Here is Vanhoozer’s own summary of his position.
“Let me briefly summarize my position. God loves his people largely by bringing about understanding (and faith) through his communicative action. This is not simply a matter of conveying information but of making promises, issuing commands and giving warnings, as well as comforting and consoling. The crucial point is that God brings about understanding (faith, hope, comfort and so on) not through manipulation but precisely in a manner that is appropriate for persons with reason, will, imagination and emotions. The question of God’s “openness,” in regard to communicative theism, is whether God’s relation to his people can be genuinely loving if God is unaffected by the communicative acts of his human interlocutors.” (FT, 92)
Note the phrase “his people” which refers to the Calvinist doctrine of predestination or unconditional election. “His people” refers to the elect. God loves his elect, that is, those he has chosen beforehand for salvation. He does not love the non-elect, that is, those he has not chosen beforehand for salvation. Note also that God brings about faith. The Calvinist doctrine of “total inability” teaches that sinners cannot believe as defined as something that they are responsible for and able to do. God must unilaterally change their hearts, that is, he regenerates them first in order for them to believe. This is the Calvinist teaching of pre-faith regeneration. Faith comes after God regenerates the sinner as something God does only in his elect. For the Calvinist faith does not come before regeneration as a response to the gospel message that is from the sinner’s own will.
As a Calvinist Vanhoozer maintains a universal divine causal determinism or “God’s eternal decree” that preordained “whatsoever comes to pass.” Vanhoozer has this presupposition behind his inquiry as to “whether God’s relation to his people can be genuinely loving if God is unaffected by the communicative acts of his human interlocutors.” (FT, 92) This is a concern only for the theistic determinist. Only they would raise this issue. This is an indication that Vanhoozer holds to a theology of divine, unilateral, monolithic, determinism, and as far as communication is concerned, monological action. After all, Vanhoozer did tell us that “God’s love is best viewed neither in terms of causality nor in terms of mutuality but rather in terms of communication and self-communication.” (FT, 91, italics mine) Given his divine eternal decree that would even predetermine everyone’s words as well as thoughts, desires, will, and actions, it’s hard not to conclude that God is engaged in a grand divine monologue. Also, given such a decree it is also hard to see how God’s love can be understood in any other way than in terms of causality. But ultimately, God is communicating only with himself. A charitable reading can take Vanhoozer as referring to the intra-communication of the persons of the triune God (i.e., Father, Son, and Holy Spirit), but given his divine eternal decree (i.e., theistic determinism), I believe the conclusion that reality is just a grand divine monologue still holds.
In addition, Vanhoozer writes,
“…we see that the main complaint against classic theism is that it pictures the God-world relation in terms of efficient causality. Indeed the theology of the so called Reformed scholastics of the seventeenth century has been described as “causal analysis.” Is it actually the case that the question “how do sinners get grace?” requires a causal explanation? This way of construing the God-world relation is today being challenged. Hence our problem: if God does not intervene in nature, then what are we to make of the effectual call?” (FT, 98)
Some observations. First, by “causal explanation” Vanhoozer means “God acting to cause what he has preordained to occur.” And on Calvinism that is how “sinners get grace.” So, the answer to Vanhoozer’s question is “Yes!” On Calvinism “sinners get grace” via a causal explanation. God causes sinners (i.e., the elect) to “get grace.” Calvinists call this “irresistible grace.” God causes this to occur in the elect. Vanhoozer hopes to find help in avoiding this causality through “speech-act” theory. He believes studies in the philosophy of language will offer an answer as to how God as sovereign, defined as theistic determinism, acts “effectually” and “irresistibly” upon people so that they do what he has predetermined by his own will for them and yet this action is suitable for them as persons, that is, not merely instrumental or impersonally causal. Vanhoozer needs to make clear to us how his explanation of the God / man relationship according to “speech-act theory” is not a causal explanation. He hopes to find an answer via “God-in-communicative-act.” How are the “effectual call” as effectual and “irresistible grace” as irresistible not fundamentally, and, by definition, causal? It seems that God acts to cause the call and the grace. For us non-Calvinists it is not a problem because we do not believe Scripture teaches an “effectual call” or “irresistible grace.”
Vanhoozer just finished a brief analysis of the views of Clark Pinnock, Paul Tillich, and Friedrich Schleiermacher who do not hold to Vanhoozer’s “efficient causality.” (FT, 97) Note that by “efficient causality” and “causal explanation” Vanhoozer means deterministic causality and explanation – with God as the determiner. It’s the Calvinist definition of divine sovereignty. It is also odd that Vanhoozer asks, “Is it actually the case that the question “how do sinners get grace?” requires a causal explanation?” Well, the Calvinist explanation as to “how sinners get grace” is via a causal explanation. God causes this grace in sinners. Calvinists have a name for this divine action, it’s called “sovereign grace.” The sinners who “get grace” are the sinners who have been predestined to salvation (i.e., the elect). “Grace,” for the Calvinist, is essentially God’s premundane decision to save certain sinners. “Grace” is the divine decision to unconditonally elect certain sinners to salvation. I have critiqued this misunderstanding of grace and provided the biblical definition in my Chapter 14 – The Nature of Grace in Scripture.
Vanhoozer also states a “problem.” It is, “if God does not intervene in nature, then what are we to make of the effectual call?” It’s Tillich and Schleiermacher who don’t believe God intervenes in nature (i.e., the world). Of course, evangelical Christians, along with Vanhoozer, believe God does intervene. But Vanhoozer has a problem here too. What does it mean for God to intervene in a world in which everything that happens has already been universally, causally determined by him? Think about it. Another incoherence?
Furthermore, even though he does intervene, there is no biblical reason to think that intervention includes an “effectual call” with respect to the way people “get grace,” that is, get saved. Vanhoozer simply presupposes that this Calvinist doctrine is biblical. Indeed, Vanhoozer just assumes that the “effectual call” is the way God works with persons and represents “a microcosm of the fundamental problem: the way God relates to the human world.” (FT, 98) He also states that the “effectual call” “focuses our attention on the particular problem of how divine grace brings about change in the world.” (FT, 98) So Vanhoozer perceives the “effectual call” as equal to “divine grace.” This is the meaning of the Calvinist phrase “sovereign grace.” It refers to God’s effectual work in those he has predestined to salvation.
What kind of God does Vanhoozer affirm? One who is impassible. Vanhoozer affirms “divine impassibility” and defines it as follows.
“Impassibility means not that God is unfeeling but that God is never overcome or overwhelmed by passion. Though certain feelings may befall God, he will not be subject to them. In this strict sense, then, it is no contradiction to say that God experiences human sorrow yet is nevertheless apathetic (because this experience does not compromise his reason, will, or wisdom). God genuinely relates to human persons via his communicative action, but nothing humans do conditions or affects God’s communicative initiatives and God’s communicative acts. Indeed it may well be the case that divine impassability is a condition for divine freedom… if what God does is determined or influenced the decisively by what humans say and do, then God is not free. The main point, however, is that God is a sovereign communicative agent who wills the good by bringing about certain communicative effects in his people, especially faith, understanding and consolation.” (FT, 93-94)
Vanhoozer’s position is that God is not unfeeling, and that God is not subject to his feelings. He says it is no contradiction that “God experiences human sorrow yet is apathetic” to it. He says the reason God can feel human sorrow is “because this experience does not compromise his reason, will or wisdom.” Question. Why would God’s reason, will or wisdom be compromised if he did genuinely respond to what humans do? Is God really apathetic to what he knows and even feels of human sorrow (not to mention the many other human emotions.) The question is whether human emotions can in any sense cause an emotional response, or perhaps better put in this context, effect a response from God as an emotional being? Is it true that “…nothing humans do conditions or affects God’s communicative initiatives and God’s communicative acts?” The question is whether human emotional experiences and actions (i.e., evil actions, repentance, unrepentance, sickness, joy, humility, praise, prayer, petition, etc.), move God to act on the basis of the feelings that “may befall God,” that is, what he feels from our human situations and actions. Vanhoozer claims that God is “never overcome or overwhelmed” by passion, but what does that mean? Perhaps that he exhibits self-control? What Vanhoozer can’t mean is that God is without passions or emotions, and very strong ones at that, which are caused by people and move him to action. The Bible certainly testifies to this (Deut. 4:21, 24-25, 29:16-29, 32:15-21; Jer. 15:6; Ez. 5:13; Ps. 145:8-9; Amos 1:3,6,9,13, 2;1,4,6, 4:6,8,9,10,11, 5:5,6,14-15, 7:2-6; Mt. 9:36, 14:14; 20:34; Mk. 10:21; Lu. 1:78, 19:41; Jn. 11:5, 35-36; 1 Jn. 1:9, et al).
What is Vanhoozer’s worry as a Calvinist? It is that via the emotions, God may genuinely respond to men because of what men do. Such a happening, of course, would nullify Vanhoozer’s definition of God’s sovereignty in which God has absolute control over everything in the universe down to the minutest detail by virtue of him having predetermined all things. Everything that happens does so by God having willed it in eternity past. Nothing occurs by the will of man because he has no will that can be understood as genuine, that is, as we all with our common sense understand wills to function. On Calvinism, we do only what God has willed we do. God predetermined the content of the wills of all persons always. But as I have shown on this website, this deterministic Calvinist definition of sovereignty is not tenable. Rather, the more biblical definition of God’s sovereignty allows for God to change his course of thought and action because he chooses to be in genuine relationship with his human creatures made in his image. In the Calvinist scenario God must be, according to Vanhoozer “apathetic.” But it seems to me that for God to be apathetic, no matter how you slice it, you are left with a definition and depiction of God that the Bible does not support. Here’s the definitions of “apathetic” and “apathy” from the Oxford English Dictionary (OED).
apathetic Of, or pertaining to apathy; insensible to suffering or emotion generally; unemotional; indifferent to what is calculated to move the feelings or excite attention.
apathy 1. Freedom from or insensibility to, suffering; hence, freedom from, or insensibility to, passion or feeling; passionless existence. 2. Indolence of mind, indifference to what is calculated to move the feelings, or excite interest or action. (Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989), s.v. “Apathetic,” “Apathy.”)
I suggest that Vanhoozer’s a priori unbiblical view of God’s sovereignty makes him prone to the fear that there is something man might be or something man might do that would put God at the mercy of man rather than vice versa. It’s almost as if Vanhoozer thinks God could have made a mistake and jeopardized his sovereignty by choosing to be involved with a creature upon which he chose to bestow free will. Only the determinist could be worried about God losing his sovereignty. The non-determinist is confident that God can accomplish his plans and purposes either with the free consent of persons or despite their resistance to him. Nothing makes God more sovereign or less sovereign.
Be that as it may, the Bible makes it clear that people do cause God to feel and act. Indeed, it seems to me that the whole story of redemption is a story of God’s love (i.e., a “passion”) that moved him to action (Jn. 3:16; 1 Jn. 4:9; Rom. 5:8). Indeed, the account of the crucifixion is called “the passion of the Christ.” How can the God who went to the cross for us be said to be apathetic? Insensible to suffering? Insensible to emotion? Does God live a passionless existence? Vanhoozer says God “will not be subject” to his feelings.” Ok, not overcome or overwhelmed, but not subject to his feelings? Why is that? How is that biblical? He says, “…nothing humans do conditions or affects God’s communicative initiatives and God’s communicative acts.” Does the Bible support this statement? How so? Again, in one sense what Adam did, and we all do in sinning, caused God to act in grace, mercy, and love through his plan of redemption in Christ Jesus. Something caused God to make a promise and to fulfill that promise. Was it the sin God predetermined and caused Adam and Eve to commit? Is God the author and cause of this evil world of sin? That’s nonsense. Granted, God did not have to act given Adam’s fall into sin, not in the sense that we control him, but I suspect that it was because of his nature as loving, gracious, and merciful he had to act as he did. But that is another question. The point here is that there seems to be, in some sense, a cause and effect relation between man and God by God’s own choosing (certainly between God and man by God’s own choosing!) And if it can be said that something can cause the God of love to act, it would seem to be the fall of his human creatures into sin. Praise the Lord!
Elsewhere Vanhoozer writes, “If what God does is determined or influenced decisively by what humans say and do, then God is not free.” (FT, 93) Why is that? Scripture is full of interactions between God and persons in which God is affected emotionally by what those persons do. So why is God still not free? It seems that for Vanhoozer this must be an either-or situation which again betrays the influence upon his thinking of his deterministic definition of sovereignty. Think about it. If some human being in the minutest way can cause God to act, let alone change his course of action, then for Vanhoozer God is not sovereign. It is God, and God alone, who must effectuate everything that occurs, in all places and at all times. Everything that occurs must be what God has preordained to occur according to his will and power alone. The inescapable conclusion is that God is the only causal agent in all of reality. That is the Calvinist definition of divine sovereignty.
And as far as God freely chooses to have genuine relational interaction with his human creatures, we may say God is affected by what those human creatures do. “Draw near to God (i.e., cause) and he will draw near to you (i.e., affect)” (James 4:8, CSB). By believing (cause) we cause God the emotion of pleasure (effect), and by seeking him (cause) he is moved to give reward (effect). (Heb 11:6). “Now if you will carefully listen to me and keep my covenant (cause), you will be my own possession out of all the peoples (effect)…” (Ex. 19:5, CSB) Granted, we humans are not able to determine God’s passions and actions, but it seems that humans have “decisive influence” as to what God does, not in the sense that we control God, but in the sense that God does genuinely respond to what we do, and always according to his own promises and nature. God says to Solomon about Israel that, “If I shut the sky so there is no rain, or if I command the grasshopper to consume the land, or if I send pestilence on my people, and my people, who bear my name, humble themselves, pray and seek my face, and turn from their evil ways (cause), then I will hear from heaven, forgive their sin, and heal their land (effect).” (2 Chron. 7:13-14, CSB) Moreover Jesus states, “And I say to you, anyone who acknowledges me before others (cause), the Son of Man will also acknowledge him before the angels of God, (effect) but whoever denies me before others (cause) will be denied before the angels of God (effect).” (Lu. 12:8-9, CSB)
The God who has been loving and compassionate to us in the provision of our salvation in his Son, is responsive on that basis to continue in his love and compassion as we submit to and believe in him, or, if we reject him in unbelief, he will administer his justice and severe punishment, as he must, by allowing us to remain under the condemnation of our sin. Indeed, there are even instances where God takes a different course of action than he indicated he was going to take when there is a change of mind, heart and/or action on the person’s (or people’s) part. (Ex. 32:9-14, 34:5-7; 2 Kings 20:1-11; 2 Chron. 33:10-13; Joel 2:12-14; Amos 5:14-15, et al.) That God responds to the attitudes and actions of persons is obvious throughout the Bible. In some sense, therefore, we may decisively influence God, but it does not follow that in this relationship God is any less sovereign.
Recall, Vanhoozer stated that, “God is a sovereign communicative agent who wills the good by bringing about certain communicative effects in his people, especially faith, understanding and consolation.” (FT, 93-94) And here again we see Vanhoozer’s Calvinism on display. This is nothing more than a way of expressing the Calvinist doctrines of divine sovereignty as theistic determinism, effectual call, and pre-faith regeneration, while setting these activities in the context of what appears to be self-evident throughout Scripture, that is, that God communicates. What Vanhoozer means is that when God communicates, he is accomplishing what he has predetermined to occur from eternity past. It’s theistic determinism in a different garb. The determinism remains. And if that remains, all the critiques I presented on this website are still in force.
The fact that God works via communication is no grand revelation. But does it carry the weight Vanhoozer wants to put on it? Does it relieve him of his determinism? I don’t see how. Just a cursory peek into the communicative relationship between God and man in the Bible tells you that. What you don’t get from that divine communication is that there is a secret exhaustive divine will at work that has predetermined everything that happens in the world. Granted, God created all things via his Word (cf. Jn. 1), that is, by a communicative act, or “speech act” if you prefer. Genesis 1 has God creating by his spoken Word. By my count the phrase “And God said…” occurs ten times in that chapter. But the continuing story makes it clear that God had not predetermined all things. Not only does the cultural mandate of 1:26, 28 and 29 refute Calvinist determinism (cf. 2:19, 23), but also the command of 2:16-17. Obviously, the fall of Man in chapter 3 was not the will of God for Man. Therefore, God is not the sole genuine actor on the world stage playing out a predetermined performance using his human creatures in a deterministic manner even if he is “communicating” with them. But that is just what Calvinism requires. Rather, God is the only Creator and Ruler over all, but according to Genesis 3 he is not the sole author of what occurs. Having been made in God’s image, Man is also the sole author of his actions, and having chosen a course of action he had the ability to do otherwise. Humans were given free will by God as made in the image of God (Gen. 1:26,27).
We realize that Vanhoozer wants to find the answer to how God accomplishes an all-encompassing determinism with persons while avoiding the charges that this God is a God of impersonal causality; a God who acts unilaterally creating a world marked by inevitability. As long as Vanhoozer presupposes the truth of his doctrines of theistic determinism, unconditional election, and the “effectual call” he must find relief from these charges. These doctrines raise these charges and drive the search for legitimate warrant to believe them. Can Vanhoozer justify belief in his Calvinist doctrines? Presupposing that they are biblical, he seeks the answer in the divine communicative act. But God-in-communicative-act does nothing to relieve the determinism in the Calvinist’s doctrinal system. It’s just now that via communication God causes what he has predetermined to occur. The communication doesn’t make the Calvinist’s theistic determinism any less deterministic. In the normal sense of communication each party has freedom to think and act on their own. But this cannot be the definition of communication for Vanhoozer as a Calvinist determinist. For Vanhoozer, God’s ultimate plans and purposes, which are at their core “unilateral” and “inevitable,” are “communicated” in such a way as to “create” a “response.” (FT. 85) It seems to me that even if God has ordained whatsoever comes to pass and accomplishes all things through speaking or “communicating,” that this is not any less causal or unilateral or inevitable. I’m not sure it can even avoid the charge of impersonal. Divine “communication” with persons who are by that communication made to always “respond” according to God’s will does not automatically make the deterministic “intentions” of God any more “appropriate for persons with reason, will, imagination and emotions,” (FT, 92) especially with respect to a person’s will. It is hard to see that what God is ultimately doing, if done “unilaterally” and “inevitably” and as actions that “create” a “response,” is anything but causal. Ultimately, God does overwhelm the person’s will. On Calvinism, God causes persons to do what they do. Thus, the accuracy and validity of the criticism of Calvinism as an inevitable, unilateral, impersonal causal theological system. Vanhoozer may somewhat ease the charge of impersonality, but I do not think he can answer or relieve his critics while still retaining his Calvinist theological doctrines.
He continues,
“…the Son and the Spirit are the means of the Father’s communicative action. Yet everything that God does is also loving. This is especially the case with God’s communicative action. God is love; and God’s Word – both the Word become flesh and the Word become verbal – is love’s principal ongoing and outgoing work.” (FT, 94)
Is God’s predetermining a large mass of human persons to eternal separation from himself and all that is good while also punishing them in hell in ways words are inadequate to fully express, loving? These words, although I agree with them, are at best baffling and at worst disingenuous from one who holds to the theistic determinism of Calvinist theology and soteriology.
He speaks of God as a “properly communicative agent whose actions are efficacious,” and yet he claims that these “efficacious” actions are “entirely appropriate to persons.” (FT, 91) This of course includes the “effectual call” while attempting to distance his theology from what it has been called, that is, “causal effect.” (see ch. 4, p. 96 ff.) Vanhoozer refers to “his people” and faith as a “precondition” to “understanding.” God brings about this faith and understating through “communicative action.” (FT, 91, 92) On Calvinism it is God who causes people to have faith. They must believe before they can understand. This is the Calvinist doctrine of pre-faith regeneration. Although Vanhoozer states that human beings have “reason, will, imagination and emotions” (FT, 92), God unilaterally overcomes the “total inability” by regenerating “his people” and granting them faith.
Much of the Calvinist verbiage and doctrinal beliefs are already here in the beginning of First Theology. Hence, there is enough here to conclude that Vanhoozer is a Reformed Calvinist theologian. In First Theology it seems to me that Vanhoozer wants to escape the causal determinism inherent in his “classical” theology, i.e., Calvinism. He will try to do so by claiming that his “God-in-communicative-act” goes a long way, and perhaps all the way, to relieving Calvinism of its determinism and therefore being manipulative, instrumental, and impersonal. Vanhoozer believes that to expand on the fact that God is a communicative agent will diminish the impersonal causality associated with his Calvinist doctrinal beliefs and help us see that God creates “understanding” and seeks “personal relation.”
In First Theology he believes that the “effectual call” is an “interesting test case” (FT, 98) for the way God relates to the world and believers receive grace. In footnote 7 on page 98 Vanhoozer writes,
“Whereas D. M. Baillie saw the incarnation as the paradigm instance of how believers receive grace, I submit the effectual call as a better model. The effectual call is thus a microcosm of the paradox of grace.” (FT, 98, footnote 7)
I submit to you that D. M. Ballie was correct about grace and Vanhoozer is seriously wrong about his “effectual call” and “paradox of grace.” Again, I refer you to Chapter 14 – The Nature of Grace in Scripture. There I argued not merely that the incarnation is “the paradigm instance of how believers receive grace,” but the incarnation of Jesus, that is, his appearing, is God’s grace to all sinners bringing them salvation through faith in him who died and rose again for our justification. Granted grace is also used to speak of the calling of persons to a special task (e.g., of Paul in Gal 1:15-16a, 2:9) and of the nature of the life lived by believers (Rom. 5:2 (possibly), Ch. 6; Gal. 1:6, 5:3-4; Heb. 21:15 (possibly). But this life lived by the believer in ‘grace’ is the result of “the grace of God” that “has appeared, bringing salvation for all people (Titus 2:11, ESV). That ‘grace’ that brings and ‘offers’ (JBP trans.) salvation to all people came in Jesus. There is only a fine line between the use of the word ‘grace’ to refer to what God has done to bring salvation for all in Jesus and the use of the word ‘grace’ as the context in which the believer lives. The latter is rooted in and supported by the former. There is a logical theological connection here between God’s saving grace that appeared in Jesus and as such comes to all sinners, and the grace out of which the one who believes lives their life (as opposed to living according to the ‘works of the law’). God’s grace in Jesus that brings salvation is integrally tied to the condition of faith by which that gracious salvation is received, and faith is integrally tied to a life lived in grace and faith. Therefore, the believer lives by faith in the sphere of grace provided by God in Jesus Christ. Grace and faith go hand-in-hand in salvation and therefore also in the life of the believer. But the main point here is that the scriptures teach that God’s grace has come to all of us as sinners in the coming of Jesus Christ. (Jn. 1:16-17; Rom. 3:23-24, 4:16-17, 5:2, 6-11, 17, 20-21; Gal. 2:20-21; Eph. 2:8-9; Col. 1:3-6; 1 Tim. 1:15; Titus 2:11, 3:4-7; Heb. 2:9). The Bible does not teach that God’s grace equates to an “effectual call” of only certain people to salvation.
Furthermore, to emphasize that “God’s Word… is love’s principal ongoing and outgoing work” (FT, 94), drawing out these and other obvious truths in Scripture and labeling them as God’s communicative action, does nothing to alter the problematic nature of the Calvinist deterministic doctrines which, especially as the non-elect are concerned, are characterized by anything but divine love. Rather, those doctrines are for the non-elect characterized by divine indifference, non-communication and lack of divine goodness and love. These are characteristics Vanhoozer wants to distance his Calvinism from. He wants to put a better face on Calvinism. But these non-elect persons experience anything but the “presence of personal address and response” or “God’s lordly loving of human persons.” (FT, 90) Vanhoozer, as a Calvinist, seeks to affirm a God who is personal, communicative, and loving; a God who is good and wills communion for human beings with himself. (FT, 91) But his theology stands in the way of these lofty goals. His Calvinism does not logically, morally, and especially biblically have room for meaningful and consistent definitions of divine goodness, love, and communion, and of equal importance, the “good news” or gospel message. For all his emphasis on divine communication, the mass of non-elect individuals cannot experience this goodness and love of God in any positive sense. God has not willed it for them. It is also highly significant and troubling that this group is left out in Vanhoozer’s discussion. Given Vanhoozer’s expertise as a theologian, I would have to think this omission is on purpose. It’s doesn’t fit his “God in communicative act” narrative.
In addition, neither can he coherently argue for the universality of the gospel as appliable to each individual while holding to his Calvinist doctrines of an effectual call and election as unconditional. Vanhoozer states, “The purpose of this gospel act is nothing less than communion: union with God in Christ. (FT, 91) Is this communion and union in Christ for all persons?
You may be baffled as to why Vanhoozer and other Calvinists are able to continue giving hermeneutical credence to the incoherencies and contradictions in their theology. They certainly know about them, but they continue to ignore them. I explain this phenomenon in Chapter 9 – Reason as Problematic for Calvinist Interpretation and Chapter 10 – The Calvinist’s Suppression of Logical Reasoning, Moral Intuition and Common Sense.
So, I think Vanhoozer’s efforts were bound to fail and have failed thus far. The universal, divine causal determinism of Calvinism is still incoherent, inconsistent, and in contradiction with the overwhelming testimony of Scripture to the contingent nature of reality under a non-deterministic definition of the sovereignty of God, the biblical witness to human freedom, responsibility, and culpability, and the definition and content of the gospel as “good news” to all and the clear biblical teaching that God desires everyone to be saved.
Although 13 years have gone by since I wrote this series of critiques, they are still applicable because Calvinist’s have not changed their hermeneutic. Calvinists still endure the incoherencies, inconsistencies, and contradictions that their interpretations of Scripture generate. I also feel these critiques are necessary because Vanhoozer remains an influential scholar, not only through his previous and subsequent books, but also his teaching career. As of the updating of these essays in November 2024 he is Research Professor of Systematic Theology at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. Vanhoozer is a Calvinist. They come in several stripes, but they have more in common than not. And it is the incoherence between Vanhoozer’s Calvinist doctrinal beliefs and what he has written about “divine action, passion and authorship” that is the main subject of my critiques. I have already demonstrated some of Vanhoozer’s inconsistencies above. In the following essays I review select passages from First Theology and Remythologizing Theology that tell us in his own words what he believes regarding his hermeneutic and theology.
The Truth of the Gospel 