic world. To use the language of libertarian freedom to try to convince us that God is the sovereign Author of all things (i.e., God has ordained whatsoever comes to pass), including that he predestines us to life or death, seems a disingenuous misuse of the meaning of these words. Vanhoozer’s use of words like “communion,” “dialogue,” and “volition” are rhetorical expressions of Calvinist compatibilism that have distinctly Calvinist meanings and seek to suppress the ultimate despair of their theistic determinism. Compatibilism attempts to introduce a dynamic of human freedom into the otherwise manifold dark and impersonal elements of Calvinism’s determinism.
Vanhoozer tells us “We become, and reveal, who and what we are through a pattern of verbal and non-verbal communicative acts.” He then adds, “It is the author’s task to discern and name this pattern, thus aesthetically consummating a life?” What does he mean by this? Does God “discern” a “pattern” from the choices a person makes or from what he predetermined for that life? Is the “discerning” the divine action of determining the person’s life in “real-time?” We know that Vanhoozer is a Calvinist, so it must be one of the determinative options. But if God predetermined the “pattern” of every person’s life, which is what Calvinists believe, what “pattern” is there for God to “discern?” What is this “pattern?” It must be the thoughts, desires, and actions of a predetermined life. Does this “discerning” include all the details of the “pattern?” Vanhoozer seems to want to create the illusion that God is involved in genuine interaction with persons in the sense that one’s life is open to different possibilities, that life “patterns” are not set, that there is a significant element of contingency and conditionality to what occurs in our lives depending upon our choices (volition), and that God has not predetermined how he would “consummate” each person’s existence but has included faith or unbelief as possible responses to his overwhelmingly prolific and sufficient communication to humankind. God watches us and works upon (and perhaps within us) to discern how we different than someone else (i.e., our pattern) and he brings us along in that way. But no matter how human-friendly Vanhoozer attempts to portray his deterministic “Author,” we are all predestined by him to the life we experience and an an unknown eternal destiny in heaven or hell. For all the talk about “engaging the living consciousness of human heroes,” and “engaging human person according to their rational, volitional, and emotional natures,” you and I have nothing whatsoever to do with what our lives are and will become and where we will spend eternity. If all our living and eternal fates are predetermined in all respects, then all this flurry of “interlocution,” “dialogical interaction” and “consummation” is quite perfunctory and simply a “going through the motions” of the Author’s unalterable script. If such a theistic determinism is not what Vanhoozer ultimately means to say, then I wish he would say it clearly. But also, if this is not what he means, then his theology of an “effectual call” collapses into incoherence. The doctrine of an “effectual call” is the theological expression and practical realization of theistic determinism. It cannot abide under libertarian freedom. So Vanhoozer’s theistic determinism is confirmed, no matter how he uses language to give the impression that it is anything different.
Is this deterministic perspective biblical? I think not. Life on earth is fraught with decisions and actions against God’s will. If God hasn’t also determined and effected these, then Vanhoozer’s theology fails because there would be things that God has not predetermined which therefore must originate somewhere else, that is, in the will of the persons as a self. Thus, unless we want to ascribe evil to God, he obviously has not ordained “whatsoever comes to pass.” But if he has ordained these evil actions, then he is implicated in them and as such he is himself evil. But this inescapable conclusion is clearly unbiblical.
In addition, God need not ordain “whatsoever comes to pass” in order to remain sovereign. It is too low a view of God and simply an unbiblical view of God and man as a sinner to require God to have predetermined all things. It changes nothing essential to the problems of theistic determinism to claim that he works out the predetermination of all things in a “communicative” manner.
Also, the biblical gospel message is not that God has predetermined that he will unfailingly effect saving faith in the lives of a limited number of elect people. This is a distressing message of the exclusion of many people from salvation via a fixed result predetermined by the will of God alone and therefore requires divine causality – for what God has predetermined to occur he certainly must cause to occur. The claim that he causes it “communicatively” fails. In the end, determinism erodes the language of “communion” and “dialogue” to the point of rendering these meaningless. It is to come full circle to that God of monological impersonal causality that Vanhoozer so creatively sought to avoid with “speech-act theory.” It also leads to disingenuousness “speech-acts” on the part of the Calvinist. This is a serious departure from the truthful, forthright speaking that would otherwise expose the hopelessness of the underlying Reformed Calvinist theology. It requires the Calvinist to proclaim a message of a different meaning, content, and implication lest he speak consistent with his underlying theology and be found to proclaim nothing of “good news.” The doctrines of Reformed Calvinist predestination, unconditional election, and an effectual call cannot be preached in the service of the gospel biblically defined as “good news.”[1] This is why there is so little clear definition of the gospel in Vanhoozer’s writings. The few times the gospel is mentioned, the content of the message is never clearly stated.
In contrast to this Calvinist doctrinal incoherence, what God has done is to create man with the capacity to be communicated with in a truthful and genuine manner. As recorded in the Bible, that God is communicative with his human creatures that are made in his image, and the manner in which that communication is depicted, along with the fact that what God has spoken has a certain content, cumulatively demonstrate that the biblical worldview is one of libertarian human freedom. Most importantly is the content of the gospel as “good news” which is proclaimed to all. We therefore glean our understanding of man’s sin nature, inabilities, and capabilities according to the content of that gospel message. We let Scripture inform our theology of the affects of sin. And because that gospel message biblically defined is “good news” and its content is “repent and believe,” we conclude that each hearer may therefore do so. Thus, Calvinism is a gross distortion of the biblical doctrine of salvation.
Valuing a hermeneutic of coherence, the inconsistencies, incoherencies, and contradictions that Calvinism generates within the scriptures and in practical reality are sufficient biblical and experiential grounds to refute Calvinism without having to forfeit God’s sovereignty. As we let Scripture inform our theology we must do so coherently. The gospel is not just static information that triggers the Spirit to implement the predetermined salvific decision of God with respect to certain individuals. Rather, the Spirit is always working towards the salvation of the hearer in accord with the content of the message. Therefore, the Spirit is enabling, challenging, inviting, and even commanding the hearer to respond positively to what is being communicated about Christ crucified and raised to life for the justification of every sinner. The work of the Spirit is necessary in all this precisely because it is a spiritual phenomenon, that is, it is not a matter of human invention or accomplishment. Sinners are dead in their trespasses and sins, but they are also called to faith; they are called to believe. That is their responsibility. It must not be subsumed under a doctrine of “total inability” or mistaken as a meritorious work the sinner adds to participate in the work of their salvation. That the sinner must believe the “good news” of their salvation is the biblical teaching on the nature and purpose of faith. So, sinners need both the good faith offer of their salvation preached to them and the working of the Spirit of life that accompanies that content. Once the decision to believe is made by the sinner, they are justified and sanctified by the Spirit who comes to live in them. The important point to note is that the Spirit always accompanies the content of the gospel message for the purpose of enabling the sinner to respond positively to the message. The Spirit and the Word work towards one purpose – the salvation of the sinner. In other words, the gospel is a Spirit-filled message of hope and salvation for all who hear. Therefore, it is not God that prevents anyone from being saved, it is the person themselves. Any suggestion that God has predetermined a person’s rejection of the gospel puts God a cross purposes with himself with respect to his salvific intentions in the gospel and the accompanying work of the Spirit.
The point is that the Word and Spirit are inseparable and the hearer experiences both in hearing the “good news.” That is what makes the gospel preaching a spiritual rather than a merely temporal, earthly, physical event solely of the human sphere (i.e., the point of Jesus’ dialogue with Nicodemus in Jn. 3 and the rich, young ruler in Matt. 19:16ff., et al.). In the sphere of “the flesh” there can be no possibility of salvation. But with God all things are possible. Hence, there is one call that effects a crisis point in every life. It is the gospel call. It brings a univocal message of the real possibility of life, light, hope and salvation to and for every hearer.
The mistake the Calvinist makes due to their unbiblical doctrines of total inability and unconditional election is to seek the effectiveness of salvation in the call. But the ultimate effect with respect to one’s salvation and eternal destiny is not to be sought in the call. To take that route is to introduce incoherence with the content of the message and the nature of faith. If we take the Calvinist approach then the “good news” is transformed into something effective in some and meaningless to others based upon God’s eternal, unknowable decision to predestine some to salvation and all others to eternal damnation. Hence, we have indicted God in unfaithfulness and untruthfulness, and we have lost the christological center or focus as the revealed expression of the salvific will of God for all. We render incoherent the content of the message as “good news” and the biblical witness to the nature of faith as every sinner’s responsibility. With Christ as the point of God’s salvific will and access to the grace of God, the ultimate effect hinges upon the hearer’s response of faith. It is the Holy Spirit that effects salvation upon the condition of faith. (Rom. 3-5) This view maintains coherence among the biblical data.
Vanhoozer seeks to affirm all these biblical dynamics yet have the outcome predetermined to preserve his definition of sovereignty. But as he insists that his theistic determinism remain in play, he destroys any meaningful, credible talk of a personal, divine/human interaction. As such, his is not the best theological expression of the full scope of the biblical witness to the God/man relationship.
Back to “The Vanhoozer Essays”
[1] See James Daane, The Freedom of God: A Study of Election and Pulpit, (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1973).
The Truth of the Gospel 