Vanhoozer also states,
“The challenge for communicative theism is to specify how God remains God while allowing creatures to participate in his triune life…To participate in the life of God is to benefit from his words and acts in history, especially the history of Jesus Christ…The question, then, concerns the type of relationality, and participation, implied in the “right relatedness” of communion. The biblical mythos displays a drama of salvation whereby the Father in Christ through the Spirit restores the lines of communication that had broken down in order to effect union and communion. God had to do something in order to restore right creaturely participation in his light, life, and love.” (RT, 279, 280)
Why does Vanhoozer feel constrained to “specify how God remains God while allowing creatures to participate in his divine life?” I get the sense that for Vanhoozer the phrase “how God remains God” arises from how Vanhoozer views divine sovereignty. Vanhoozer must maintain his Calvinist presupposition that God’s sovereignty entails theistic determinism which is destructive of any concept of meaningful communion and problematic for any relationship of a genuine nature. Obviously Vanhoozer feels that his deterministic definition of what it means for “God to remain God is threatened by allowing creatures the freedom of the will to determine whether they will “participate in his triune life.” He struggles here with the conceptual incoherence inherent in his theistic determinism.
So, who “benefits” from God’s “words and acts in history?” How is this “benefit” appropriated? Well, only those predestined by God to salvation will “benefit.” This “benefit” is for the elect only. The disconcerting doctrines of theistic determinism, unconditional election, and “effectual call” counter the claim that what God is about in history can be described as effecting “union and communion.” These doctrines inject confusion and ambiguity into what it means to be in this “right relatedness” of communion with God and who can experience it. Again, only the elect with experience it. Despite Vanhoozer’s theistic and salvific determinism he makes numerous statements that are incoherent with his theology. For instance,
“To confess YHWH king is to acknowledge an authority that evokes free and obedient action “because it holds out to the worshippers a fulfillment of their agency within the created order in which their agency has a place and a meaning.” Stated differently: to answer to God is to fulfill the purpose for which one has been called into existence. This purpose is to become part of a whole people with whom the triune God would commune.” (RT, 497, 498)
What is the scope of the phrase “to fulfill the purpose for which one has been called into existence?” It is hard to understand this as not referring to all people. Obviously, all persons have “been called into existence” by virtue of their having existed in the past and present. Everyone is a “one who has been called into existence.” With the words “called into existence” we assume that God has done this “calling into existence” or creating of persons. Now, “to answer to God is to fulfill the purpose for which one has been called into existence.” I take “answer” to mean respond accordingly in the sense of coming into a “fitting relationship,” that relationship for which the person was designed. But not all people will “answer to God” by God’s own design and determination. That is, the non-elect will not “answer to God,” only the elect will. Those who “answer to God” and those who do not “answer to God” is all God’s doing. It has been predetermined and worked by him in some and not others. The incoherence is obvious. The same God that “called into existence” the non-elect also determined that they should not “fulfill the purpose” for which they have been “called into existence.” Although, the Calvinist will maintain that the non-elect have been called into existence for the purpose of being condemned to eternal damnation and separation from God. That is their purpose. I will let you ponder on the questions about the nature of God and what you read about him in Scripture that this aspect of Calvinism raises. Suffice it to say here that Vanhoozer’s theology creates a situation in which God brings people into existence for a purpose, but also determines that they should never fulfill that purpose. This strikes many of us as baffling, if not immoral.
Furthermore, Vanhoozer states that the “purpose for which one has been called into existence” is to “become part of a whole people with whom the triune God would commune.” So, the purpose for our existence is to be included in “a whole people with whom the triune God would commune.” So God desires “communion” with those he has “called into existence” yet also prevents such “communion” for a multitude of those he has “called into existence.” He does not include the non-elect in with his elect people. He purposefully excludes them.
We observe an astounding incoherence when we examine Vanhoozer’s words about “an authority that evokes free and obedient action” from persons in light of his deterministic theology. I submit to you that the Calvinist deterministic definitions of God as sovereign and an absolute authoritative YHWH king, cannot avoid the conclusion of him being “manipulative,” “instrumental,” “coercive,” impersonal,” etc. But given this universal divine causal determinism, Vanhoozer presupposes, first, that we have the human freedom to acknowledge this divine determinism, and secondly that this acknowledgement of this divine determinism evokes “free and obedient action.” Obviously, these claims are incoherent within a divine determinism. such that some actually become his “worshippers.” How does this “evocation” happen? By being elected to it by God himself and being granted an “effectual call.” How does “confessing YHWH king” and acknowledging him as “an authority” which “holds out to the worshippers a fulfillment of their agency within the created order in which their agency has a place and a meaning” be good news if we are told that this most definitely does not apply to everyone, not because they reject it, but because God rejects them? Who can “answer to God?” One would think that if God speaks, the hearer, the one called into existence to fulfill their purpose of existence which is “to become part of a whole people with whom the triune God would commune” can “answer to God.” What does Vanhoozer mean by “to answer to God?” Well, “to answer to God” is to acknowledge God’s authority and submit to it. But here again we have presupposed the human freedom of the will. “To answer to God” implies the freedom to allow God to be God in one’s life or the freedom to reject God’s authority. This is incoherent with theistic determinism. This phraseology may also communicate that it is God who is deterministically directing persons and that the elect “answer to God” in the sense that what they are and do is a reflection of what God predetermined they would be and do. This is more coherent within Vanhoozer’s deterministic theology. But this determinism vacates the communicative idea of “answering” as simply responding one way or another, and from oneself, to what God has spoken. Vanhoozer’s “answering to” means that the person is predestined to become what God predetermined.
We can see that an absolute, fatalistic determinism hangs over Vanhoozer’s words. Vanhoozer attempts to introduce “free and obedient” action and talks about fulfilling our purpose “for which we were called into existence,” having “a place and a meaning,” and becoming “part of a whole people with whom the triune God would commune.” But from within the context of his theistic determinism these phrases amount to incoherent expressions that never rise to the clarity of the universal ”good news” that God has made a way “in Christ” by which all may be saved through faith. What I am attempting to point out is that the Calvinist theologian’s underlying deterministic doctrines do not fully inform his theological statements. He does not feel it necessary to strive for coherence between what he holds to doctrinally and what he says theologically. This results in at least a vague ambiguity of description, if not outright contradiction.
The Truth of the Gospel 