Follow along with the video below to see how to install our site as a web app on your home screen.
Note: This feature may not be available in some browsers.
Does John Frame have less authority then Dr. Clark?
I asked if Frame (or anyone else -- specifically someone who claims to hold to the WCF) has the authority to ignore or reinterpret the WCF.
I asked if Frame (or anyone else -- specifically someone who claims to hold to the WCF) has the authority to ignore or reinterpret the WCF.
Yes. Then I asked a different question.
True revival brings great conviction to the lost, they get saved, and those in the church also are brought to greater zeal and sanctification and study of the word. The church grows, attention to the preaching grows, rebellion and deadness is subdued. I can't even process how somebody can be so negative about Iain Murray and Edwards. If Clark wants to get back to the confessions, it will take a great move of the Holy Spirit in revival to even get evangelicals interested in sound doctine. And given that the Fedreal Vision claims to be confessional, there are problems even with telling a new believer to find a confessional church. It is a mess out there. Please interceed for a true revival!
A different question which smells remarkably like a red herring,
and which Ruben answered in post # 5.
Frame would be the last person I would consult for a review of a Clark book (and, actually, vice versa too).
I am a Reformed Baptist and would never look to Frame as one who I would consider as someone I could look to Biblically nor coffessionally. Especially after the Presybterians Together document. http://www.puritanboard.com/f77/presbyterians-together-13697/
While we have this treasure in such cracked and earthen vessels, we will continue to be distracted by the dogged predictability of personal issues intruding upon our best efforts at analysis. Given the things in print by Frame about Clark and Clark about Frame, it would probably be exceedingly difficult for either of them (or any other mortal) to transcend the personal affronts and fairly analyze the ideas with which they obviously disagree. Frame would be the last person I would consult for a review of a Clark book (and, actually, vice versa too).
I'm sure that there are no shortages of peer reviews of Dr. Clark's work besides the ongoing spat with Dr. Frame.
Charlie and Lynnie et al,
Have you read the book? How would you compare and contrast Clark's definition of "Reformed" with Frame's? What role does Frame think the confessions should have? What role does Clark think they should have?
What is Frame's definition of the RPW? What is Clark's? Which do the Reformed confessions actually teach?
What is Frame's approach to what Clark calls the "categorical distinction"? What is Clark's? Which is closer to the historic position of the Reformed tradition? Which is closer to Van Til's position?
How interesting. What authority does Frame (or anyone else for that matter) have to ignore or to reinterpret the Confession?
This endorsement a few years ago persuaded me Dr. Frame was outside scriptural understanding and willing to tolerate things that are not biblical."I have read the article, and my judgment is that it is a wonderful piece. It is by far the best thing I've ever read on the Federal Vision and/or New Perspective. I hope this essay gets the widest possible distribution. People concerned with these issues, whatever their persuasion, need to meditate deeply about it. And it provides a model of careful, thorough, thoughtful theological criticism. Mr. Minich . . . has a great future as a Reformed theologian."
- Dr. John Frame, Reformed Theological Seminary
This was Dr. Frame's endorsement of this article 'Within the Bounds of Orthodoxy'.
In "Machen's Warrior Children" (Machen’s Warrior Children), Frame deals with the Shepherd controversy at Westminster (a precursor issue) in item #9. Frame also writes a positive blurb on the back of Shepherd's newest book (along with folks such as Jordan, Lusk, Leithart, Schlissel, and Wilkens).
The “Shepherd controversy” over justification has generated a number of books, articles, and ecclesiastical studies. I have expressed a number of differences with Shepherd’s formulations and with those of his opponents, and I continue to disagree with him on some matters. But I greatly respect Shepherd’s knowledge of Scripture and his reliance upon it. The present volume, concise as it is, is the most developed statement on justification that Shepherd has yet made. Both critics and advocates of Shepherd’s position, as well as those who are merely interested, must take this book into consideration before attempting further discussion of the matter. This book will help us all to measure our opinions on the basis of Scripture, as Shepherd insists we do.
John M. Frame
Professor, J.D. Trimble Chair of Systematic Theology and Philosophy, Reformed Seminary
Orlando, Florida
Several years ago, a seminary professor and former colleague of Frame who shall remain nameless due to his admission that he gets into trouble every time he comments on Dr. Frame's theology said:
I get in trouble every time I comment on John's theology publicly, so I'll be circumspect, but folks have criticized the following in JMF's theology:
1. His definition of theology (as application) (though this has precedent in Ames and Edwards),
2. His theological method ("tri-perspectivalism"),
3. His claim that we can know God "in himself," (not something the Reformed have taught),
4. His claim that God is both one person and three persons,
5. His application of the RPW to every area of life so that it ceases to have a distinct function in regulating worship,
6. His criticism/rejection of the traditional/confessional application of the 2nd commandment to pictures of God the Son incarnate,
7. His criticism/rejection/revision of the traditional Protestant law/gospel distinction and his support for elements of Norm Shepherd's doctrine of justification and apparent support for the FV.
He has written widely on theological method (he has a new intro to theology out), on apologetics, the doctrine of God, worship and ecumenics.
You might want to read this recent thread: http://www.puritanboard.com/f30/i-am-kind-shocked-john-frame-comment-wcf-47039/index2.html
I do not know Dr. Frame and make no representions to understand his theology well. However, he does come up on the PB fairly often. You might try the search feature and see for yourself what some of the issues with Frame might be vis a vis the FV. Anecdotally, I think that you are correct that Frame would distance himself from the FV (note his carefully chosen words in the blurb cited above). Yet, he has always (to my knowledge) viewed the FV as within the bounds.
Here is some more grist for the mill . . .
Theologians identified with the Federal Vision movement include, in addition to the original four conference speakers, Randy Booth, Tim Gallant, Mark Horne, James B. Jordan, Peter Leithart, Rich Lusk, Jeffery J. Meyers, Ralph A. Smith, and Gregg Strawbridge. Among those somewhat sympathetic to the movement is Norman Shepherd. John Frame and Andrew Sandlin are somewhat critical but cautiously supportive of some aspects of the movement.
Theologians who oppose Federal Vision theology include E. Calvin Beisner, R. Scott Clark, Ligon Duncan, Michael Ericson, J. V. Fesko, Robert Godfrey, Michael Horton, John F. MacArthur, Matthew McMahon, Joseph Morecraft III, Joseph Pipa, John Robbins, Brian Schwertley, Morton H. Smith, R. C. Sproul, David Van Drunen, Cornelis P. Venema, Guy Waters, Andrew Webb, and James R. White.
Of the often cited favorable article, "Within the Bounds of Orthodoxy?: An Examination of the Federal Vision Controversy," by Joseph Minich, Dr. Frame wrote: "I have read the article, and my judgment is that it is a wonderful piece. It is by far the best thing I've ever read on the Federal Vision and/or New Perspective. I hope this essay gets the widest possible distribution. People concerned with these issues, whatever their persuasion, need to meditate deeply about it. And it provides a model of careful, thorough, thoughtful theological criticism."
And, although Clark does not like to speak of application, the standards must be applied by human beings to present situations if those documents are to function as authorities. As to what judgments and applications are right, there is often disagreement.[3]
Further, even apart from these problems, it is not obvious that “Reformed” should be defined by the confessions, a group of favored theologians, and informal traditions. Clark’s procedure in defining the nature of “Reformed” thinking is not itself found in any of the confessions or favored theological writings. Nor is there any way, so far as I can see, to support it from Scripture. But Clark thinks we should never claim that anything is Reformed unless it can be supported from the confessions. Clark’s methodology, therefore, is self-referentially incoherent. He is trying to establish the meaning of “Reformed” by what he regularly describes as a non-Reformed methodology.
... is just a vacillation of identity. It is allowing redefinition for the sake of identity crisis in my opinion. Maybe that is why he has been so accepting of the Federal Vision advocates and Norman Shepherd. The boundaries of doctrine have been crossed and found outside of the biblically defined confessions. But since the community no longer follows the original (according to Frame) it should be permissible to still be included in the tent of the confessionally reformed Churches. Why not just throw the confessions out and just become another PCUSA.But what is the alternative? Is there any other way to describe the nature of the Reformed community? I think there is.
I would propose understanding the Reformed community as a historical community that began as Clark describes, but which no longer follows the original pattern in detail.
On the view I advocate, it is not possible to state in precise detail what constitutes Reformed theology and church life. But one can describe historical backgrounds and linkages, as I have done above in the example of the United States. And there are some general common characteristics, a kind of “family resemblance,” among the various bodies of the last five centuries that have called themselves Reformed. The idea that “Reformed” should be defined as a changing community is not congenial to Clark’s view. But it seems to me to be more accurate and more helpful.
Clark’s methodology, therefore, is self-referentially incoherent.
The problem here is that JMF is anti-historicist while RSC is anti-biblicist. I agree with biblicism, but not anti-historicist biblicism. Likewise, I agree with historicism, but not anti-biblicist historicism. The reformed tradition is historically biblicist and biblically historicist.