View source for John McElphatrick Frame

{{Infobox philosopher
| name               = John Frame
| image              = John Frame.jpg
| image_size         = 
| alt                = 
| caption            = 2009
| era                = Late 20th and early 21st centuries
| region             = US
| birth_name         = 
| birth_date         = {{Birth date and age|1939|04|08}}{{cn|date=September 2023}}
| birth_place        = [[Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania]], U.S.
| death_date         = <!-- {{Death date and age|YYYY|MM|DD|YYYY|MM|DD}} (death date then birth date) -->
| death_place        = 
| occupation         = Theologian, author
| language           = English
| main_interests     = [[Calvinism]], [[Cornelius Van Til]], [[epistemology]], [[presuppositional apologetics]], [[ethics]], [[systematic theology]]
| notable_ideas      = [[Multiperspectivalism]]
| notable_works      = ''Theology of Lordship'' series, ''Van Til: The Theologian'', ''Introduction to Presuppositional Apologetics''
| spouse             = Mary Grace
| influenced         = 
| children           = 2
}}
'''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>{{cite journal|last1=Engelsma|first1=David|title=John Frame on Cornelius Van Til: The "Limiting Concept" (A Review Article)|journal=The Standard Bearer|year=1996|url=https://standardbearer.rfpa.org/node/50588|access-date=3 April 2018}}</ref>

==Biography==
Frame was born in [[Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania]]<ref name=JohnFrame>{{cite book |last=Frame |first=John |author-link= |date=2017 |title=Theology of My Life: A Theological and Apologetic Memoir |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Ho0mDwAAQBAJ |location=Eugene, Oregon |publisher=Cascade Books |isbn=9781532613784}}</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">{{Cite web|date=2012-02-07|title=Backgrounds to My Thought|url=https://frame-poythress.org/about/john-frame-full-bio/|access-date=2025-11-20|website=Frame-Poythress.org|language=en-US}}</ref> He graduated from [[Princeton University]], where he was involved in the [[Princeton Christian Fellowship|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:

<blockquote>I owe much to PEF ... [[Donald B. Fullerton|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 tradition|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>{{cite web|author=Frame, John M.|date =24 May 2012| title=Remembering Donald B. Fullerton|url=http://www.frame-poythress.org/remembering-donald-b-fullerton/|work=Frame-Poythress.org [self-published site]}}</ref>
</blockquote>

Frame received degrees from Princeton University ([[Bachelor of Arts|A.B.]]),<ref name=":0" /> [[Westminster Theological Seminary]] ([[Bachelor of Divinity|B.D.]]),<ref name=":0" />  and [[Yale University]] ([[Master's Degree|AM]] and [[M.Phil]], as well as beginning work on a doctoral [[dissertation]]).<ref name=":0" /> He received an honorary doctorate of divinity in 2003 from Belhaven College.<ref name=BelhavenPressRelease>{{cite web|url=https://www.belhaven.edu/news/200304/FrameDoctorate.pdf |title=Doctorate announcement |website=www.belhaven.edu |access-date=2019-07-16}}</ref>  He has served on the faculty of [[Westminster Theological Seminary]] as professor of Systemic Theology and Philosophy.<ref>{{cite web |url= https://cdn.rts.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/PCA-GA-Ereader-locked.pdf |title= A Mind for Truth, A Heart for God: The first fifty years of Reformed Theological Seminary”, page 130 |last= Muether |first= John |date= 2016 |website= Reformed Theological Seminary |publisher= |access-date= November 20, 2025 |quote=}}</ref> He was also a founding faculty member of their [[California]] campus;<ref name=":0" /> {{As of|2019|lc=on}}, he is an emeritus faculty member at [[Reformed Theological Seminary]] in [[Orlando, Florida]].<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://rts.edu/people/dr-john-m-frame-emeritus/ |title=Dr. John M. Frame, Emeritus |access-date=2020-12-27}}</ref> 

He is an ordained minister in the [[Presbyterian Church in America]].{{citation needed|date=July 2019}}

== 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 (theologian)|Richard Muller]], and [[Michael Horton (theologian)|Michael Horton]].  Particularly notable amongst Frame's critical analyses is "[[J. Gresham Machen|Machen]]'s Warrior Children", originally published in ''Alister E. McGrath and Evangelical Theology: a Dynamic Engagement'' (Paternoster Press, 2003).<ref>{{cite web|author = Frame, John M.|date = 6 June 2012| url=http://www.frame-poythress.org/frame_articles/2003Machen.htm |title=Machen's Warrior Children |work=Frame-Poythress.org [self-published site] |access-date=July 26, 2012}}</ref>  More recently, Frame reviewed [[Michael Horton (theologian)|Horton]]'s book ''Christless Christianity'' with a similar analysis.<ref>{{cite web|author = Frame, John M.|date = 7 June 2012|url=http://www.frame-poythress.org/frame_articles/2009Horton.htm |title=Review of Michael Horton, Christless Christianity: The Alternative Gospel of the American Church | work=Frame-Poythress.org [self-published site] |access-date=July 26, 2012}}</ref>  In 1998, he debated then librarian [[D.G. Hart]] in a student-organized discussion of the [[regulative principle of worship]].<ref>{{cite web|author = Frame, John M.|date = 24 May 2012|url=http://www.frame-poythress.org//frame_articles/1998HartDebate.htm |title=The Regulative Principle | work=Frame-Poythress.org [self-published site] |access-date=July 26, 2012}}</ref>

==Multiperspectival epistemology==
{{Contradicts other|date=May 2007|1=Multiperspectivalism}}
{{Main|Multiperspectivalism}}
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 [[multiperspectivalism|''triperspectivalism'' or ''multiperspectivalism'']] which says that in every act of knowing, the knower is in constant contact with three things (or "perspectives") &ndash; 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>{{cite web |author = Meredith Kline |author-link = Meredith Kline | date = February 28, 1986| title = A Paper Pursuant to the Faculty Forum of February 28, 1986 at Westminster Theological Seminary in California | url = http://www.meredithkline.com/klines-works/articles-and-essays/kline-on-multiperspectivalism/ }}{{full citation needed|date=July 2019}}</ref>{{verification needed|date=July 2019}}

==Presuppositions==
As a former student of Van Til, Frame is supporter of the [[presuppositional apologetics|presuppositionalist]] school of Christian [[apologetics]]. He defines a presupposition as follows:

{{quote|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.<ref>Frame, ''Doctrine of Knowledge of God'', p. 45.</ref>{{full citation needed|date=July 2019}}}}

==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'',{{full citation needed|date=July 2019}} 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.{{cn|date=September 2023}}

Yet, when Frame speaks of "exhaustive explanations" he does not mean these systems seek omniscience; rather, he means{{according to whom|date=July 2019}} 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 [[Mind-body dualism#Plato and Aristotle|dualism]]; the debate between the [[nominalism|nominalists]] and the [[philosophical realism|realists]] over the status of universals and particulars, and the "all is ... [fire, water, atoms, etc]" of the [[Pre-Socratic philosophy|pre-Socratics]].{{citation needed|date=July 2019}} More examples would include [[Descartes]]' mind/body dualism, [[Spinoza]]'s God or nature, and [[Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz|Leibniz]]'s [[monadology]], [[Plotinus]]' "The One" and his teaching on [[Emanationism|emanation]], the [[United Kingdom|British]] [[empiricism|empiricists]]' attempts to limit knowledge and possibility to that which can be empirically verified, [[Immanuel Kant|Kant]]'s worlds of the [[Noumenon|noumena]] and the [[phenomenon|phenomena]], and [[Hegel]]'s [[dialectic]].

==Awards and recognition==
{{expand section | with = independent, third-party-sourced coverage of the full scope of Frame's awards, etc. | small = no|date=July 2019}}
[[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 /> Mary died on October 9, 2022.<ref>{{cite web |url= https://www.dignitymemorial.com/obituaries/oviedo-fl/mary-frame-10966112 |title= Mary Grace Frame |author=<!--Not stated--> |date= |website= Dignity Memorial |publisher= |access-date= November 20, 2025 |quote=}}</ref> As of 2024, he lives in Orlando, Florida.<ref name="JohnFrame" />{{update after|2019|7|16}}

==Selected works==
* Introduction to Presuppositional Apologetics Part 1 & 2 <ref>{{cite web |url= https://reformedperspectives.org/newfiles/joh_frame/PT.Frame.Presupp.Apol.1.html |title= Presuppositional Apologetics: An Introduction, Part 1 of 2: Introduction and Creation |last= Frame |first= John M. |date= 19 April 1999 |website= Reformed Perspectives |publisher= Third Mill Magazine Online, Volume 1, Number 8 |access-date=  November 20, 2025 |quote=}}</ref>
* ''Van Til: The Theologian'', 1976 {{ISBN|0-916034-02-X}}
* ''Medical Ethics'', 1988 {{ISBN|0-87552-261-0}} <ref name=AZ1>{{cite web |url= https://www.amazon.ie/s?i=stripbooks&rh=p_27%3AJohn%2BM.%2BFrame&ref=dp_byline_sr_book_1  |title= John M. Frame |author=<!--Not stated--> |date= |website= Amazon |publisher= |access-date= November 20, 2025 |quote=}}</ref>   
* ''Perspectives on the Word of God: An Introduction to Christian Ethics'', 1990 {{ISBN|0-8010-3557-0}} <ref name=Eden>{{cite web |url= https://www.eden.co.uk/creators/john-m-frame/ |title= John M. Frame |author=<!--Not stated--> |date= |website= Eden Books |publisher= |access-date= November 20, 2025 |quote=}}</ref> 
* ''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}} <ref name=AZ1 />
* ''Worship in Spirit and Truth'', 1996 {{ISBN|0-87552-242-4}} <ref name=AZ1 />
* ''Contemporary Worship Music: A Biblical Defense'', 1997 {{ISBN|0-87552-212-2}} <ref name=Eden />
* ''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}} <ref name=AZ1 />
* ''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}} <ref name=AZ1 />
* ''Theology of My Life: A Theological and Apologetic Memoir'', 2017 {{ISBN|978-1-5326-1378-4}}

===Theology of Lordship series===
* ''The Doctrine of the Knowledge of God'', 1987 {{ISBN|0-87552-262-9}}
* ''The Doctrine of God'', 2002 {{ISBN|0-87552-263-7}} <ref name=Eden />
* ''The Doctrine of the Christian Life'', 2008 {{ISBN|978-0-87552-796-3}} <ref name=Eden />
* ''The Doctrine of the Word of God'', 2010 {{ISBN|978-0-87552-264-7}} <ref name=Eden />

==External links==
* [http://www.frame-poythress.org ''Frame-Poythress.org''], a current web source of the writings of Frame and [[Vern Poythress]].
* [http://www.frame-poythress.org/remembering-donald-b-fullerton/ Frame's article on "Remembering Donald B. Fullerton".]

==References==

[[Category:1939 births]]
[[Category:Living people]]
[[Category:American Presbyterians]]
[[Category:Presbyterian Church in America ministers]]
[[Category:Calvinist and Reformed philosophers]]
[[Category:American Calvinist and Reformed theologians]]
[[Category:Christian apologists]]
[[Category:Writers from Orlando, Florida]]
[[Category:Westminster Theological Seminary alumni]]
[[Category:Westminster Theological Seminary faculty]]
[[Category:Christian ethicists]]
[[Category:Princeton University alumni]]
[[Category:Yale Divinity School alumni]]
[[Category:Writers from Pittsburgh]]
[[Category:20th-century American writers]]
[[Category:21st-century American non-fiction writers]]
[[Category:20th-century Calvinist and Reformed theologians]]
[[Category:21st-century Calvinist and Reformed theologians]]
[[Category:20th-century American philosophers]]
[[Category:21st-century American philosophers]]
[[Category:Westminster Seminary California faculty]]
[[Category:American critics of atheism]]
[[Category:Reformed Theological Seminary faculty]]