Here's a brief but edifying interview with Prof. John Frame. (And I never would have guessed Prof. Frame's favorite movie is Casablanca! A classic movie I've never seen.)
By the way, for those who don't already know, the Laymen's Lounge has a lot of good interviews and other resources.
Posted on Behalf of Dr John Frame
I think I met Steve in the early 90s. When you teach theology, people come out of the blue and ask you questions. And that's what happened, in a way, with Steve. Typically, such correspondents want to ask about predestination or the millennium— the conventional topics of the day. But Steve's question was very different.
He asked something like "can a Reformed Christian be a Malebrancheian Occasionalist?"
When people try to understand causality, they think in terms of David Hume, and determinism, and freedom.
Malebranche was a philosophical predecessor to David Hume. Steve had been reading a history of philosophy, and Malebranche was kind of like a theistic Humean, except that he lived prior to Hume. His Occasionalism held that God is the only causal agent, and that creatures provide the "occasion" for divine action.
Steve's question threw me for a loop. I had never considered this question. I tried to persuade Steve that God did create the world with a real causal structure. That God causes things in such a way that the world does produce genuine causes.
According to my very fallible memory, after our brief correspondence, Steve joined us at WSCal as a student. He took some classes for about a year, and then he went back north.
Maybe a year later, I got a note from a former student and WSCal alumnus in the Northwest. He had become a pastor.
He wrote to me, "is it possible that there's such a thing as a theological prodigy?" He wrote about this fellow he knew, and, given the details, I knew it had to be Steve Hays.
Steve came back to WSCal in the late 1990s, and he took most of my classes. We became good friends.
On one occasion, my wife had Steve to dinner, and he seemed to trail me around the house, asking question after question, and writing my answers in a notebook.
Unfortunately, that was the time when things became sticky for me at WSCal. What had been a wonderful, congenial and collegial faculty in the eighties had become faction-ridden, and it seemed that everybody was at each other's throats. Steve was an encouragement to me, but he didn't take sides in the controversies. Looking back on the experience, Steve later described himself as neither confessional enough, nor Klinean enough, for the culture there. "I'd prefer to stay closer to the Scriptures," he said.
In 1999 I got my family together and moved to Orlando, Florida. Teaching at RTS [Reformed Theological Seminary] was the greatest 17 years of my life.
Around that same time, Steve and his mother decided to move east, to Charleston SC. Steve was close to his parents, and his father had died in 1999. [Steve's memoir notes "My father had died a month shy of my fortieth birthday".]
RTS also had a campus in Charlotte, NC, and Steve became associated there.
Together we became involved in producing a distance education program. I taught a number of courses, in theology, philosophy, ethics, and apologetics. Steve worked as my teaching assistant, as well as having worked on his own project.
Unfortunately, Steve became disassociated with RTS. I think he was in an online discussion that became a little too heated. I'm not sure what it was, but something happened, and he began blogging at Triablogue.
I've followed Steve over the years. In fact, Triablogue is the only blog that I've read consistently. When I went to my office each morning and turned on the computer, Triablogue was part of my regular routine.
Over the years, Steve has been helpful to me in a number of ways, such as in discussions with some of the neo-Thomists in recent years. For a while, it looked as if the whole Reformed world was about to go neo-Thomist. Paul Helm, Richard Muller, and many other Reformed thinkers joined the movement.
I recognized, and still do, that there are many good things in the work of Thomas Aquinas. But Thomas mixed up his good biblical theology with a lot of pagan philosophy from Plato, and especially Aristotle. I am a student of Cornelius Van Til, and like Van Til I have always been critical of Thomas's compromises with Greek Philosophy.
I wrote some brief essays such as "Two Models of Divine Transcendence: Pure Being vs. Divine Lordship," to indicate my view of things.
I realize that Thomas was trying to reconcile some Christian theologies with ideas from some of the great philosophies. It would be unthinkable for a Christian thinker living in his time not to do that. But "pure being" is not in the Bible. The biblical God is not Aristotle's "prime mover", although some try very hard to make that identification. God is YHWH, who makes covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
Some time over the course of those early years, Steve became a very sophisticated philosopher. I've been at some of the leading seminaries and universities in the country, and I was amazed at how much philosophical reading Steve did. He was aware of philosophical conversations that I'd never heard of.
He had personal correspondence with many philosophers, as well as theologians, and he learned quickly how these professional thinkers discussed issues. Steve avoided stereotyped lists of talking points (alas, the common content of evangelical theology) and instead developed careful, cogent chains of argument, nuanced and qualified.
He tended to develop his arguments as I also do, with numbered lists of points. He'd develop one point, then another, indicating that he wanted to focus on this issue, rather than that. Whatever it was that Steve wrote, you always could tell that he knew what he was talking about.
I was interested that in our numbered-list approach, and in our way of approaching problems, Steve and I were very similar. I think he learned from me, but the reverse was also true.
In sum, I regarded Steve as a kindred spirit. He wasn't always on my side, but he was a Godly man, devoted to his family, seeking to think God's thoughts after Him.
He wasn't afraid to step outside of boundaries. So while he was always thoroughly Reformed in his thinking, he didn't use buzz words. He didn't always make conventional arguments. He wasn't afraid to delve into unpopular topics.
Look at the issue of cessationism. With me, the sufficiency of Scripture was always most important. Yes, natural revelation is helpful, and we learn that from Romans 1. We also know that God has spoken to people through dreams and visions. But Scripture is a sufficient source for doctrine.
So some Reformed thinkers have argued that at the death of the last apostle, God absolutely stopped speaking authoritatively to human beings. To many Reformed thinkers, the Charismatic tradition is entirely anathema.
My position was that yes, the canon of inspired Scripture is closed. That is to say, Scripture alone is God's "covenant document" (Kline) to rule his church. But Scripture never says that God's revelation will stop with the death of the last apostle. God communicates any way he chooses.
Natural revelation, for example, continues. We may legitimately make various distinctions within the concept of revelation, but in ordinary life we need not only to hear Scripture, but also to work in a godly way to APPLY Scripture to other forms of experience in which God makes himself known. So there is a bit of looseness here that we cannot avoid, a looseness hard for many Reformed thinkers to tolerate.
Steve, though a highly principled Calvinist, was willing to embrace that looseness. He did not feel bound by Reformed tradition to avoid anything that sounded Charismatic. Indeed, he maintained an independence from tradition that seemed to me to express sola Scriptura in the best possible sense.
Other Triabloggers write about paranormal phenomena, such as the Enfield poltergeist. [JB note: Steve has often told me that "naturalism" is the greatest enemy that we face.] I think God can work in unusual ways.
So over the years, even after our collaboration at RTS was over, Steve and I continued to be good friends. We were also part of a group that began at Westminster back in the 1990s. Philip Marshall, Greg Welty, later James Anderson, and I all stayed in touch, and every once in a while Steve would write to the whole group about philosophical and theological ideas that he was in touch with. We'd all get together by email and go over the issues.
I thought the world of Steve, and I will miss him very much. I look forward to resuming our conversations in glory (with so many more resources at our disposal!) Until then, I will still be reading Triablogue, where Steve's influence lives on, and where a number of godly thinkers remain to take up his torch.
From John Frame's Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Christian Belief (pp 392n11, 881-882):
"Kenosis" Christologies, of course, do maintain that when the Son of God became man, he set aside some or all of his divine attributes. But God cannot be God, as we have seen, without his attributes. If the incarnate Christ lacked any essential divine attribute, then he was not God in the flesh.
But some have argued that the “emptying” (kenosis) of verse 7 (NASB) means that when Jesus became man he divested himself of some, or all, divine attributes. This view has become known as the kenosis theory. But if Jesus, in his incarnation, divested himself of any essential divine attributes (morphe), as on this view, then during his incarnation (which continues without end!) he was and is not God at all. For God is not God without his essential attributes. But the idea that Jesus was not God when he was in the flesh contradicts a vast amount of biblical data, as we have seen. The nature of the kenosis of Philippians 2:7 can be understood perfectly well as the self-humbling of God’s servant, expressed for example in the servant songs of Isaiah, which lie behind the language of verse 8.13 That is, of course, Paul’s point in the larger context. Jesus’ self-humbling is an example for the believers in Philippi, to serve one another rather than themselves. This is an ethical point, not a metaphysical one. Paul is telling them to behave differently, not to divest their metaphysical status (finite humanity) to become something else.
From Wayne Grudem's Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine:
Did Jesus Give Up Some of His Divine Attributes While on Earth? (The Kenosis Theory).
Paul writes to the Philippians,
Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. (Phil. 2:5–7)
Beginning with this text, several theologians in Germany (from about 1860–1880) and in England (from about 1890–1910) advocated a view of the incarnation that had not been advocated before in the history of the church. This new view was called the "kenosis theory," and the overall position it represented was called "kenotic theology." The kenosis theory holds that Christ gave up some of his divine attributes while he was on earth as a man. (The word kenosis is taken from the Greek verb kenoō, which generally means "to empty," and is translated "emptied himself" in Phil. 2:7.) According to the theory Christ "emptied himself" of some of his divine attributes, such as omniscience, omnipresence, and omnipotence, while he was on earth as a man. This was viewed as a voluntary self-limitation on Christ’s part, which he carried out in order to fulfill his work of redemption.27
But does Philippians 2:7 teach that Christ emptied himself of some of his divine attributes, and does the rest of the New Testament confirm this? The evidence of Scripture points to a negative answer to both questions. We must first realize that no recognized teacher in the first 1,800 years of church history, including those who were native speakers of Greek, thought that "emptied himself" in Philippians 2:7 meant that the Son of God gave up some of his divine attributes. Second, we must recognize that the text does not say that Christ "emptied himself of some powers" or "emptied himself of divine attributes" or anything like that. Third, the text does describe what Jesus did in this "emptying": he did not do it by giving up any of his attributes but rather by "taking the form of a servant," that is, by coming to live as a man, and "being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross" (Phil. 2:8). Thus, the context itself interprets this "emptying" as equivalent to "humbling himself" and taking on a lowly status and position. Thus, the NIV, instead of translating the phrase, "He emptied himself," translates it, "but made himself nothing" (Phil. 2:7 NIV). The emptying includes change of role and status, not essential attributes or nature.
A fourth reason for this interpretation is seen in Paul’s purpose in this context. His purpose has been to persuade the Philippians that they should "do nothing from selfishness or conceit, but in humility count others better than yourselves" (Phil. 2:3), and he continues by telling them, "Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others" (Phil. 2:4). To persuade them to be humble and to put the interests of others first, he then holds up the example of Christ: "Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant . . ." (Phil. 2:5–7).
Now in holding up Christ as an example, he wants the Philippians to imitate Christ. But certainly he is not asking the Philippian Christians to "give up" or "lay aside" any of their essential attributes or abilities! He is not asking them to "give up" their intelligence or strength or skill and become a diminished version of what they were. Rather, he is asking them to put the interests of others first: "Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others" (Phil. 2:4). And because that is his goal, it fits the context to understand that he is using Christ as the supreme example of one who did just that: he put the interests of others first and was willing to give up some of the privilege and status that was his as God.
Therefore, the best understanding of this passage is that it talks about Jesus giving up the status and privilege that was his in heaven: he "did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped" (or "clung to for his own advantage"), but "emptied himself" or "humbled himself" for our sake, and came to live as a man. Jesus speaks elsewhere of the "glory" he had with the Father "before the world was made" (John 17:5), a glory that he had given up and was going to receive again when he returned to heaven. And Paul could speak of Christ who, "though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor" (2 Cor. 8:9), once again speaking of the privilege and honor that he deserved but temporarily gave up for us.
The fifth and final reason why the "kenosis" view of Philippians 2:7 must be rejected is the larger context of the teaching of the New Testament and the doctrinal teaching of the entire Bible. If it were true that such a momentous event as this happened, that the eternal Son of God ceased for a time to have all the attributes of God—ceased, for a time, to be omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent, for example—then we would expect that such an incredible event would be taught clearly and repeatedly in the New Testament, not found in the very doubtful interpretation of one word in one epistle. But we find the opposite of that: we do not find it stated anywhere else that the Son of God ceased to have some of the attributes of God that he had possessed from eternity. In fact, if the kenosis theory were true (and this is a foundational objection against it), then we could no longer affirm Jesus was fully God while he was here on earth.28 The kenosis theory ultimately denies the full deity of Jesus Christ and makes him something less than fully God. S. M. Smith admits, "All forms of classical orthodoxy either explicitly reject or reject in principle kenotic theology."29
It is important to realize that the major force persuading people to accept kenotic theory was not that they had discovered a better understanding of Philippians 2:7 or any other passage of the New Testament, but rather the increasing discomfort people were feeling with the formulations of the doctrine of Christ in historic, classical orthodoxy. It just seemed too incredible for modern rational and "scientific" people to believe that Jesus Christ could be truly human and fully, absolutely God at the same time.30 The kenosis theory began to sound more and more like an acceptable way to say that (in some sense) Jesus was God, but a kind of God who had for a time given up some of his Godlike qualities, those that were most difficult for people to accept in the modern world.
I recently asked Prof. John Frame about Fred Rogers in light of the upcoming film with Tom Hanks. Prof. Frame's reply is below. (He kindly gave me permission to post it.)
Well, no, I never met Fred Rogers, though he was a big star on Pittsburgh TV—first "The Children's Corner," and then "Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood."
By 1963 I had basically left the Presbyterian Church, USA. I did work in my home church (which was PCUSA at the time, now EPC) in 1965-66, after I graduated from WTS in 1964. But by the end of the decade I was OPC. In any case, Rogers was part of the liberal wing of Pittsburgh Seminary and of the PCUSA.
Being at PTS from 1960-63, he would have known some friends of mine. He would have known RC Sproul. He would have studied with John Gerstner and Bob Kelley, possibly Addison Leitch; so he would have gotten at least a taste of Reformed evangelicalism. But he never moved in conservative evangelical circles, so far as I know.
He has always fascinated me. After I moved to Orlando, I discovered Rogers was a graduate of Rollins College, a liberal arts school in the Orlando area. His name often appeared in the Orlando press. A couple years ago, my wife and I saw the documentary about him. I do hope to see the new movie with Tom Hanks.
His theology, whatever it was, was largely concealed in his shows. He had the view that you should never raise issues of violence or even agitation when you talk to children. He evidently thought that the more rowdy shows like "Howdy Doody" were not good for kids. I always disagreed. I think that a certain amount of rowdiness is good fun, and I think kids should be exposed to the dark side of things. But I was always glad that we had Mr. Rogers to show us that there was an alternate way of thinking and living. I don't know to what extent the Bible entered his world view. Some of his emphases resonate with Scripture and some don't.
Lust is specifically the desire to engage in sexual acts that are contrary to God's law J. Frame, The Doctrine of the Christian Life (P&R 2008), 767.
In reply, while some authors may think that circularity is necessary, this does not imply that circular arguments of the sort which Presuppositionalists use — the sort which presuppose the conclusion as the premise (e.g. ‘God exists [presupposition], therefore God exists [conclusion]’49) — are therefore valid.
to show by non-circular argument (i.e. without begging the question)In my article, I explain why his circularity implies begging-the-question, and why his claim ought to be rejected.
My use of hypothetical alternatives is to demonstrate the fallacy of the question-begging type of argument used by Frame. An evidentialist argument for Christianity does not beg the question against non-Christian accounts of reason, evidence, and experience, and thus is not beset by the problem.Which even sceptics of the Bible would need to rely on, thus it is non-circular in the sense that it doesn’t beg the question against the epistemology of the sceptics of the Bible...
I wrote on p.7: ‘Luke portrays Paul as questioning the reasonableness of the sceptics’ presupposition by asking ‘Why should any of you consider it incredible that God raises the dead?’ (Acts 26:8, NIV). Following the Scriptural example of Paul (to which Frame would be committed) would imply that, when facing sceptics who reject all supernatural claims from the onset (such as Bultmann and Hume), the Christian should not argue for his/her view in a circular manner. Rather, he/she should show the unreasonableness of their rejection without circularity.’
