So how does the Calvinist theologian maintain a deterministic sovereignty that does no violence to human freedom? By proposing a particular definition of human freedom as being able to do what you desire to do with the stipulation that it is God who determines your desires. Hence, since we are doing what we desire to do, we do it freely and willingly, and since God determines our desires, what we do is what God’s wills us to do. Persons freely and willingly act, but they act according to the desires God puts within them. In the Calvinist’s mind, therefore, our actions are both determined and free. God remains sovereign and humans exercise free will. For the Calvinist theologian this proposition is the solution to the impersonal, causal nature of their deterministic definition of sovereignty. It allows for God to determine all things while also maintaining human freedom, making compatible what appear to be two contradictory ideas. Thus the label, compatibilism. But is this compatibilist definition of human freedom plausible? Vanhoozer subscribes to it when he writes,
“Divine sovereignty is nowhere better on display than in the triune God’s ability to bring about a willing change of human heart.” (RT, 384)
This statement is troubling, not so much in that God has the prerogative to change a human heart (i.e., the exercise of his sovereignty a ruling and reigning over the affairs of men), but the incoherence in his definition of sovereignty as theistic determinism and his claim about there being “a willing change of human heart.” “Divine sovereignty” is defined by Vanhoozer as his preordination of “whatsoever comes to pass.” That is to say – all things! How then does this “willing change of heart” fit in to this universal divine causal determinism? God works his own will which has predetermined all things. How then is there any other “wills” in play for which it can be meaningfully said the person has exercised their will in “a willing change of heart?” On Calvinism, God works in an irresistible, effective way upon the human will so that person wills to do as God has predetermined. Therefore, this also has reference to each person’s eternal destiny. Certain persons have been decreed, predestined, elected, or chosen by God to be saved. They are therefore “irresistibly graced” and “effectually called” which results in them being regenerated by God and then caused to have faith in Christ. This is all of God. This is what is involved in Vanhoozer’s definition of “divine sovereignty.” It includes the doctrines of unconditional election and an “effectual call.”
According to compatibilism we can elaborate on the above quote. More accurately it should read, “Divine sovereignty is nowhere better on display than in the triune God’s ability to unfailingly affect the will of a person so that they irresistibly perform God’s will.” But this is precisely what is incoherent with the nature of human willing from a biblical perspective. A “willing change of human heart” cannot be “a willing change of human heart” if that change originates in God who proceeds to transcend, overcome, or commandeer the person’s will such that what is determined by God with respect to that person’s will is irresistible for the person. That is, they are no longer in possession of their own will and act of willing and they cannot do otherwise. On compatibilism it is God who is doing the “willing” through the person. So, it cannot be coherently said that the person is “willing” to change their heart. It is a divinely caused “willing change of heart.” And that is incoherent. In some technical way the Calvinist may convince themselves that the will of the person is involved, but that can only be meant in a superficial and instrumental way and is not what is meant by human willing or free will.
So, Calvinist compatibilism is insufficient on several fronts. For God to enact his will through a person is simply a very different thing than for that person to be exercising their own will to perform an action. For the will is precisely that component of human personhood by which the person themselves either submits to or resists God’s will and actions towards them. The biblical testimony certainly confirms that God can bring about a “willing change in the human heart” precisely because God is a “being-in-communicative-act,” but if we are going call it a willing change, then this occurs when the person themselves is willing to hear and obey God. That is what “willing change” must mean if it is to mean anything at all. It carries with it the ability to say “No” to God. To say that God “communicatively” determines a person’s will to irresistibly do his will is conceptually confusing and a perplexing use of language. To bring about a “willing change of human heart” cannot be irresistibly determined and still retain a meaningful sense of “willing change.” This is not to say that God cannot bring about “a change of human heart.” It is his prerogative as the divine sovereign and Creator to do so. But that is very different than talking about “a willing change of human heart” in the context of a universal divine causal determinism (i.e., Calvinism). For in that context there is only one will that is active – God’s will.
For Vanhoozer’s compatibilism to be successful it must redefine and reduce human freedom simply to the functioning of the person’s will regardless of who directs, operates, commands, and determines that will. It separates the source of functioning of the will from the person themselves. But this is to render the act of willing of that person themselves as an individual null and void because the genuine willing that can be attributed to the individual person is different than divine willing through the functioning of that part of the human being called “the will.” Given Calvinist determinism we have crossed the line into “instrumentality.” The person certainly performs the action, but we must distinguish as to whether they as an individuated self, that is, a person, have performed the action through their will or self-determination to submit or obey, or whether their will has only been irresistibly “communicatively” confiscated for the performance of God’s will. The “communicative” language Vanhoozer uses certainly attempts to avoid this theistic determinism. A proper usage of “communicative” would logically require a relational event between two independent wills. One person communicating with the other person. God’s “communicative” ways are spoken of in terms of “influence,” “persuasion,” “relation,” “dialogue,” “genuine freedom,” (RT, 303) “secondary authorship,” (RT, 303) “enables” (RT, 374) “participating in God…involves human activity (freedom),” (RT, 283), etc. The “effectual call” is even described as “the Spirit’s ministering the word in such a way that hearers freely and willingly answer God by responding with faith.” (RT, 374, 5) But this language is incoherent on Calvinism’s universal divine causal determinism. Rather, this language implies libertarian freedom. These concepts are not consistent with an irresistible, effectual working out of God’s will in and through a person. But they are consistent with the reality of sole authorship and contrary choice. They speak of contingency, conditionality, and potentiality. They are not compatible with fixity, irresistibility, and inevitability. But Vanhoozer does not employ these words and concepts in support of libertarian freedom but theistic determinism and therefore does not employ them coherently or consistently. The doctrine of an “effectual call” reduces to certain hearers (the elect) being predestined for salvation. They are so influenced by the Spirit that God’s will irresistibly issues forth through their will and desires so that they act in accord with God’s will. Their salvation is totally unconditioned by anything they may be capable of doing themselves, including believing. Therefore, it is hard not to conclude that the person is only instrumentally controlled by the will of God who must overpower their will if their will is not to be involved in the sense that they are the sole author of their act with the capacity to do otherwise. But sole authorship and contrary choice would be the reasonable, forthright understanding of the literary or verbal description “the Spirit’s ministering the word in such a way that hearers freely and willingly answer God by responding with faith.” It is truly difficult to see how the phrase, “in such a way,” can mean “irresistibly effects according to the predetermined will of God” and have that be coherent with “hearers freely and willingly answer God by responding with faith.”
Furthermore, the Calvinist presupposition of total human inability or depravity contributes to this Reformed compatibilism. It is an erroneous theological extrapolation from the biblical teaching of the sinful nature of man that requires an “effectual call.” It is erroneous because it does not cohere with the biblical content or definition of the gospel message. The biblical presentation of the effects of sin on the human will cannot be extrapolated to preclude the response of faith as a possibility for all sinners. This is not to advocate an absolute human freedom. Man as a finite creature and a fallen sinner is certainly not absolutely free, but the biblical record bears out that the willing response of faith is the God ordained means by which salvation is appropriated by sinners. It is also the biblical testimony that God can “effect” his will in person’s to accomplish his purposes, but all such instances should be carefully considered in light of all the biblical data regarding the circumstances along with God’s nature and ways with men in general and in particular. Certainly, according to the clear teaching of Scripture about the nature of faith, we must retreat from the unsustainable position that the explanation for one’s faith is an exhaustive eternal decree that predestined a limited number of persons to salvation and all others to eternal damnation and therefore God so irresistibly effects the will of the elect that they, and only they, can and inevitably do believe. We must reject the doctrine of an “effectual call” that implies that God grants faith only to certain sinners predestined to salvation. The proposition that no one but these elect can believe is not found in Scripture. To complicate matters even further the Calvinist maintains that God holds people responsible for their unbelief. This is obviously a substantial moral incoherence within Reformed soteriology, and an indicator that the theology has gone amiss. In contrast, faith is the only appropriate response for all helpless sinners, who, in light of the offer to receive the salvation accomplished on their behalf, may have eternal life. The biblical rule is that God saves and works in those who humble themselves before him; those who freely and willingly respond to his “communicative speech-acts” and surrender to his saving and keeping will for them made known “in Christ.” That’s “good news!”
The Truth of the Gospel 