John Frame (theologian)

Template:Short description Template:Multiple issues Template:Infobox philosopher John McElphatrick Frame (born April 8, 1939) is a retired American Christian philosopher and Calvinist theologian especially noted for his work in epistemology and presuppositional apologetics, systematic theology, and ethics. He is one of the foremost interpreters and critics of the thought of Cornelius Van Til.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

Biography

Frame was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania<ref name=JohnFrame>Template:Cite book</ref> and became a Christian at the age of 13 through the ministry of Beverly Heights Presbyterian Church, a congregation of the United Presbyterian Church of North America in Pittsburgh.<ref name=":0">Template:Cite web</ref> He graduated from Princeton University, where he was involved in the Princeton Evangelical Fellowship (PEF) and Westerly Road Church.<ref name=":0" /> The PEF and Westerly Road had a profound impact on forming Frame's faith and theology. He says of their impact:

I owe much to PEF ... Fullerton and PEF cared deeply about people, spending hours in mutual prayer, exhortation, counseling, gospel witness. I never experienced that depth of fellowship in any Reformed church or institution ... So I am not much impressed by people who want to set up an adversary relation between "Reformed" and "evangelical." Today, Reformed writers often disparage evangelical ministries as circuses, as clubs that will do anything at all to gain members, who pander to the basest lusts of modern culture. That was not true of PEF, or of Westerly Road Church ... PEF would never have imagined the effect their ministry had on me: they turned me into a Reformed ecumenist!<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Frame received degrees from Princeton University (A.B.),<ref name=TheWorksofJohnFrameVernPoythress>Template:Cite web</ref> Westminster Theological Seminary (B.D.),<ref name=TheWorksofJohnFrameVernPoythress/> Yale University (AM,<ref name=TheWorksofJohnFrameVernPoythress/> and M.Phil.<ref name=TheWorksofJohnFrameVernPoythress/> and began work on a doctoral dissertation).<ref name=TheWorksofJohnFrameVernPoythress/> He received an honorary doctorate of divinity in 2003 from Belhaven College.<ref name=BelhavenPressRelease>Template:Cite web</ref> He has served on the faculty of Westminster Theological Seminary,<ref name=TheWorksofJohnFrameVernPoythress/> and was a founding faculty member of their California campus;<ref name=":0" /> Template:As of, Frame is an emeritus faculty member at Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando, Florida.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> He is an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church in America.Template:Citation needed

Relations to other scholars: polemics and critical reviews

Frame is known for his critical view of historical modes of theology, including his criticism of such scholars as David F. Wells, Donald Bloesch, Mark Noll, George Marsden, D.G. Hart, Richard Muller, and Michael Horton. Particularly notable amongst Frame's critical analyses is "Machen's Warrior Children", originally published in Alister E. McGrath and Evangelical Theology: a Dynamic Engagement (Paternoster Press, 2003).<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> More recently, Frame reviewed Horton's book Christless Christianity with a similar analysis.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In 1998, he debated then librarian D.G. Hart in a student-organized discussion of the regulative principle of worship.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Multiperspectival epistemology

Template:Contradicts other Template:Main Frame has elaborated a Christian epistemology in his 1987 work The Doctrine of the Knowledge of God. In this work, he develops what he calls triperspectivalism or multiperspectivalism which says that in every act of knowing, the knower is in constant contact with three things (or "perspectives") – the knowing subject himself, the object of knowledge, and the standard or criteria by which knowledge is attained. He argues that each perspective is interrelated to the others in such a fashion that, in knowing one of these, one actually knows the other two, also. His student and collaborator Vern Poythress has further developed this idea with respect to science and theology. Reformed theologian Meredith Kline wrote a critique of this view, explaining that Poythress and Frame had used multiperspectivalism in ways that had led to what he considered incorrect conclusions in regards to the relation of Kline's position and Greg L. Bahnsen's on covenant theology (more specifically theonomy).<ref>Template:Cite webTemplate:Full citation needed</ref>Template:Verification needed

Presuppositions

As a former student of Van Til, Frame is supporter of the presuppositionalist school of Christian apologetics. He defines a presupposition as follows:

Rationalism and irrationalism in non-Christian thought

Frame, developing the thought of his mentor Cornelius Van Til, has asserted in both his Apologetics to the Glory of God and his Cornelius Van Til: An Analysis of His Thought,Template:Full citation needed that all non-Christian thought can be categorized as the ebb and flow of rationalism and irrationalism.

Rationalism

In this context Frame defines rationalism as any attempt to establish the finite human mind as the ultimate standard of truth and falsity. This establishing of the autonomous intellect occurs within the context of rejecting God's revelation of himself in both nature and the Bible; a rationalist, in this sense, states that the human mind is able to fully and exhaustively explain reality.Template:Cn

Yet, when Frame speaks of "exhaustive explanations" he does not mean these systems seek omniscience; rather, he meansTemplate:According to whom that the history of non-Christian thought (though, admittedly, his focus is Western philosophy) is the history of various attempts to construct systems that account for everything (a distinctive metaphysic, epistemology and value theory).

According to Frame, examples of attempts to explain reality are found in Plato and Aristotle's form/matter dualism; the debate between the nominalists and the realists over the status of universals and particulars, and the "all is ... [fire, water, atoms, etc]" of the pre-Socratics.Template:Citation needed More examples would include Descartes' mind/body dualism, Spinoza's God or nature, and Leibniz's monadology, Plotinus' "The One" and his teaching on emanation, the British empiricists' attempts to limit knowledge and possibility to that which can be empirically verified, Kant's worlds of the noumena and the phenomena, and Hegel's dialectic.

Awards and recognition

Template:Expand section Belhaven College awarded Frame an honorary Doctor of Divinity in 2003.<ref name=BelhavenPressRelease/>

Personal life

Frame married Mary Grace Cummings in 1984, and has two sons and three stepchildren.<ref name=JohnFrame /> As of 2024, he lives in Orlando, Florida.Template:Update after<ref name=JohnFrame />

Selected works

• Introduction to Presuppositional Apologetics Part 1 & 2Template:Full citation needed
• Van Til: The Theologian, 1976 Template:ISBN
• Medical Ethics, 1988 Template:ISBN
• Perspectives on the Word of God: An Introduction to Christian Ethics, 1990 Template:ISBN
• Evangelical Reunion, 1991 Template:ISBN
• Apologetics to the Glory of God, 1994 Template:ISBN
• Cornelius Van Til: An Analysis of his Thought, 1995 Template:ISBN
• Worship in Spirit and Truth, 1996 Template:ISBN
• Contemporary Worship Music: A Biblical Defense, 1997 Template:ISBN
• No Other God: A Response to Open Theism, 2001 Template:ISBN
• Salvation Belongs To The Lord: An Introduction To Systematic Theology, 2006 Template:ISBN
• Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Christian Belief, 2013 Template:ISBN
• A History of Western Philosophy and Theology, 2015 Template:ISBN
• Theology of My Life: A Theological and Apologetic Memoir, 2017 Template:ISBN

Theology of Lordship series

• The Doctrine of the Knowledge of God, 1987 Template:ISBN
• The Doctrine of God, 2002 Template:ISBN
• The Doctrine of the Christian Life, 2008 Template:ISBN
• The Doctrine of the Word of God, 2010 Template:ISBN

External links

• Frame-Poythress.org, a current web source of the writings of Frame and Vern Poythress.
• Frame's article on "Remembering Donald B. Fullerton".