Evangelical Christians have always understood God as a personal God who throughout history has communicated with man through his words and actions. Even a cursory reading of the Bible makes this plain. Vanhoozer is to be applauded for his fuller explication of this fact, but in a very basic sense, he is not telling us anything new in this respect. His emphasis upon God as personal and communicative is more directly related to justifying the problem of theistic determinism within his Calvinist perspective. Yet there is certainly much food-for-thought in Vanhoozer for at least three groups.
The first group are the scholars who in order to maintain a “relational God” make God, us, and the world all become one. Vanhoozer ably addresses this unbiblical view on the basis of the doctrine of creation. He rightly critiques as unbiblical those theologies that although attempting to take seriously this “dialogical interaction of God and human beings depicted in the Bible,” have God becoming one with the world and us with God. Vanhoozer therefore addresses the biblical errors in panentheism and the “new kenotic-perichoretic relational ontotheology.” His treatment of these theologies is solid and helpful and his critique of them needs to be highlighted. Yet, panentheism and the “new kenotic-perichoretic relational ontotheology” are not within the theological “field of vision” of the average Christian who does not run in such sophisticated philosophical and theological circles. On the other hand, these lofty erroneous teachings do influence the church and so we should be aware of them and defend against them by indicating where they have gone biblically astray. Vanhoozer has made a fine contribution on this front. It would appear that Vanhoozer employs the hermeneutical principles of coherence, comprehensiveness and consistency to successfully address these erroneous theologies. We only wish he would do the same with his Reformed Calvinist soteriology.
The second group that will find Vanhoozer of interest are Reformed Calvinists like himself who struggle with the impersonal monological causality of their theology of universal divine causal determinism. This struggle is central to Vanhoozer’s theological contemplations. Vanhoozer of course holds to Calvinism and as a result is trying to maintain a deterministic definition of divine sovereignty yet account for it in a way that plausibly allows for human freedom. He seeks to do this through the Calvinist doctrine of the “effectual call.” Vanhoozer sees this doctrine as giving us insight into how God works deterministically in the world yet in a way that does not violate human freedom. One senses throughout that Vanhoozer is struggling to acknowledge the personal, relational elements of the God/world/man relationship as found in Scripture while attempting to retain the universal divine causal determinism[1] inherent in the traditional Calvinist view of God’s sovereignty and soteriology.
Therefore, as we would expect with all attempts to retain a theistic determinism in light of the overwhelming testimony of Scripture to a non-deterministic reality, I find him caught in a web of contradictions. At times he appears to distance himself from the “classical theism” that stresses God’s absolute sovereignty defined in terms of his eternal preordination of “whatsoever comes to pass.” He speaks as if God does respond to human actions and man does act freely according to his own will. But we are also forced to conclude that Vanhoozer embraces Calvinism’s theistic determinism via the doctrine of an “effectual call.” He continues to tip his hand until it becomes clear that he takes a compatibilist approach to human freedom. Rather than adjust his theology to Scripture (a primary emphasis in his “remythologizing” methodology that is greatly appreciated), he “rationalizes” human freedom to fit his Calvinist determinism.
Grant Oborne quotes Calvinist D. A. Carson writing about the issue of preconceptions or preunderstandings brought by the interpreter to the text. Osborne states that Carson…
“…notes a semantic shift between two types of preunderstanding: (1) A “functional non-negotiable” is an accepted position that remains open to the evidence; if Scripture should so dictate, the position will change. (2) An “immutable non-negotiable” is not open to correction but twists the data to cohere with the preconcieved theory. I [Osborne] would add another category: a “neogtiable” that seeks challenge and, if necessary, correction in order to ascertain truth”[2]
I submit to you that Calvinist compatibilism is the offspring of number 2 above. It maintains an “immutable non-negotiable” definition of sovereignty that is inevitably deterministic. Note that “an “immutable non-negotiable” is not open to correction but twists the data to cohere with the preconceived theory.” I submit this is exactly what a compatibilist understanding of God’s sovereignty and human freedom does and my critique of Calvinist compatibilism will run along the same lines of discerning a valid interpretation by incorporating coherence, consistency, comprehensiveness and non-contradiction into one’s hermeneutic. Number 1 above is just confusing. What is a “functional non-negotiable” that “remains open to the evidence; if Scripture should so dictate, the position will change?” I thought it was “non-negotiable?” What about Osborne’s third category? That is, “a “negotiable” that seeks challenge and, if necessary, correction in order to ascertain truth.” Osborne’s emphasis in this position is in ascertaining truth. One must be open to challenge and correction to get at truth. But one senses in reading Calvinist theologians like Carson and Vanhoozer that their position is not negotiable, it is not open to the evidence and will not change regardless, even “if Scripture should so dictate.” And this is where the divide lies. How do we determine “if Scripture should so dictate?” I submit that this must ultimately be a matter of agreement on what constitutes a sound hermeneutic. The divide lies in the Calvinist dismissing interpretive incoherence as irrelevant for discerning a valid interpretation from an invalid one. This is proved by their dismissing their interpretive incoherence and contradiction by labeling it “tension,” “mystery,” “incomprehensibility,” “God’s ways are higher than our ways, his thoughts are higher than our thoughts,” etc. In contrast to these rationalizations, the non-Calvinist takes interpretive incoherence, inconsistency, and contradiction to be clear indicators of a misinterpretation of the text. The Scripture dictates change when one’s interpretations show themselves to be incoherent, inconsistent, and contradictory within their own theology or with other clear texts of Scripture. Rational, moral, epistemological, and biblical coherence, inconsistency and non-contradiction make for good interpretations and a sound hermeneutic. But rational, moral, and epistemological incoherencies, inconsistencies, and contradictions are not taken on board in the Calvinist’s hermeneutic. As a result, they reject any challenge or correction in their interpretations and theological positions to better reflect the whole scope of the biblical “theodrama” and ascertain truth.
Given the non-negotiable of a universal divine causal determinism (i.e., the Calvinist definition of divine sovereignty), the objective is simply to label the resulting contradictions as “apparent” or compound previous “explanations” with new assertions that still do not incorporate coherence and consistency as determiners of the biblical validity of those assertions. This is what happens with compatibilism – that is, when human free will is defined by the ability to do what you desire to do, with the one additional proposition that it is God who determines your desires. Calvinists who are “persuaded” by the compatibilist definition of human freedom will find in Vanhoozer a welcome softening of their theistic determinism in his “God-in-communicative-act” theology. But they will have to keep their logical and moral blinders on to walk the compatibilist path with Vanhoozer and more extensively his theologically contradictory statements. And then there is the strange silence regarding the corollary of his doctrine of an effectual call, that is, the fact of God’s indifference to the non-elect or reprobate.
Vanhoozer is quite “asymmetrical” regarding the full implications of his theistic determinism. And this is where the logical and moral blinders are necessary. He fails to discuss the implications for the non-elect of his statements about God as communicative and one who desires communion with His human creatures. Vanhoozer searches for a convincing way to affirm that the relationship between God and each of us is genuinely personal, even though all the outcomes of that relationship are predetermined by God and thus caused by God. Of course, Vanhoozer points out that the source of this predetermined “relationship” is not impersonal. It is the personal Creator God. But the problem comes in at the nature of the relationship with his human personal creatures as a monological, predetermined, causal, relationship. How can it be meaningfully stated that a relationship that is wholly predetermined by God is personal, or “dialogical” or the divine desire for “communion?” It is supposed to be a person-to-person relationship. And even if the relationship is asymmetrical – one party is the Creator God – the person-to-person relationship is destroyed when the Creator God predetermines and causes everything about the other “person.” This is Vanhoozer’s problem as a Calvinist. It’s every Calvinist’s problem.
The third group that will benefit from Vanhoozer’s writings here are the non-Calvinists who seek to understand a new take on an old problem and to see if there has been any movement by “this divinity professor” away from the essential difficulties of his Calvinist theology. These readers also take Vanhoozer’s call for humility through self-inspection and conversation seriously by entertaining the “provisionality” of their own “monological musings.” (RT, xvii) Has there been a breakthrough in understanding that would cause the non-Calvinist position to change under new Scriptural or philosophical evidence provided by Vanhoozer? Has there been a breakthrough in understanding that sheds new light on how it is that God functions deterministically as Calvinists claim and yet relates to men with the full dynamic of personhood, freedom, and responsibility as recorded in Scripture? As a member of this third group, I read Vanhoozer with anticipation, hoping that he could offer a satisfactory resolution to the logical, moral, epistemological, and biblical difficulties generated by his Calvinist theology. But I also had to carefully think through Vanhoozer’s claim that there is, to use his own terminology, a triune authorial God-in-communicative-act who seeks communion with his human creatures and dialogically communicates with and consummates human heroes, in relation to his Calvinist theological presuppositions, especially with respect to the “effectual call” – that one doctrine he claims helps us process how God works deterministically so as not to violate human freedom. I had to examine whether these claims about God in relation to his human creatures were credible given his Calvinist doctrine of theistic determinism.
In the end, I concluded that Vanhoozer is seeking to justify his non-negotiable Calvinist doctrines given the substantial criticisms that his interpretations of Scripture make God out to be the kind of God Vanhoozer wishes his theology did not create. Vanhoozer, like other Calvinists, wants to somehow show us that Calvinism doesn’t depict God as the distant, indifferent, impersonal, deterministic, monological God of absolute power and control. But can they do it? Does Vanhoozer accomplish this task here? I don’t think so.
What we need to do is to examine what Vanhoozer has written to see whether his “communicative” theology which relies on contemporary linguistic theory is compatible with his Reformed Calvinist theology. Does this deterministic theology remain a valid theology in light of the Bible’s communicative God. Vanhoozer claims,
“The present work employs a “good” metaphysics: good because it derives its system of categories from the train of God’s own communicative action (i.e., theodrama).” (RT, 8, footnote 27)
We can agree. That is “a “good” metaphysics.” But here is where the criteria of validation, which includes coherence, consistency, and non-contradiction must be allowed to play its proper role. So, we need to ask the question as to whether Vanhoozer’s hermeneutic incorporates these validating criteria. Can Vanhoozer’s highlighting of the “communicative” nature and actions of God relieve his Calvinist theology of its depiction of God as a God who is the antithesis of “communion” for a good portion humanity? Can it make sense of the dark side of Calvinism,, that is, it doctrine of reprobation? Is the God of Calvinism the God of the biblical “theodrama?” Are they the same God in all respects? Are they compatible views of God, let alone a God that allows for human freedom? In other words, does this new compatibilism employing “speech-act” theory relieve the essential logical and moral problems of God’s sovereignty defined as theistic determinism? Is the determinism the essential difficulty in any “communicative” view of God? Is God as “triune communicative agency” and “dialogical” going to cohere with the deterministic God of Calvinism? Are the two logically mutually exclusive? Can Vanhoozer provide a biblical remedy for the logical and moral incoherence generated by the Calvinist deterministic doctrines of sovereignty, election as unconditional, and the effectual call with the biblical testimony to human free choice and moral responsibility which implies the existence and function of a differentiated, substantially free human will? This stress on God as “communicative agent” is what Vanhoozer feels will counter the impersonal causal determinism inherent in his Calvinist theology. Vanhoozer realizes the danger of determinism even within his new paradigms of “theodrama,” “God-in-communicative-act,” God as “communicative agent,” God in “dialogical” relationship, and the “divine Author” and his “heroes.” Is impersonal determinism still inherent in Calvinism, even when his speech-act/literary theory is applied to it. Vanhoozer states,
“The question that remains is how this conception of divine authorship avoids becoming simply monological, in which the infinite freedom of the Author swallows up the finite freedom, thus consuming rather than consummating the hero.” (RT, 329)
We must ask a prior question as to whether this Calvinist deterministic account of God’s will and actions, i.e., “divine authorship” and “the infinite freedom of the Author,” is really the biblical mythos (i.e., dramatic plot; a unified course of action with beginning, middle and end, RT, 5-8) of the God of the Bible. Does Vanhoozer’s “authorial agency,” Calvinist “compatibilism,” and “effectual call” only bring us back to an unbiblical theistic determinism and cause us to question the biblical validity of the underlying theology? I think it does, and on this website I have tried to prove that Calvinism is unbiblical. Is Vanhoozer’s plea to view God as “communicative” a convincing remedy for his theological determinism? I don’t think so. Is this “speech-act” theory another attempt at a “compatibilist rationalization” of an inherently deterministic, excommunicative theology that still divides humanity into the elect and non-elect? I think so.
Vanhoozer is sure to remind us that his “remythologizing” method (in contrast to Bultmann’s method) lets the biblical “theodrama” unfold by attending to God’s own words and acts in Scripture. It is this ‘remythologizing” that should determine our hermeneutical perspective and theological conclusions. In this he is certainly correct. But again, this is only new to those who view the Bible as a handbook in systematic theology and not the record of a personal God’s gracious words and actions in history to provide for our redemption in Christ. And even though we should view the Bible as a record of God’s “speech-acts,” we still are pressed to interpret these “speech-acts” as revealed in their various historical contexts and literary genres. Vanhoozer contends that reading the texts as a “theodramatic” account with “God-in-communicative-act” and in “dialogical relationship” will enable us to appreciate how it is that God can be personal yet sovereign (in the Calvinist understanding of “sovereign” as a theistic determinism), while humans retain their freedom and personhood. Is that possible? Will his literary hermeneutic somehow convince us that the Bible really does affirm his Calvinist doctrines? From my reading of Vanhoozer, I don’t think so. One reason is that Vanhoozer’s version of the “theodrama” that records the “dialogical relationship” of the “God-in-communicative-act” which guides our understanding, still leaves us with an account of God’s nature and activity that does not cohere with Vanhoozer’s underlying Calvinist theology. That is his problem as a Calvinist, not my problem as a non-Calvinist. Vanhoozer still ends up with a depiction of God and salvation that in his own words is not coherent with his Calvinism. I will seek to demonstrate this as fact. This fact is an indication that something has gone wrong hermeneutically within Calvinism and provides the reason as to why its theological assertions are so diametrically opposed to those of non-Calvinists who interpret Scripture on the basis of coherence, comprehensiveness, consistency, and non-contradiction.
Back to “The Vanhoozer Essays”
[1] This is Dr. William Lane Craig’s description of Calvinism. See William Lane Craig, Defenders 2 Class, Doctrine of Creation: Part 10. Oct. 21, 2012. https://www.reasonablefaith.org/podcasts/defenders-podcast-series-2/s2-doctrine-of-creation/doctrine-of-creation-part-10/ You can read the transcript or listen to the lecture at this link. Last accessed January 15, 2024..
[2] Grant R. Osborne, The Hermeneutical Spiral: A Comprehensive Introduction to Biblical Interpretation (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1991), 404-405.
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