Vanhoozer writes,
“God was under no obligation to create. To say otherwise is to imprison God in a dependency relation with the universe and hence to deprive him of his Authorial rights. In deciding to create, God remains free to enter into relations, dialogical or otherwise, with human creatures. The pressing question for a remythologizer, however, is whether God remains sovereign even after choosing to enter into dialogical relations with human creatures.” (RT, 491)
Obviously, we know the answer to this question. The answer is most certainly “Yes, God remains sovereign – always!” There is nothing that can infringe upon or diminish God’s sovereignty. By creating man, “even after choosing to enter into dialogical relations with human creatures,” he, of course, has not jeopardized his sovereignty.
This leads us to ask how “sovereignty” is being defined and understood by Vanhoozer and how it should be defined and understood biblically. We also need to ask what it means to “enter into dialogical relations with human creatures.” If God’s “sovereignty” could never be threatened, “even after choosing to enter into dialogical relations with human creatures,” then God may not be as anxious about losing or preserving his “sovereignty” as are Calvinist theologians. Perhaps then Calvinists have an unbiblical understanding of God’s sovereignty. It seems to me that the very definition and understanding of sovereignty that we find in Calvinism is what generates this anxiety. It is sovereignty defined as universal divine causal determinism. This definition would of course generate the question of whether such a God can “enter into dialogical relations with human creatures.” And that assumes that “dialogical relations” are genuinely free and therefore genuinely communicative relations.
We all agree that God acts in and through human beings, he also acts independently of them and therefore, at times, upon them. But whether “sovereignty” must mean the premundane preordaining of “whatsoever comes to pass,” including the predestination of some to eternal life and all others to eternal death, is the issue that divides Calvinists and non-Calvinists. This is why it is a “pressing question” for a “remythologizer.” (i.e., “Calvinist”?) The question is “pressing” for them because of their perception and definition of what it must mean for God to be sovereign. For the Calvinist “remythologizer” God’s sovereignty is defined deterministically. It is a “pressing question” therefore for the Calvinist “remythologizer” because the question presupposes a deterministic definition of sovereignty that is comprehensive and immutable. It is this definition of “sovereignty” that creates a “pressing” problem of coherence with any concept of “dialogical relations with human creatures.” Why is God being sovereign problematic with entering into “dialogical relations with human creatures?” Why wouldn’t God remain sovereign “even after choosing to enter into dialogical relations with human creatures?” The answer depends upon one’s definition of “sovereignty.” What Scriptural warrant is there for the fear that if God does enter into “dialogical relations with human creatures,” indeed, actually determine to invest them with genuine human freedom, that God would be less than sovereign in his universe? If “sovereignty” does allow for real divine/human response without the underlying presupposition that all things need to be predetermined by God from eternity past, that there exists real contingency, conditionality, potentiality, and possibility which the sovereign God saw fit to incorporate into the world and obviously does not threaten his sovereignty, then this question of “how God remains sovereign” is not as “pressing.”
But the worry also seems to be whether such human freedom removes God’s freedom. As Vanhoozer puts it, “If what God does is determined or influenced decisively by what humans say and do, then God is not free.” (FT, 93) First, this statement is strange coming from a Calvinist, because the Calvinist has God decisively determining what humans will say and do. So what’s the worry? Hence the statement is incoherent with the theistic determinism at the heart of his theology. Nevertheless, taking up his point here, the response would depend upon what humans are saying or doing. God might very well allow himself to be “determined or influenced decisively” when a sinner humbles himself, repents and believes in Christ as savior and Lord. So, again, the issue, and the anxiety, really is a Calvinist issue and anxiety due to the determinism inherent in their theology. I contend that this Calvinist deterministic definition of “sovereignty” cannot be sustained with logical, moral, epistemological, and biblical coherence and thereby we know that it is not biblically accurate.
Vanhoozer raises an intriguing inquiry by attempting to understand how God works in man and in the world, but he fears that if God has not predetermined all things, then all is lost with respect to God’s relationship with people, his control of the world, and his ability to bring it to his desired end. He would not be “sovereign.” Ironically, Vanhoozer and Calvinist theologians give man too much credit by this unfounded fear that if God does not comprehensively determine human actions and destinies then humans will absolutely determine God’s. We see this when Vanhoozer balks at the prospect that our prayers may actually move God to do things and then asks, “Who, then, is dialogically determining whom? (RT, 382) Note the deterministic concern here. Vanhoozer understands God’s sovereignty essentially as a universal divine causal determinism.[1] If God is genuinely responsive to human actions, requests, prayers, etc. then Vanhoozer sees only that humans are “dialogically determining” God’s actions. But the whole presumption is wrong-headed. It is no doubt a sincere and legitimate question as to how God relates to human beings when his ways are not so obvious, but it is a seriously flawed presumption to think that God has to be guarded against all influence by his own creatures lest he forfeit his sovereignty. Only a deterministic understanding of God’s relation to his human creations generates such a concern.
I submit to you that it is unbiblical to depict the God of the Bible as one who has predetermined and directly causes all the minutest details of every human thought, desire, attitude, and action in the name of God’s sovereignty and the preservation of his glory. This does not give due consideration for God’s freedom to determine how his “sovereignty” should function in relation to human freedom. As Jewish theologian Michael Wyschogrod put it, “Theologians must not be more protective of God’s dignity than he is of his own.”[2] The same goes for sovereignty! And it is a serious sign of theological error when one’s view of sovereignty generates insurmountable logical, moral, epistemological, and biblical incoherence. For the Calvinist theologian, it seems beneath God’s sovereign dignity to relate to human persons in a way in which God does not predetermine their every action and eternal destiny. This is surely what we do not find in Scripture.
I am not saying that Vanhoozer’s question and inquiry is not legitimate. I am pointing out that it is a distinctly Calvinist problem. I am pointing out that it springs from his own Calvinist “classical theism” which holds to a deterministic view of sovereignty. That view is precisely the problem and therefore if Vanhoozer and Calvinists continue to hold that view the problem will not go away. Yes, Vanhoozer is looking for a way to hold onto the deterministic definition of sovereignty through his “God as communicative agent” theology, but I submit that it only exacerbates the problem as he insists on maintaining his “God as causal agent” theology which makes a mockery out of talk about God communicating his love for persons, desiring their communion and seeking the good of his human creatures while all the time this same God has predestined some to eternal life and all others to eternal damnation and separation from himself.
If we agree that we must let Scripture guide our understanding in these matters, we should also agree that it must remain understanding that is being guided and not our traditional non-negotiable theologies. Either the Calvinist will let Scripture guide them into coherent interpretations of its texts and message or they will attempt to validate the incoherencies and contradictions of their Calvinism by proof-texting and offering up a list of rationalizations. True mystery is a component of divine revelation by its very nature, but biblical mystery is not to be redefined as interpretive incoherence and contradiction. Premature flights to “mystery” to rationalize contradictory interpretations can be detected by the logical, moral, epistemological, and biblical incoherencies and inconsistencies those interpretive propositions generate, and especially in their affect upon the gospel as “good news.” Within his a priori doctrine of sovereignty as theistic determinism, Vanhoozer creates the “pressing question” of how it is that the non- deterministic divine-human relationship that is properly gleaned from the Bible can be. The solution to the “pressing problem” lies in whether the “remythologizer” is willing to adjust his definition of “sovereignty” to the biblical fact of God’s freedom to create man as he has and relate to man as he does. What Calvinist thought does not allow for is the freedom of God.[3] The proposition that God relates to man as the determiner of every person’s thoughts, desires, attitudes, decisions, and actions while attempting to explain how man relates to God freely and willingly and God to man freely and willingly, as an and man and God. we understand those terms naturally and experientially, is simply futile if we attend to the rational coherence of the propositions. That is to say that determinism has no logical place alongside the biblical witness to the freedom of the communicative and actual personal interactions between God and m
Certainly, the Calvinist can and does redefine “freely” and “willingly” to cohere with his theological determinism. The question is whether those redefinitions can hold up under biblical scrutiny and “common sense.” I conclude that they do not, and I have presented the evidence for that conclusion on this website. I have shown that when examined by a thought process that values rational coherence the Calvinist redefinitions and rationalizations only lead to further incoherencies, inconsistencies, and contradictions. They do not pass the test of a sound hermeneutic.
Of course, I am presupposing that we can identify valid reasoning. It therefore seems to me that one way we can know if theological propositions are biblically valid is by examining the logical and moral coherence or incoherence occurring at the intersection of these Calvinist redefinitions and propositions with other doctrines and propositions clearly taught in Scripture along with our factual experience and knowledge. If the “remythologizer” has an immutable, comprehensive, deterministic definition of God’s sovereignty into which he must fit the full scope of biblical data on the nature of the God/man relationship and finds that in doing so it is highly problematic logically, morally, biblically, and epistemologically (i.e., one’s knowledge of salvation), then he should ask himself whether his conception of sovereignty is biblically informed or in error. It is to apply the hermeneutical test of rational coherence to one’s interpretation and doctrine. If one’s definition of sovereignty is wrong-headed, we would expect that definition to present incoherencies, inconsistencies and/or contradictions with the full biblical witness to the nature of the relationship between God and human beings. And that is exactly what we find. We find that the biblical witnes of human freedom, contingency, potentiality, will, decision, etc. working within the context of God’s plans and purposes for not only the world but the lives of individuals. s is one
The crux of the matter is that God need not have predetermined all things for his plans and purposes to be accomplished. He can accomplish his plans and purposes which we do not know beforehand. Neither do we know all the way he does so. Obviously the Bible speaks about God accomplishing things through his Word. And since we do not know how he does so apart from his word, he therefore may indeed bring about those plans and purposes through alternative channels depending upon the free will response of person’s to God’s “communicative acts.” These alternatives or changes in the plan, that is, the way God accomplishes his decided purposes, we also would be ignorant of, nevertheless he accomplishes those purposes. In addition, the real freedom persons have been granted by God as made in his image is not an inviolable freedom. God remains the Creator and we the creature. He remains intent on bringing to pass his purposes and may do so through individuals that are either resolutely against him and his purposes, and certainly through those who love him and desire to serve him. That is what it means for God to be sovereign. I submit that this is precisely the dynamic we find in Scripture and precisely what Calvinist determinism cannot coherently account for even given Vanhoozer’s attempt to personalize his theistic determinism. Therefore, Vanhoozer is obviously grappling with the issue of attempting to find in Scripture and thereby validate the non-negotiable deterministic sovereignty inherent in his Calvinist theology. And soften his determinism by labeling it “dialogical determinism” (RT, 384) it is determinism, nonetheless. As such, it is unbiblical. That is where the “pressing question” lies. It does not lie in the “causal joint” into although he attempts to which determinism must be fit. It lies in the nature of the causality of the interactions and events we all experience and must acknowledge. Vanhoozer holds that the will of God alone is the determiner and therefore the cause of “whatsoever comes to pass.” It is the inescapable conclusion of his various theological propositions. The two most telling are his doctrine of an “effectual call” and his view of petitionary prayer.
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[1] This is William Lane Craig’s term for Calvinism’s definition of divine sovereignty. See “Chapter 4 – Why the Calvinist Views of Sovereignty and Salvation are Certainly False.”
[2] The Body of Faith: God and the People of Israel (Northvale, N.J.: Jason Aronson. 1996), 64. From Jay Wesley Richards, The Untamed God: A Philosophical Exploration of Divine Perfection, Simplicity and Immutability, (Downers Grove: InterVaristy, 2003), 22.
[3] See James Daane, The Freedom of God: A Study of Election and Pulpit, (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1973). Here a Calvinist critiques the theistic determinism inherent within Reformed scholastic decretal theology.
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