The biblical worldview is one of non–determinism. This worldview allows for meaningful divine interventions, something that is not logically necessary given the worldview of theistic determinism. Divine intervention is not necessary when everything has been predetermined by God. I guess the Calvinist might say that God’s interventions are also predetermined – the Author writing himself into the script at certain points, so to speak. But it wouldn’t be an intervention that would be in response to anything going on down here that would need to be altered, changed, or corrected. Be that as it may, the Bible speaks about God’s intervention into the world and his providential care over it, especially towards those who trust in him. Obviously then, because of the fact of divine intervention, this divine providence is not to be interpreted as a theistic determinism. Primarily providence is to be understood as God’s general sustaining care over all his creation. The term may be used to refer to a particular intervention, but as such cannot be used to support a universal divine causal determinism. The providence of God is not equivalent to universal divine causal determinism. Yes, it is God’s prerogative to do “as he pleases,” and he is certainly able to do so (Psa. 115:3, 135:6). It is what he is “pleased” to do and how he is “pleased” to do it that needs to be discerned from Scripture. This involves not only reading Scripture carefully and comprehensively but being clear about God’s essential nature. I submit that God’s nature as discerned from his “speech-acts” as recorded for us in Scripture, and the testimony about God found throughout the spectrum of biblical genres, all presuppose libertarian freedom and not a Calvinist compatibilism that struggles to justify a deterministic sovereignty.
What we are responsible to discern here is whether the Bible teaches us what Vanhoozer’s total theology requires we believe about God, man, and the world. We cannot settle for a partial theological perspective that can be made attractive to us in isolation of the fuller biblical context. Does Scripture teach that God works his irresistible will regarding each person’s salvation? Where does it teach this? Wouldn’t such a doctrine have negative implications for Christology, the content of the gospel as “good news,” the preaching of the gospel, the assurance of salvation, the nature of God, etc. It certainly would as I have argued throughout on this website. For even with this latest theological garb of “speech-act” theory, Vanhoozer’s “effectual call” entails other theological conclusions – the unconditional election of certain individuals to salvation, the necessary damnation of others (i.e., the reprobate), an eternal decree of God that causes all these to occur and makes God out to be evil, human freedom defined in accretive and illogical compatibilist terms (i.e., instead of having one will, God is made out to have two contrary wills, it’s the same with God’s love, etc.). Can these doctrines find a coherent place among the many clearly understood doctrines of Scripture? The question before us is whether these Calvinist theological propositions and conclusions are biblical and whether the claim that God works by “communicative speech-acts” mitigates the difficulties of these theological propositions. But if in the mitigating of these difficulties there is no coherent reconciliation between biblical doctrines and there is only the generation of more incoherence and inconsistency, and we find that the use of language and concepts only exacerbates these difficulties, then this requires a discussion of what role rational thought plays in interpretation.
Does Vanhoozer relieve the problematic nature of his Calvinist theological position simply by suggesting God works his irresistible effects “communicatively?” How so? On what basis? Does literary, “speech-act” theory help relieve the incoherence that Calvinist determinism generates with the biblical testimony to human willing, action, and response to God? Does God as a “being-in-communicative-act” enable us to see that the Bible rightly interpreted supports an “effectual call?” This has not been made evident. As Vanhoozer attempts to make a qualitative distinction between an irresistibly effectual communicative speech-act that is personal as opposed to an impersonal, monological, causal, strategic, instrumental act, I contend that what is also required is a coming to grips with the place of rational coherence in biblical interpretation and whether it is being sufficiently accounted for by Vanhoozer as a reliable indicator of valid interpretation and theological conclusions. It is this critical hermeneutical contention that Calvinists are prone to avoid because they insist upon a certain deterministic definition of sovereignty that is the cause of their interpretive incoherence. Vanhoozer writes,
“Chapter four considers the effectual call, the Reformed doctrine that affirms irresistible gracious drawing of the sinner toward God, as a divine communicative act that is at once loving and sovereign. The main challenge here is to show that God’s communicative agency is qualitatively distinct from impersonal causation.” (FT, 10, 11)
I submit to you that he has not achieved his “main challenge.” Note the words “loving” and “sovereign.” “Sovereign” here means “predetermined.” It also includes all that is entailed in a “call” that is “effectual” and “irresistible.” As a “Reformed doctrine” (i.e., Calvinist doctrine), this “call” stands in the middle of the “T” of “Total inability,” the “U” of “Unconditional election,” the “L” of “Limited atonement,” and “P” for the “Perseverance and Preservation of the saints.” So, given these doctrines, how could “God’s communicative agency” be considered as “qualitatively distinct” from “impersonal causation?” Given “total inability” what is there that God does not actually cause and hence must be attributed to his doing? And given “unconditional election” what could there be of a personal nature in this “call” of “the sinner toward God?” The sinner has nothing whatsoever to do with their coming to God and their salvation. As the Westminster Confession puts it, the sinner is “totally passive therein.”
The “causation” referred to above is very different than the proposition that God has created all things and is therefore their initial cause and that he has eternally decreed certain things to be and therefore causes them to come about. Now, if the absolute determinism of Reformed Calvinism is not presupposed, many of these problems surrounding the nature of God and his activity with mankind find more harmonious resolution in carefully identifying from Scripture when, where, and how God has decreed to act effectively (Acts 2:23, 4:28; 9:15; 13:23; 15:7), and when, where, and how he has decreed not act effectively (Lk. 7:30; Jn. 1:11, 12, 3:18, 36, 5:34, 40, 8:24), or in some ominous sense not to act at all – that is, in giving people up to their willful ignorance and ungratefulness to God (Rom. 1:24, 26, 28). This is what it means to be biblical about the whole matter. One size does not fit all. Overly strained justifications and rationalizations due to an universal divine causal determinism become unnecessary. In contrast, Reformed Calvinist theology provides only one size – determinism – and therefore that size is required to fit all. Hence, it is strained and awkward. This is what Vanhoozer is attempting to grapple with. But in the attempt to fit this determinism into a personal God’s interactions with his personal creatures its inadequacy is exposed. It is an attempt to jam-in theistic determinism where it just does not fit. It is like trying to get a round theistic deterministic peg into the square holes of the biblical witness to both divine freedom and human freedom. The logical, moral, epistemic, and biblical incoherence the position generates is the indicator of a theology gone astray. And this theology includes an “effectual call,” which because it is divinely predetermined cannot be made personal.
I have shown in my writings throughout this website that Calvinism ignores the boundaries of rational and moral coherence and thus betrays itself as theologically inadequate. In contrast, a dynamic of contingency amidst a secure sovereignty of selective, effective divine activity is something Calvinist theology, especially Calvinist soteriology, cannot abide. Only when definitions of God’s sovereignty that don’t allow for genuine conditionality and human freedom which are characteristic of personhood prevail do we end up with impersonal causation. Calvinism’s universal divine causal determinism cannot allow for genuine conditionality and human freedom and is therefore confined to impersonal causation. Furthermore, Vanhoozer’s “main challenge” is going to involve him in deciding whether his logical, moral, epistemic, and theological incoherence is hermeneutically significant for discerning valid from invalid interpretations. The genuine contingency and conditionality affirmed throughout Scripture due to God’s freedom to create human beings in his own image with similar meaningful freedom is the affirmation of God’s communicative agency working apart from impersonal causation. Therefore, Vanhoozer’s “main challenge” arises as a distinctly Calvinist challenge.
The Truth of the Gospel 