John Frame versus Westminster West

On 7 February, Robert Godfrey wrote a blog post entitled "Westminster Seminary California Faculty Response to John Frame". Godfrey's post is clearly unhappy at John Frame's criticisms of certain people at Westminster Seminary California (aka "Westminster West" or "WSC" or "Escondido").

Godfrey's post begins like this:

"All of us on the faculty of Westminster Seminary California are shocked and saddened by John Frame's book, The Escondido Theology. Several of us were colleagues with John and several had been his students. We have appreciated particularly over the years his teaching of the apologetics of Cornelius Van Til, his critique of open theism, and his strong defense of the doctrine of biblical inerrancy... We are very troubled, then, to find John so utterly misrepresenting and misstating our views. We do not wish to engage in a protracted discussion of these things with John, but we do find it necessary to set the record straight.

Perhaps the simplest way to do that is to refer to the thirty-two bullet points with which John has summarized our views at the beginning of the book (pp. xxxvii-xxxix). He introduces these bullet points by claiming: 'Below are some assertions typical of, and widely accepted among, Escondido theologians. Not all of them make all of these assertions, but all of them regard them with some sympathy' (p,xxxvii). In response all of us on the WSC faculty wish to state clearly that we reject all of these thirty-two points as a fair or accurate presentation of our views."

According to Godfrey, then, Frame is wrong and/or deluded and his book is fundamentally misguided. Frame has allegedly accused various well-known Christian seminarians of sundry imaginary things...

I find this situation mystifying and somewhat bizarre. John Frame may have become a bit slow in his old age, but he has always written clearly and well, and he is nobody's fool. I have read many articles by him ("Machen's Warrior Children", his numerous discussions of Van Til, and his analyses of perspectivalism, presuppositionalism, theonomy, the Reformed faith, the Amsterdam philosophy, and the implications of "biblicism"). Frame's ideas are always worth reading, as are his book reviews (especially his reviews of books by Michael Horton, Scott Clark and David VanDrunen, all of whom are currently on the resident faculty at WSC).

Many people on the Web have pointed out certain distinctive or unusual approaches at Westminster West. A post on the "Reformed Apologist" blog said (on 8 March 2011):

"I have thought for quite some time that Westminster Seminary California (WSC) is not only theologically incorrect on many issues, but often historically mistaken as well. WSC is wrong on Natural Law; wrong on Two Kingdom theology; wrong on the Covenant of Works; wrong on Redemptive Historical preaching; wrong on Molinism; wrong on Law-Gospel; wrong on John Frame - yet had they got Frame right, they probably would not be so wrong on so many things."

Please don't misunderstand me: I am not saying that Frame's criticisms of WSC have all hit the mark; I simply find it hard to believe that Frame, who was on the faculty at WSC for twenty years, has got things so badly wrong that every single one of his complaints represent (in Godfrey's judgement) an unfair and inaccurate account of the views of people at WSC.

P.S. John Frame is currently on the resident faculty at Reformed Theological Seminary, Orlando, Florida. The full title of his latest book is: The Escondido Theology: a Reformed Response to Two Kingdom Theology.

FIRST UPDATE: On 10 February, Michael Horton (at The White Horse Inn Blog) posted a response to Frame's book. Near the end of his response, Horton says: "All that I ask is that those who disagree with my arguments in fact disagree with my arguments, not with John Frame's description of them. Do not assume that if you've read The Escondido Theology you actually have any grasp of what I or any of us teach at Westminster Seminary California."

SECOND UPDATE: On 21 February, Andrew Dionne observed that Frame's book gives a convenient nine point summary of the 32 bullet points referred to above.