The Doctrine of the Word of God (Theology of Lordship) Review

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The Doctrine of the Word of God (Theology of Lordship) Review"A kiss is still a kiss, a sigh is just a sigh. The fundamental things apply. As time goes by" (Casablanca). An infallible ground is obligatory because fundamental absolutes are necessary to make human experience intelligible, including the consideration of Scripture as God's inerrant word. Nonetheless only Scripture can furnish the rational and ethical pre-essentials (laws of logic, moral law, immutable universals, etc.) for intelligibility, including the intelligibly of biblical scholarship. And Dr. John Frame adds to his "Doctrine" series with a well-written, well-regimented, and well-conceived volume that can be recommended to biblical scholars and Bible students alike.
Professor Frame is a leading Reformed theologian who applies great care and precision in his work that is built upon biblical presuppositions. Assertive yet courtly, theoretical yet personal, his writing is alluring and influential.
Herein he "prefers the term 'word of God' to 'revelation' when considering God's communication with His creatures. Word is God's communication. Revelation is the content disclosed by the word." He prefers this because it is the "more common biblical terminology" (p. 15).
He rightly draws the essential antithesis: "What distinguishes modern views of revelation from orthodox (to my mind biblical) views is their affirmation of human `autonomy' in the realm of knowledge" (p. 15). For "the spirit of autonomy underlies every sinful decision of every human being. ... man seeks to become his own lord. He denies God's ultimate control, authority, and presence. Either he denies that there is such a Lord or he ascribes lordship to something in creation. If he denies that there is a Lord, he embraces irrationalism, the view that there is no ultimate meaning in the universe. If he ascribes lordship to something finite (i.e., idolatry), he embraces rationalism, the view that a godlike knowledge can be obtained from the creation alone." Therefore all unbelievers embrace either "rationalism irrationally" or "irrationalism rationalistically" (p. 16).
Dr. Frame states that his "complaint against liberalism [liberal theology, autonomous presuppositions] is not a complaint against reason itself, but against the propositions:
1.that human reason operates autonomously, and
2.that autonomous reason provides the ultimate criteria of truth and falsity, right and wrong, by which everything (including Scripture) is to be judged" (p. 20).
The author defines "reason as a human faculty, like our ability to see, hear, or touch. Reason is our ability to judge consistency and logical validity. ... it is not always accurate, and can be distorted by sin. Sin gives us a bias against God's authoritative reasoning. ... The term 'reason' can be used either descriptively ... or normatively" (p. 22-23). The assumption that reason must function autonomously "must be challenged. It leads to rational unintelligibility as well as to spiritual disaster" (p. 23).
Additionally: "A legitimate rational evaluation of God's personal words will consider the authority of God and conclude that the hearer should certainly believe these words, without objection" (p. 24). Because the problem with human reason is "that it is fallen" (p. 24).
Moreover "God's words are authoritative in all the ways that language can be authoritative, and their authority is ultimate" (p.54). The true God is "is distinguished from all other gods because He is the God who speaks" (p. 66). So the reader of Scripture hears from God.
The Doctrine of the Word of God includes chapters on:
-Personal-Word Model
-Lordship and the Word
-Modern Views of Revelation
-Revelation and Reason
-What is the Word of God
-God's Word as His Controlling Power
-God's Word as His Meaning Authority
-God's Word as His Personal Presence
-Revelation Through Words
-The Canon
-Inspiration
-Inerrancy
-Transmission of Scripture
-Translations of Scripture
-Teaching and Preaching
-Writing on the Heart
-Many helpful essays in the Appendix (relevant Book Reviews, pp. 335-615)
-And more
Frame's exposition on what composes the canon:
"The problem with much current literature on the canon is that it does not take account of God's expressed intentions. It seeks, rather, through autonomous reasoning ... to determine whether any first-century books deserve canonical status, and using that method it arrives at conclusions that are uncertain at best. But once we understand God's use of a canon from the time of Moses, we must approach our present problem with a presupposition: that God will not let his people walk in darkness, that he will provide for us the words we need to have, within our reach" (p. 136).

I would add that one must presuppose God's sovereign control over all things, including history and the formation and acceptance of the canon. Nothing is out of the grasp of God's sovereign power and guidance; including the recognition of the canon by the church. Without the assumption of God sovereign control, in principle, one has no ground for knowledge of anything including history or canon acknowledgment.
Professor Frame defines "inspiration as a divine act that creates an identity between a divine word and a human word. Such inspiration takes place in all verbal revelation" (p. 140).
Frame provides a substantial definition of the divine use of human writers for God utilized very different writers who were "chosen by God to convey his personal word to the world. The result of their writing is nothing less than the Word of God, the personal word of God to us. It is like dictation, because what Luke writes is exactly what God wants us to hear. It is like mechanical inspiration, because God is in full control of the process. But how unlike mechanical dictation it is! God's dealings with Luke, for example, are person to person, as are all of God's dealings with human beings. God uses Luke's gifts as a historian and as a physician, his careful accuracy, and his association with Paul to add distinctive elements to Luke's Gospel and the book of Acts. He uses Luke's intellect and style to convey the truth with the nuance that he desires. God also uses the very different endowments of John and of Paul to present other perspectives on the gospel of Christ" (p. 142).
Kuyper and Bavinck called this "process 'organic inspiration,' to distinguish it from dictation or mechanical inspiration. Organic inspiration meant that God uses all the distinct personal qualities of each writer. ... He used persons to communicate with us in a fully personal way" (p. 142).
"Your word is truth" (John 17:17).
Frame robustly affirms (as he makes meticulous and thorough distinctions and definitions) full inerrancy and infallibility of Scripture; forasmuch as Scripture is absolutely precise, true, and without error (p. 168-175). "Inerrancy, therefore means that the Bible is true" (p. 173). "Scripture is inerrant because the personal word of God cannot be anything other than true. When he gives us propositional information--and he certainly does--that information is reliable, though expressed in ordinary, not technical, language. The written Word, further, is just as inerrant as the oral message of the prophets and apostles. And their word is just as inerrant as the divine voice itself" (p. 176).
"All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work" (2 Timothy 3:16-17).
Frame offers this summary: "Because of God's 'singular care and providence' (WCF 1.8) over the process of transmission, we now have in Scripture all the personal words that God intends to say to us today" (p. 252).
God-dependent reason has an important place: We are called to reason truthfully but we should "remind ourselves ... of various specific limits on the ultimacy, the power, and the reliability of reason in general and logic in particular. The law of non-contradiction is 'necessary' only to those who acknowledge a practical ('ethical') necessity to think logically" (p. 364).
The primary imperative of biblical interpretation is that Scripture interprets Scripture; "Scripture has the primacy even here, even in its own interpretation. But this primacy is not threatened by the use of reason if reasoning is carried out in a godly way" (p. 370).
Frame contends that personal convictions, bias, and rational assumptions guide one's evaluation of Scripture: "All of us have basic convictions, unless possibly we are just confused. ... We try to bring all of life and thought into accord with our basic conviction. Nothing inconsistent with that conviction is to be tolerated. An inconsistency of that sort amounts to a divided loyalty, a confusion of life direction. Most of us, at least, try to avoid such confusion. The conviction becomes the paradigm of reality, of truth, and of right, to which all other examples of reality, truth, and right must measure up" (p. 431).
Furthermore God's word cannot be "falsified by some secular philosophical criterion 'Let God be true, but every man a liar.'" God's own word is "the paradigm of all Christian language" (p. 437).
Frame frequently follows Van Til including the truth "that reason, logic and evidence have their place in our thinking only because we live in a world God has created, which is inherently rational" (p. 527). And that the text of Scripture is the "self-attesting authority ... while acknowledging the necessity of the Spirit's work for...Read more›The Doctrine of the Word of God (Theology of Lordship) Overview

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