American theologian and academic (born 1939)
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
.
[1]
Biography
[
edit
]
Frame was born in
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
[2]
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.
[3]
He graduated from
Princeton University
, where he was involved in the
Princeton Evangelical Fellowship
(PEF) and
Westerly Road Church
.
[3]
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!
[4]
Frame received degrees from Princeton University (
A.B.
),
[5]
Westminster Theological Seminary
(
BD
),
[5]
Yale University
(
AM
,
[5]
and
M.Phil.
[5]
and began work on a doctoral
dissertation
).
[5]
He received an honorary doctorate of divinity in 2003 from Belhaven College.
[6]
He has served on the faculty of Westminster Theological Seminary,
[5]
and was a founding faculty member of their
California
campus;
[3]
as of 2019
[update]
, Frame is an emeritus faculty member at
Reformed Theological Seminary
in
Orlando, Florida
.
[7]
He is an ordained minister in the
Presbyterian Church in America
.
[
citation needed
]
Relations to other scholars: polemics and critical reviews
[
edit
]
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).
[8]
More recently, Frame reviewed
Horton
's book
Christless Christianity
with a similar analysis.
[9]
In 1998, he debated then librarian
D.G. Hart
in a student-organized discussion of the
regulative principle of worship
.
[10]
Multiperspectival epistemology
[
edit
]
| This article
appears to contradict the article
Multiperspectivalism
.
Please discuss at the
talk page
and do not remove this message until the contradictions are resolved.
(
May 2007
)
|
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
).
[11]
[
verification needed
]
Presuppositions
[
edit
]
As a former student of Van Til, Frame is supporter of the
presuppositionalist
school of Christian
apologetics
. He defines a presupposition as follows:
A presupposition is a belief that takes precedence over another and therefore serves as a criterion for another. An ultimate presupposition is a belief over which no other takes precedence. For a Christian, the content of Scripture must serve as his ultimate presupposition. ... This doctrine is merely the outworking of the lordship of God in the area of human thought. It merely applies the doctrine of scriptural infallibility to the realm of knowing.
[12]
[
full citation needed
]
Rationalism and irrationalism in non-Christian thought
[
edit
]
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
,
[
full citation needed
]
that all non-Christian thought can be categorized as the ebb and flow of
rationalism
and
irrationalism
.
Rationalism
[
edit
]
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.
[
citation needed
]
Yet, when Frame speaks of "exhaustive explanations" he does not mean these systems seek omniscience; rather, he means
[
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
.
[
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
[
edit
]
| This section
needs expansion
with: independent, third-party-sourced coverage of the full scope of Frame's awards, etc.. You can help by
adding to it
.
(
July 2019
)
|
Belhaven College
awarded Frame an honorary
Doctor of Divinity
in 2003.
[6]
Personal life
[
edit
]
Frame married Mary Grace Cummings in 1984, and has two sons and three stepchildren.
[2]
As of 2017, he lived in Orlando, Florida.
[
needs update
]
[2]
Selected works
[
edit
]
- Introduction to Presuppositional Apologetics Part 1 & 2
[
full citation needed
]
- Van Til: The Theologian
, 1976
ISBN
0-916034-02-X
- Medical Ethics
, 1988
ISBN
0-87552-261-0
- Perspectives on the Word of God: An Introduction to Christian Ethics
, 1990
ISBN
0-8010-3557-0
- Evangelical Reunion
, 1991
ISBN
0-8010-3560-0
- Apologetics to the Glory of God
, 1994
ISBN
0-87552-243-2
- Cornelius Van Til: An Analysis of his Thought
, 1995
ISBN
0-87552-245-9
- Worship in Spirit and Truth
, 1996
ISBN
0-87552-242-4
- Contemporary Worship Music: A Biblical Defense
, 1997
ISBN
0-87552-212-2
- No Other God: A Response to Open Theism
, 2001
ISBN
0-87552-185-1
- Salvation Belongs To The Lord: An Introduction To Systematic Theology
, 2006
ISBN
1-59638-018-7
- Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Christian Belief
, 2013
ISBN
1-59638-217-1
- A History of Western Philosophy and Theology
, 2015
ISBN
978-1-62995-084-6
- Theology of My Life: A Theological and Apologetic Memoir
, 2017
ISBN
978-1-5326-1378-4
Theology of Lordship series
[
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]
References
[
edit
]
- ^
Engelsma, David (1996).
"John Frame on Cornelius Van Til: The "Limiting Concept" (A Review Article)"
.
The Standard Bearer
. Retrieved
3 April
2018
.
- ^
a
b
c
Frame, John (2017).
Theology of My Life: A Theological and Apologetic Memoir
. Eugene, Oregon: Cascade Books.
ISBN
9781532613784
.
- ^
a
b
c
"Backgrounds to My Thought"
.
Frame-Poythress.org
. 2012-02-07
. Retrieved
2021-07-31
.
- ^
Frame, John M. (24 May 2012).
"Remembering Donald B. Fullerton"
.
Frame-Poythress.org [self-published site]
.
- ^
a
b
c
d
e
f
"Backgrounds to My Thought"
.
frame-poythress.org
. 7 February 2012
. Retrieved
2020-12-27
.
- ^
a
b
"Doctorate announcement"
(PDF)
.
www.belhaven.edu
. Retrieved
2019-07-16
.
- ^
"Dr. John M. Frame, Emeritus"
. Retrieved
2020-12-27
.
- ^
Frame, John M. (6 June 2012).
"Machen's Warrior Children"
.
Frame-Poythress.org [self-published site]
. Retrieved
July 26,
2012
.
- ^
Frame, John M. (7 June 2012).
"Review of Michael Horton, Christless Christianity: The Alternative Gospel of the American Church"
.
Frame-Poythress.org [self-published site]
. Retrieved
July 26,
2012
.
- ^
Frame, John M. (24 May 2012).
"The Regulative Principle"
.
Frame-Poythress.org [self-published site]
. Retrieved
July 26,
2012
.
- ^
Meredith Kline
(February 28, 1986).
"A Paper Pursuant to the Faculty Forum of February 28, 1986 at Westminster Theological Seminary in California"
.
[
full citation needed
]
- ^
Frame,
Doctrine of Knowledge of God
, p. 45.
External links
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