Vanhoozer writes,
“The divine Author is committed to the integrity of the world he has made and the characters he has placed there: “God’s sovereign plan includes a covenant commitment to every creature, to fulfill the role of that creature.” God as Author is not a coercive cause pushing against our freedom in a manner that interferes with (or intervenes in) our heroic integrity. On the contrary, the divine Author is an interlocutor who interrogates and tests our freedom, consummating our existence in the process. My capacity for self-determination therefore has its ground not in my own (monological) existence but rather in the potentially infinite dialogue with the Author God who alone calls me into being and who consummates my life and gives it meaning. It is in response to the dialogical situations that comprise my life, especially my dialogical relation to God, that I exercise the freedom to realize my own voice-idea.
There is thus no contradiction between Authorial determination of a character’s “idea” and the character’s own self-determination. Freedom as the power of the hero’s self-determination should by no means be confused with the power of self-authoring, however. It is one thing to realize one’s essential nature, quite another to make oneself over into something essentially different. Heroes act according to their natures, freely pursuing what they desire, but they lack the ability so to orient themselves that they can change their natures and desire something entirely different. From a theological point of view, then, freedom of self-determination falls short of genuine Christian freedom, namely, the freedom to say “Yes” to the divine call. It is for this later freedom that the Son and Spirit set us free, enabling us to correspond to the Author’s own voice-idea for humanity revealed and incarnated, in Jesus Christ.” (RT, 336-337, italics mine)
If Vanhoozer is essentially saying that only in proper relation to God do we find true meaning and purpose in life, that we need the work of God in our lives to bring our lives to true fulfillment, then I heartily agree. But Vanhoozer’s compatibilist position is somewhat evasive of other pressing theological issues resulting from that position. He maintains an absolute determination of God to “free up” the will of some persons that are bound by sin to “desire” to do what God wants them to do, that is say “Yes” to the “divine call.” Thus God determines one person to one end and another to another end, for he acts differently in one person than he does in another. God makes what he has determined for certain persons a reality by changing their desires, which are not naturally inclined to say “Yes” to his divine call, to a desire to say “Yes,” and not only to “desire” to say “Yes” but to irresistibly and definitely say “Yes.” The “effectual call” must change my desires such that I am caused to say “Yes” to the divine call. God does this by “convincingly persuading” that person so that their own will says “Yes.” Therefore Vanhoozer can talk about the persons acting “freely,” “willingly,” and speak of “self-authoring,” “response,” “answerability,” “obedience of faith,” etc. But all these are the result of a prior deterministic decision of God that contains the “idea” that one person will receive that “effectual” activity of the Holy Spirit and another will not. This determination to “free” one person and not another is a theological problem with respect to the nature of God, presenting him as arbitrary, and is also problematic in that it cannot coherently incorporate the full biblical dynamics of God’s ways with men (i.e., contingency, potentiality, conditionality, etc.) and the human response to God (i.e., faith, obedience, repentance, etc.).
The compatibilist scheme arises from the need to preserve certain steadfast Reformed Calvinist theological doctrines about God’s sovereignty and human depravity. As a result, Vanhoozer’s claim about God as “being-in-communicative-act” who desires to expand the communion of his triune life with human creatures is rather unconvincing. (RT, 270, 288) Vanhoozer views this as something good that happens to the person. But again, we are left to wonder about to whom all this talk of God’s desire for communion applies. Vanhoozer speaks in generalities about those who are fortunate enough to have God consummate his life and light in them. But how does this happen and to whom? It happens through an effectual call upon only those unconditionally elected to salvation. And it happens when God sees fit to do it. But what about the person who will not experience this effectual call and the Spirit does not grant this willing, desiring and enabling? What about the one not granted the gift of faith? (RT, 287ff.)
Vanhoozer speaks about the “integrity” of the God / man relationship. But what marks a relationship of “integrity?” Would indifference on God’s part to the eternal destiny of any person be a relationship of “integrity,” “dialogical,” and “communicative?” Could it be characterized by bringing “light,” “life” and “hope?” How is God committed to this “integrity” in “every creature” and yet he only effectually calls some of his “creatures” to these blessings? Regarding the non-elect, is spending an eternity in hell the fulfillment “of the role of that creature” that Vanhoozer mentions? How does a “communicative” theology based upon God’s desire to restore “communion” with his human creatures cohere with that same God’s refusal to do what must be done for persons so they can avoid eternal damnation and enjoy that very “communion” with God? Why would God not do so for all? To respond that God is under no obligation to save anyone, or the reason behind his decision to unconditionally elect some to salvation out of all of humanity is unfathomable and beyond our comprehension, seems to obscure the essential point of what a “communicative” theology is claiming it knows about the relationship between God and man. It claims that it knows that God is “communicative” and desires “communion” with his human creatures. Yet, that same God does not desire communion with a multitude of his human creatures. Perhaps Vanhoozer ought to be more precise. He means to say that God desires communion with his elect human creatures.
The way Vanhoozer maneuvers through his theological landscape gives the impression that the sayings and doings (RT, 284ff) of this God are being filtered through Reformed Calvinist presuppositions. As I see it, Vanhoozer’s explanation is a compatibilist view of God’s sovereignty and human freedom that ultimately plunges us into the dark abyss of Reformed Calvinism’s inevitable determinism and its doctrine of unconditional election. The language betrays this. It is at times nebulous, confusing, perplexing, and cannot coherently make its point. It says one thing and then something very different and conflicting. Vanhoozer’s “effectual call” is the Calvinist doctrine of “irresistible grace.” And Vanhoozer can attempt to put a personal face on it, but the problems run deeper than whether or not God is “communicative” in realizing his determinations. An “effectual call” implies, indeed requires, the Calvinist theological propositions of an eternal decree and unconditional election. When we uncover what the “effectual” necessitates we run headlong, not only into the question of personal appropriateness of God’s dealings with human beings as persons, (hence the need for a “communicative theology”) but into all the logical, moral, and biblical incoherence inherent in Calvinist theological determinism.
What could Vanhoozer mean by “my capacity for self-determination” except that we have self-determination? From within his compatibilist context he must mean that we determine ourselves in pursuing our greatest desire and cannot desire anything other than what our sinful nature dictates or what God has determined for us. Is this true to Scripture or a rationalization made necessary by the Calvinist deterministic doctrinal paradigm (i.e., TULIP)? It seems that what Vanhoozer gives in the first paragraph he takes away in the second. What’s the difference between “self-determination” and “self-authoring?” “Authoring” is another term for sovereign determination. (RT, 492, 493) Of course we cannot change ourselves from sinners to sinners who can devise and implement our own way of becoming saints. We cannot save ourselves. What Vanhoozer is ultimately saying is that freedom should be narrowly defined as being able and unhindered in pursuing what we desire. We have desires that rise no higher than our sinful selves, yet according to the Calvinist we are free because we get to do what we desire to do. This is an odd definition of “free” or “human freedom.” Therefore, we cannot respond to God unless God has determined that we respond to him. If he has so determined, we will unfailingly respond to him. So God has to “enable” us to respond (where the word “enable” implies libertarian freedom and is not really a “response” if it is determined) to his call. He makes it effectual. But how? By changing our desires. Now we want to respond to the call whereas before we did not want to respond. Yet although we can agree that we can’t change our natures, this cannot include the idea that freedom is simply doing what we desire when God gives us that desire. Nor, therefore, is it a biblical conclusion that we all, as sinners, could never say “Yes” to the “divine call” unless God changes one’s desire so that we willingly and unfailingly say “Yes.”
We come away from this passage wondering what Vanhoozer means by “self-determination.” We wonder how “genuine Christian freedom” comes about – that “freedom” to say “Yes” to the divine call. Is Vanhoozer saying that the Spirit frees one to make it possible for a person to say “Yes” to the “divine call?” But “possibility” must include the fact that the person might not say “Yes” to the divine call?” Or, is Vanhoozer saying that the Spirit works to such a degree so as to unfailingly persuade certain persons to say “Yes” to the “divine call?” Vanhoozer states that “It is for this later freedom that the Son and Spirit set us free, enabling us to correspond to the Author’s own voice-idea for humanity, revealed and incarnated in Jesus Christ.” What is this “enabling?” What is it to “correspond to the Author’s own voice idea for humanity?” What is God’s “voice idea for humanity?” It of course involves much regarding this present life, but it certainly is no less than the question of how one receives salvation – the question of one’s eternal destiny. But I must say that all this literary and linguistic terminology does little to clarify the issues at hand here. It only makes things more complex and obscure. Harder to understand.
Vanhoozer is theologically ambiguous here – the result, I think, of passing the biblical message through a Bakhtinian grid. We would like for Vanhoozer to speak more precisely and consistently according to the biblical revelation and the plain meaning of words. What is a “character’s idea?” What does our “heroic integrity” consist of? What is a “capacity for self-determination?” What does “our freedom” consist of? What is it to “exercise the freedom to realize my own voice-idea?” What is meant by “consummates my life and gives it meaning?” Are lives “consummated” to either salvation or damnation? Who determines this “consummation?” What is meant by the Author consummating our existence in the process of interrogation and testing? Is it the “Author” who determines how a life will ultimately be “consummated?” Who finally determines a “hero’s” destiny, the “hero” or the “Author?” Does the “Author” do so by a “dialogical” process? If so, how does the “Author” predetermine the “hero’s” end and the “hero” still have “integrity” even though the “hero” is “persuaded” by the omni-capable Author to that predetermined end? In other words, has Vanhoozer successfully removed the “determinism” out of deterministic Calvinist sovereignty with “speech-act” language? No. Has he successfully bypassed the “unconditionality” of unconditional election? I don’t think so and I have attempted to state the reasons. We are only back to square one – a strategic, monologic, unidirectional, coercive, causal sovereignty, albeit operating incoherently by “dialogical discourse” and “persuasion.”
To describe Reformed theological determinism as “persuasion” is not a proper use of language. “Persuasion” is substantively different than the dynamics required of the Calvinist doctrines of deterministic sovereignty and unconditional election. It is not convincing that a predetermined eternal destiny in hell really involves God and man in a personal, dialogical communion.
Vanhoozer certainly has not taken the “effect” out of the effectual call. This is unfortunate, for it establishes an epistemological void regarding our assurance that we know what it must mean for God to be good. This is fatal to Vanhoozer’s theology. The inconsistency of Vanhoozer’s claims that God desires to communicate “the truth, beauty and goodness of Jesus Christ” and that “God’s being-in-act is communicative: the free circulation of light, life, and love” (RT, 383) while also stating that God “effectually calls” a limited number which by definition excludes a multitude of his “human heroes” from this “free circulation of light, life, and love,” throws our knowledge of what it means for God to be good into mysterious darkness. If God – the supreme “Author” and master “persuader” – unfailingly effects his will “within” and “through” the life of other persons to their salvation, then why does he not “effectually call” to a saving relation with himself every sinner? As to why God acts this way Vanhoozer has no answer except the “mystery” of God choosing one and not another. (RT, 384, footnote 154) But as C.S. Lewis pointed out,
“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)[1]
The “effectual call” requires a “monologic divine authorship” and the deterministic sovereignty Vanhoozer tries to avoid. It presupposes unconditional election with all its associated logical, moral, and epistemological contradictions and inconsistencies. Vanhoozer still has in the back of his mind a doctrine of “total depravity” or “total inability” that requires God to “effect” salvation in sinners because they cannot believe out of a genuine response of their own will. Vanhoozer writes,
“The divine Author, however, is Lord of his Wording and hearing alike.” (RT, 361)
The “Author’s” sovereignty is the determiner of everyone’s life and destiny. As unconditional, it has absolutely nothing to do with the person themselves because they cannot choose otherwise. Yet Vanhoozer feels free to use language in the following manner to describe the biblical “heroes” of faith. I contend that he completely ignores the plain implications of libertarian freedom in his statements and their incoherence with his own Calvinist theistic determinism. He writes,
“Who is in a position to define me, to summarize my life and to evaluate me as a particular sort of person: selfish, selfless, proud, humble? Only one who can see my life as a whole – in a word, an author. Who is in a position to judge how well I have responded to my fundamental vocation of being answerable? Only the one to whom I am ultimately answerable for what I have authored: the Author. To be answerable to others and above all to God is our human vocation.” (RT, 319)
Vanhoozer has made it clear the divine Author is the determiner of all things, and yet Vanhoozer can make the incoherent statement, “…I am ultimately answerable for wat I have authored.” He continues,
“Time provides us with opportunities to align ourselves with the created order and with what God wills to be done in particular situations. Time thus affords us opportunities to respond rightly to what is happening in the world in order to learn the way of wisdom.” (RT, 321)
How is it coherent to speak of one “respond[ing] rightly” in the Calvinist world of a universal divine causal determinism? Again, he continues,
“By “hero,” Bakhtin has in mind a person “about whom a story could be told.” In this technical sense, heroes are morally neutral; they provide both positive and negative examples. The Bible is replete with hero stories. Its sober-minded narration depicts even the most idealized Old Testament heroes – Abraham, Moses, David – as having serious flaws or making significant errors of judgment. Hebrews 11 nevertheless includes them in the roll call of “heroes” of faith. The final biblical word on these characters is that, in their defining moments, they relied on the divine promise. What makes for a true biblical hero is not strength or cleverness but trust in and obedience to God’s word.” (RT, 324-325)
I think it clear that these statements can only be coherent on the basis of libertarian freedom. They make no sense given Vanhoozer’s theistic determinism. What is astonishing is that Vanhoozer does not see this or refuses to see this. It is quite baffling how a biblical scholar like Vanhoozer can embrace such a “thin” theological paradigm as Reformed Calvinist determinism which continually drives him to attempt to affirm genuine human freedom. There are so many biblical passages that will confirm what Vanhoozer is saying here yet the final theological paradigm he embraces is contradictory to these passages and cannot incorporate them coherently. How is it that God predestines the non-elect to respond so poorly to their fundamental human vocation? Will God judge the non-elect on the same basis Vanhoozer believes he will be judged as to how well he responded to his fundamental vocation of being answerable to God? Does Vanhoozer believe each person is an author in the sense that judgment for how one answers” God will be a just judgment? How so if the person was predestined by God to irresistibly “answer” God as they do? These statements are incoherent with theistic determinism. They are only coherent given the full scope of the biblical witness which confirms human freedom as involving sole authorship of one’s actions and the ability of contrary choice. Coherence matters in biblical interpretation and theology.
Vanhoozer also states,
“God as Author is not a coercive cause pushing against our freedom in a manner that interferes with (or intervenes in) our heroic integrity?” (RT, 336)
What he means by “integrity” is ambiguous. I think it refers to God restoring in the elect the original intention of God for men. But we still have the problem of God himself contradicting that “heroic integrity” by predetermining others to hell. Referring back to the original quote in this section, what could possibly be meant by “the potentially infinite dialogue with the Author God who alone calls me into being and who consummates my life and gives it meaning” (RT, 336-337) for those persons that the Spirit has not been assigned by the Father to act upon with such “persuasion?” Doesn’t “dialogue” assume that one party may speak back out of their own mind, heart and will or refuse to talk at all? After all isn’t that what a “self” is capable of doing if they will to do so? Isn’t this the truth of Genesis 1-3?
“In terms of divine communicative action: the Word spoken by the Father enables its own hearing. Jesus’ words are already “spirit and life,” yet it is the Spirit who gives life” (Jn. 6:62). The solution to this paradox is to see the Spirit as a minister of Jesus’ words – and as the one that ministers the Word that Jesus is. The result is an internally persuasive discourse of another order, one that Calvin calls the testimonium spiritus sancti: the inner witness of the Spirit.” (RT, 365, “enables” italics mine)
I would agree “the Word spoken by the Father enables its own hearing” and therefore I do not see “an internally persuasive discourse of another order” in this passage. This is to introduce the idea of an “effectual call” into the text based upon Reformed soteriological presuppositions. Therefore I see no “paradox” here. The “paradox” is generated by Reformed deterministic presuppositions. The statement that “the Word spoken by the Father enables its own hearing” is incoherent with an “effectual call.” The word “enables” doesn’t mean “determines its own hearing” or “effects its own hearing” in the sense of irresistibly issuing forth in salvation – something Vanhoozer has maintained all along. Therefore the biblical solution to any Calvinist “paradox” here is not to insist that the Spirit is assigned to give life to certain individuals but that the Spirit is present in the Word and gives life upon the condition of believing. It certainly is the Spirit that gives life, but to state this without consideration of the biblical testimony regarding the purpose and nature of faith is to ignore the essential human element in God’s salvific design. It is to ignore the creature’s free will response of reciprocal love in the context of the proclamation of God’s love in Christ Jesus for all his human creatures. To state that “the Spirit gives life” is not incompatible with the necessity of a faith response as a condition to experience that work of the Spirit and receive life. To vacate this discussion of the role God has assigned to faith is to talk of an empty deterministic theological scheme. To say that it is “the Spirit that gives life” on the condition of faith is to give proper recognition to Jesus as the object of personal faith.
Thus, the biblical contrast here in the context of John’s gospel is between the Jewish leadership’s departure from the original intentions of God for his people and the essential nature of the relationship being them and God which is one of faith. In context, Israel’s problem at that time was their being taken with their Jewish privilege which led to earthly, physical, and temporal schemes of “salvation” apart from Jesus. This is contrasted with the radically spiritual and universal salvation “from above” that Jesus provides to all men, even the Gentiles, in his person and work. It is a salvation that is not within man to devise or as a Jew to presume for themselves because of their historical election by God to be his people. It is a spiritual and personal regeneration that happens upon believing in Christ’s work on the cross. This work, in that it is received by faith, extends to Jew and Gentile alike. This is a major point in John 1 and Paul’s burden in Romans 9. This salvation is “from above,” not “below.” (Jn. 3) It is a heavenly kingdom that is view, not an earthly kingdom. But again, this spiritual nature of salvation does not preclude the response of faith from the person themselves because that is the way God decreed it should be. As Vanhoozer himself states, “The final biblical word on these characters [Abraham, Moses, David] is that, in their defining moments, they relied on the divine promise. What makes for a true biblical hero is not strength or cleverness but trust in and obedience to God’s word.” (RT, 324-325) “Trust in and obedience to God’s Word.” “Trust” and “obedience” are concepts that are coherent only upon libertarian freedom. This is precisely the message of John’s gospel. Only this biblical viewpoint preserves the dignity of the creature as made in the image of God and as a genuine person. It accords with most of what Vanhoozer has tried to express about the inadequacy of a monologic causal relation between God and man. But Vanhoozer’s Reformed Calvinist doctrines, including an “effectual call,” are certainly monologic and causal. He backs himself into the corner of biblical incoherence and inconsistency as long as he feels bound to the Calvinist doctrines of “total inability,” “unconditional election,” and the “effectual call.” Lurking in the shadows of Vanhoozer’s claims that “God is a personal communicative agent – one who relates to us in love and freedom; one to whom we can respond as persons” is the exclusivity and inevitable limitation of the “effectual call” which rests upon the doctrine of unconditional election, which in turn rests upon a deterministic definition of sovereignty which is rooted in the eternal divine decree.[2] Within this deterministic decretal theology, the plausibility of any mention of a personal God in personal relationship, who loves and cares about us quickly dissolves into the dark mystery of the “Author’s” eternal, unchangeable script for us as individuals. Vanhoozer gleans his theological perspective from the Reformed Calvinist tradition. It is worth repeating how Calvin defines predestination.
“We call predestination God’s eternal decree, by which he compacted with himself what he willed to become of each man. For all are not created in equal condition; rather, eternal life is foreordained for some, eternal damnation for others. Therefore, as any man has been created to one or the other of these ends, we speak of him as predestined to life or to death.”[3]
Vanhoozer can speak all he wants about how God communicatively, lovingly, and personally accomplishes this predestination. But in the end it is a frightening prospect regardless of the “communicative” way in which God divides humanity. There is more here to baffle, perplex, and cause despair than whether God acts “communicatively” in deterministic predestination. What is my final destiny in the Author’s “theodrama?” Will it be an eternal demise or am I designated for the “effectual call” to eternal life? I do not know. I cannot know. Hence, the epistemologically problem with Calvinism. Moreover, if we are told by the Calvinist that we should not be concerned about the status of our unconditional election, then the doctrine of election, as defined in Calvinism, becomes a practical irrelevance. But it always remains an ontological reality. We are either predestined to life or predestined to death. Those are the only two options. One or the other is our final destination; a destination decreed by God and with which we have nothing to do. So, in order to deal with this psychological, emotional, and spiritual disequilibration, the Calvinist has to presume his own election.
Hence, the way out of this despair is by attending to the primary “speech-act” of God in Christ. In contrast to the doctrines of “unconditional election” and an “effectual call,” the biblical testimony is to a single gospel call and our faith response to that call whereby we can receive the salvation that God accomplished on our behalf in Christ. Jesus, as the expression of God’s determination regarding man’s salvation and his salvific will for each individual, is God’s Word of grace and love to me and you. What God thinks and has planned for all of us as sinners is not a mystery. Jesus Christ is the substance of the single gospel call and the object of faith. Salvation becomes effectual upon believing. Simple childlike faith is what God desires. By believing in Christ, the salvation that was all of God’s grace and accomplished on our behalf in Christ is applied to us. Salvation comes by God’s grace, that is, by his initiative and its accomplishment in Jesus Christ for all sinners, and is applied to any sinner on the condition that they believe (“whosoever believes”) in Christ for their salvation. The condition of faith is simply humble assent to the truth God has revealed, for there is no salvation in any other. This is all God requires – the exercise of our will by its surrender to him. This is what makes salvation a personal response to a personal God. The sinner is called to respond to God’s communication by the Spirit’s work in accord with the content of the gospel message as “good news.” The content of the gospel applies to all hearing it. There is no exclusivity with respect to the work of the Spirit. There is no need to probe into how and “effectual call” works. The biblical teaching is that salvation is “effected” upon the condition of faith in the hearer in response to the gospel call. In whom the call will “effect” salvation is not predetermined by God. The content of the call will not allow an unconditional election to determine an “effectual” call as distinct from the gospel call which is “good news” for all sinners. There is a call that goes out to all sinners. It is the gospel call because it is “good news” and it genuinely “calls” (i.e., proclaims, invites, offers, warns, commands, etc.), sinners to believe in Jesus to receive for the forgiveness of their sins and eternal life.
It is this dynamic of faith that is conspicuously absent in Vanhoozer’s discussion because he labors under the Calvinist presupposition of a total inability which precludes anyone from believing to the saving of their souls lest this be a meritorious work and contribution to their salvation. Such extrapolations of the doctrine of sin in man are not found in Scripture. Vanhoozer’s paradox only comes about by presupposing and misapprehending the nature of sin in man as causing a “total inability” in relation to spiritual things and God himself. But biblically speaking, this is wrong because faith is spoken of as required from the sinner themselves as the only appropriate response to God’s work of salvation on their behalf. It was God who decreed that faith would be the means by which salvation is appropriated. Faith should not be misconstrued as a meritorious contribution if it is the sinner’s decision to believe, that is, it is of the sinner’s own will and decision to believe. Therefore, faith does not need to be locked up in an unconditional election that limits the possibility of faith only to the elect. This universal call to faith that presupposes the possibility for all sinners to believe and be saved is so obviously evident throughout the Bible that it cannot be missed except through willful neglect or blind conformity to the very insular and speculative theological position of Reformed Calvinist decretal theology.[4] Faith, as the genuine response of oneself to God, which is therefore not a gift of God granted on the basis of one’s unconditional election to salvation, is never depicted in Scripture as a meritorious work as the Calvinist misconstrues it. Faith is the means by which a sinner themselves, when confronted with the goodness and love of God in the message of what Christ has done for them, a message which is personally applicable and always accompanied by the work of the Spirit to bring sufficient understanding, receives the gift of salvation. Yet as this truth comes to creatures made in God’s image as sole authors of their actions with the ability of contrary choice, the message can also be rejected in unbelief. This is what we find throughout Scripture, and the sinner is held responsible for their unbelief. Therefore faith or unbelief cannot be predetermined and therefore caused, that is, “effected” in a person. Faith or unbelief, is that person’s response to God. At work behind the scenes is not an unconditional election which requires an “effectual” call. Without these doctrines at work “behind the scenes” of the theodrama there would be no “paradox” to solve and Vanhoozer’s inconsistency would vanish. Both unconditional election and an effectual call are unbiblical concepts opposed to the biblical testimony to a single gospel call to which a person responds in faith or unbelief.
Vanhoozer is inconsistent because while he maintains an “effectual” call without which no one can respond to God, he also states that,
“As the executor of the Word, the Spirit, “is the author of the Scriptures” as well as the enabling condition of their right reception.” (RT, 365, italics mine)
We agree. The Spirit is he who accompanies the proclamation of the gospel enabling the hearer to receive what is proclaimed by faith or reject it in unbelief. “Enabling” is compatible with libertarian freedom and incompatible with theistic determinism. Without the Spirit’s work in the gospel message the hearer cannot respond. The Spirit certainly accompanies the truth of the gospel to everyone who hears the on the basis of the content of the gospel, for the gospel means “good news.” Again, an “enabling condition” is incompatible with an “effectual” call. For Vanhoozer to be consistent, the Spirit’s work cannot simply “enable” but must “effect.” He should have said, “As the executor of the Word, the Spirit, “is the author of the Scriptures” as well as the effective agent of their right reception in the elect.” Such would have been consistent with his theology. “Enabling condition” implies that the “effect” does to some degree depend upon someone other than the “enabler” who, in this case, is the Spirit. If the Spirit “enables” the hearer to respond, then it would be the person themselves that may respond as they were “enabled” or otherwise than the Spirit has “enabled.” This is more in accord with the biblical testimony to the nature of faith. We must maintain this perspective because it is the perspective testified to in Scripture. I hope you also see that the very gospel itself is at stake in this controversy.
Back to “The Vanhoozer Essays”
[1] C. S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain, (New York: Macmillan, 1962), pp. 37, 38.
[2] See James Daane, The Freedom of God: A Study of Election and Pulpit, (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1973).
[3] John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. John T. McNeill, (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1960), 926.
[4] See James Daane, The Freedom of God: A Study of Election and Pulpit, (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1973).
The Truth of the Gospel 