Vanhoozer writes,
“…God directs the drama of redemption largely by directing its company of players, those faithful members who make up the body of Christ. A Trinitarian account of providence in terms of communicative action will therefore supplement what we have just said about the effectual call with the related notion of the effectual prompt…The word conquers communicatively, not by hypnotizing its listeners but by bringing about understanding, convicting and persuading listeners of its truth. Its efficacy derives from the Spirit’s ministry of the preached gospel.” (RT, 376)
These statements about God’s providential activity in redemption are highly problematic. More accurately according to Vanhoozer’s stated theology, the efficacy of “the word” derives from the decision of God in eternity past to save particular persons. And if this “efficacy derives from the Spirit’s ministry of the preached gospel,” what could possibly be the content of that “good news” that would be coherent truth to those not predestined to salvation and thus will not receive this “efficacious” ministry of the Spirit? The gospel content does not apply to them and thus these words are not truth to them, and the Spirit is not present in them. Question: What biblical warrant does Vanhoozer have to claim that the gospel message holds no truth value for many and for them there is no meaningful presence of the Spirit accompanying that message?
A Christian view of God has no difficulty recognizing that God causes things to happen in the world. A Christian view of God and the world does not find it necessary to completely avoid the fact that God can and does overrule the decisions of men as he sees fit for his purposes. It is only that we must include the associated truth that he does so in accord with his nature as loving, compassionate, just, and good – and he is immutably all of these to all men in such a way that he has good, not evil, in mind for all persons. Vanhoozer is attempting to grapple with the reality that the God/man/world relation is more complex than a choice between the two extremes of an absolute human freedom on one side and absolute determinism on the other. Yet, in speaking of “persuasion” while simultaneously holding to a doctrine of “effectual call” Vanhoozer renders any meaningful sense of “dual agency” meaningless. Two agents are involved, but when the “effectual” element is insisted upon, thus creating “dual calls,” it also eliminates the Godness of God, for this Godness of God does involve dual agency in which one agent is the God who is sovereign who approaches man with a persuasive “argument” that man would do well to embrace. But the Godness of God need not determine and cause the embrace, but allows for a genuine dual agency, not “hesitatingly” spoken of but fully recognized, to play itself out. Therefore, the evil that comes to man is the evil he has chosen despite the good God intends to give. This is the foundation for the biblical nature of faith and moral responsibility. It is what we sense Vanhoozer would like to fully acknowledge when he uses language as we have above but cannot bring himself to do so. Now we have an “effectual prompt.” But the language is still not coherent with his theology. A “prompt” leaves something of a decision to the one being prompted as regards the outcome. A “prompt” still has an element of contrary choice inherent in it. The doctrines Vanhoozer presupposes and injects into the discussion are inevitably deterministic and incompatible with the biblical evidence of human willing and decision. The doctrine of an “effectual call” inserts an insurmountable deterministic element that distorts this biblical dialogical, communicative relation between God and man. Of course, as Vanhoozer rightly points out, the relationship between God and man is not one of equals, yet the one who is sovereign (God) over the other (man) approaches the other (man) in grace, seeking to persuade the other of his sovereign yet good intentions towards him. Those approached by their sovereign (i.e., everyone) may receive what has come for their eternal benefit or reject it. This receiving or rejecting is not predetermined by the sovereign for them as if he needs to “effect” what he has willed for them in them. If that were the case the sovereign would merely be one who loves to rule, perhaps worthy of fear, but certainly not worthy of worship since we do not know if he actually intends us good. Vanhoozer’s determinism makes his “communicative” theology incoherent.
“…God convincingly persuades some of the pieces freely to play of their own accord in a way that so corresponds to God’s will that we can speak (albeit hesitantly) in terms of dual agency. It is in such dialogical interaction that we best see the way in which God exercises his sovereignty and humans their freedom.” (RT, 367)
Hence, like all compatibilist attempts to reconcile a deterministic sovereignty and human freedom this statement is confusing. It certainly distances all traditional Reformed Calvinists who do hold to an absolute sovereignty of God defined as him having ordained “whatsoever comes to pass.” They emphatically deny any such concept of “dual agency” in salvation. Yet will a Christian doctrine of God be content with conceiving God as one who unilaterally determines each person’s eternal destiny (i.e., unconditional election and the effectual call) while simultaneously attempting to assure us that we do what we do “freely” of “our own accord?” I do not think Scripture supports such a dichotomous view of the gospel call or a unilateral view of dual agency hesitantly spoken of. Yet this is the contradictory corner into which Vanhoozer has backed himself with his doctrine of an “effectual call.” Vanhoozer is content to maintain that God moves people about “unilaterally” (the “effectual call”), not like “inert chess pieces” but like so many “communicative agents” in a way that “so corresponds to God’s will” that we can only “hesitantly” speak in terms of “dual agency.” We have one question for Vanhoozer, especially with respect to one’s eternal destiny. If no one can do other than that which God has determined, what meaning does talk of “communication,” “dual agency” or of person’s “freely play[ing] of their own accord” have? These become simply careless descriptors Vanhoozer uses to convince us that God is accomplishing what he has predetermined. They may describe how humans are engaged by God to do his will, but in irresistibly doing his will only and by God determining that others are not to be moved to do good or be saved and are therefore determined by God to do evil and be lost, we all are not true “participants” but are only being instrumentally directed to a certain end.
The Truth of the Gospel 