Reformed Calvinists would have us accept that God predetermined ‘whatsoever comes to pass’ and yet human freedom is real. People make genuine choices, decisions, and actions by the exercise of their own wills, yet, since God predetermined to bring about his minutely detailed plan for history in sovereign flawlessness, he therefore must cause, albeit “communicatively,” these decisions and actions to occur accordingly. Furthermore, God himself holds persons accountable for their decisions and actions. God predetermined ‘whatsoever comes to pass’ but he is in no way the author of evil, although “God is the Author of all that is” and “God’s authorial speech both constitutes and consummates human characters…” (RT, 303). God predestines some to eternal life and all others to eternal damnation, yet ‘God is love’, merciful, and compassionate to all. God offers to the non-elect salvation in the gospel but will not granted them faith, causing them to believe, yet he holds them responsible for their unbelief. God predestined some to salvation but we do not know who they are or if we are included among the elect or non-elect. God loves all men for Christ’s death is sufficient for all yet it is not efficient for all. Although he died for all in the sense of “sufficiency” he has not died for all in the sense of “efficacy.” God is a person in personal relationship with man created in his own image, yet God created a vast number of people for the very purpose of expressing his wrath upon them by predestinating them to eternal torment.
For most people these Calvinist theological propositions and the reasoning behind them are simply baffling. Moreover, if we were to use Vanhoozer’s interpretive criteria above to evaluate them we would have to eliminate them as worthy of belief. Vanhoozer’s own words are worth repeating here.
“Right interpretation depends not only on having the right procedures but on having the right habits of perception as well as a desire to understand the whole. We often need to be trained in order to perceive things correctly…To stake a theological truth claim ultimately demands practical reasoning…Staking theological truth claims is a product neither of instrumental nor of speculative reason but of practical reason: a type of reasoning about moral action and a type of reasoning for which one may be held morally responsible. Indeed, according to some recent virtue epistemologists, rationality just is a form of being moral – of ethics applied to the intellect…” (FT, 348)
I maintain, as Vanhoozer does, that we cannot say that “one may justifiably believe irrationally or against the evidence.” (FT, 358) But I also contend that that the Calvinist’s beliefs, because of their irrationality and incoherence given all the evidence, cannot reflect the God of the Bible or the nature of reality. So Vanhoozer is speaking against his own Calvinist theological position with his interpretive criteria. Why doesn’t he see this? Does he see it? Most Calvinists realize the problematic nature of their theological claims yet discount their negative logical, moral, and epistemic implications. They state “the Bible teaches both,” “they are an antinomy,” “an apparent contradiction,” “incomprehensible to fallen human reason,” “high mystery,” “faith seeking understanding,” etc. But upon careful examination all these too do not fit into the reality of the way things really are. They are diversions from what is obviously the case – that Calvinism rests upon a flawed hermeneutic that allows for rationally, morally, and epistemically incoherent interpretations to constitute its theology and soteriology. And unless we wish to sanction a theological relativism, that one interpretation is as good as any other, by claiming these are “spiritual” matters that are spiritually discerned only by those who have attained epistemic virtue and therefore we cannot possibly subject God and his ways to the bar of human reason, then anything goes.
Regarding virtue epistemology, it is good and right to draw our attention to the role of living life with virtue and in wisdom, but it is also with “good reason” that we challenge people to believe. We must not ignore the evidence as Vanhoozer has rightly stressed. Vanhoozer is correct when he says that “the most frequent objection to the Christian faith, at least in the popular if not the philosophical arena, is an account of what some Christians or the church have done. Actions refute louder than words.” (FT, 355) But among those “actions” may also be present an inconsistency in thought and speech, in theology and proclamation. And being that inconsistency and hypocrisy is the cause of legitimate rebellion in human nature, we ought to be very careful to establish ourselves with theological credibility. We ought to send the clear message that we are willing to dialogue about the rational coherence or incoherence of our theological propositions. To refuse to do so, or to offer poorly reasoned substitutes, is to ignore peoples’ legitimate questions and insult their intellects. As Vanhoozer pointed out, it is indifference, not hate that is the opposite of love. (FT, 71) Even if all our other actions present a consistent witness surely we would still expect rejection of Christianity if our reasoning is nonsense. Rational inconsistency is a serious stumbling block to trust in God, whether in action or word.
C. S. Lewis makes the following observation about ‘spiritualizing’ our theological propositions and the importance of maintaining coherent statements about God. He is speaking about God’s omnipotence and the problem of pain and evil in the world, but his observation has application here also.
“His omnipotence means power to do all that is intrinsically possible, not to do the intrinsically impossible. You may attribute miracles to Him, but not nonsense. This is no limit to his power. If you choose to say “God can give a creature free will and at the same time withhold free will from it,” you have not succeeded in saying anything about God: meaningless combinations of words do not suddenly acquire meaning simply because we prefix to them the two other words “God can.”…It is no more possible for God than for the weakest of His creatures to carry out both of two mutually exclusive alternatives; not because His power meets an obstacle, but because nonsense remains nonsense even when we talk it about God.”[1]
Note that Lewis presupposes, and rightly so, that we can discern “two mutually exclusive alternatives” when we see them. This also presupposes that any theology worthy to be called a biblical theology must of course be rationally coherent. Unlike Calvinism, it cannot claim that two mutually exclusive proposition are both true.
Lewis also addresses the moral and epistemological flaws in Calvinism’s problem in dealing with evil due to its universal divine causal determinism. Lewis writes,
“Any consideration of the goodness of God at once presents us with the following dilemma.
On the one hand, if God is wiser than we His judgment must differ from ours on many things, and not least on good and evil. What seems to us good may therefore not be good in his eyes, and what seems to us evil may not be evil.
On the other hand, if God’s moral judgment differs from ours so that our “black” may be His “white,” we can mean nothing by calling Him good; for to say “God is good,” while asserting that His goodness is wholly other than ours, is really only to say “God is we know not what.” And an utterly unknown quality in God cannot give us moral grounds for loving or obeying him. If He is not (in our sense) “good” we shall obey, if at all, only through fear – and should be equally ready to obey an omnipotent Fiend. The doctrine of Total Depravity – when the consequence is drawn that, since we are totally depraved, our idea of good is worth simply nothing – may thus turn Christianity into a form of devil worship.”
“Beyond all doubt, His idea of “goodness” differs from ours; but you need have no fear that, as you approach it, you will be asked simply to reverse your moral standards…This doctrine is presupposed in Scripture. Christ calls men to repent – a call which would be meaningless if God’s standard were sheerly different from that which they already knew and failed to practice. He appeals to our existing moral judgment – ‘Why even of yourselves judge ye not what is right?’ (Luke 12:57)[2]
These logical, moral, and epistemic problems are inherent within Calvinism. And when many of us have examined them carefully, and whenever possible conversed with those of a Calvinist persuasion, we come away only confirmed in our conviction that for all that Calvinist theology can offer that is biblically accurate, with respect to its fundamental propositions and soteriological doctrines it is certainly incoherent. For many of us rational coherence is an indispensable element of a sound hermeneutic. What could possibly pass as biblical hermeneutics without it?
The consensus opinion of non-Calvinist scholars is that Calvinists interpret Scripture poorly as to authorial intent, theological and canonical background, and its theological “natural sense.” Non-Calvinists seem to be successful in pointing out that Calvinism is quite resistant to being “formed, informed and reformed by Christian doctrine,” especially regarding its soteriology. Because of its incoherence, Reformed Calvinism fails to offer a “properly theological account of ‘the meaning’ of a text.” (FT, 286)
For instance, Vernon C. Grounds comments on the Calvinist interpretation of texts that clearly and explicitly indicate God’s universal intent of Christ’s atoning work. He believes that the Calvinist grossly misinterprets such texts on God’s grace given the obvious content of the biblical words. Grounds writes,
“…Calvinistically interpreted, grace in its effective outworking and outreach avails only for elect individuals, those human beings whom in his sovereignty God has predestined from all eternity to be the recipients of his mercy. Whatever linguistic and logical legerdemain is employed to mitigate the inescapable corollaries of this position, it maintains that non-elect individuals are outside the orbit of God’s effective grace…Despite the wide acceptance of this position among contemporary evangelicals, it quite flatly contradicts the overwhelming testimony of Scripture to the universality of God’s salvific grace. A mere catena of passages discloses the fact, for fact it is, that the divine purpose in Jesus Christ embraces not a segment of the human family but the race en toto…It takes an exegetical ingenuity which is something other than a learned virtuosity to evacuate these texts of their obvious meaning: it takes an exegetical ingenuity verging on sophistry to deny their explicit universality.”[3]
According to Grounds something has gone seriously wrong regarding the epistemic virtue of the Calvinist interpreter.
Back to “The Vanhoozer Essays”
[1] C. S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain, (New York: Macmillan Co., 1962), 28. In this book Lewis deals with the topics of divine omnipotence and divine goodness as they relate to the pain and wickedness we observe and experience in the world. “If God were good, he would wish to make His creatures perfectly happy, and if God were almighty, He would be able to do what He wished. But the creatures are not happy. Therefore, God lacks either goodness, or power, or both. This is the problem of pain, in its simplest form.” Lewis goes on to examine under what conditions God made the world which entailed the consequent possibility of pain and wickedness. Divine omnipotence and divine goodness are further defined; exhibited in a world of fixed laws, divine self-limitation, and the free will of creatures. This book is must reading.
[2] Ibid., 37, 38.
[3] Vernon C. Grounds, “God’s Universal Salvific Grace,” in Grace Unlimited, ed. Clark H. Pinnock, (Minneapolis: Bethany Fellowship, 1975), 25-27.
The Truth of the Gospel 