A conversation with John Frame

BENYOLA: Final question. I am an unbeliever, a secularist. John Frame, why do you believe in God, why are you a Christian?

FRAME: I’m a Christian because I heard the gospel as a boy, and it seemed completely compelling to me, I had no argument against it. I can only say that this the work of the Holy Spirit in my heart. I don’t have any other explanation that makes any sense.

BENYOLA: And how do you know what you believe is true?

FRAME: I know what I believe is true because I know what the principles are for finding truth, and following those principles as consistently as possible, I come to the beliefs of the Nicene Creed.

BENYOLA: Why the Creed, specifically?

FRAME: Oh, I could have said the Apostles’ Creed, I could have said the Gospel of John, I could have said Genesis. It’s the whole content of Scripture.

BENYOLA: What are your current writing projects?

FRAME: I’m hoping to publish an intro to tri-perspectivalism tentatively called Theology in Three Dimensions. And Vern Poythress is hoping to publish a major work showing how perspectivalism arises out of the doctrine of the Trinity.

BENYOLA: Tri-perspectivalism, we understand, is the dividing of major topics of Scripture into three perspectives for pedagogical purposes. You have charts in an appendix to Systematic Theology that show many Bible doctrines in a tri-perspectival grid, normative, situational and existential.

FRAME: Well, yes, Systematic Theology does cover tri-perspectivalism in some length, but not everyone is inclined to pick up a 1,000-page book to learn about it!